The Alliance, also known as Team WCW/ECW and The Coalition, was a professional wrestling stable in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) that existed during the Invasion storyline from July to November 2001. The stable came about as a result of the WWF's purchase of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in March 2001. The Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) name was brought in later to help boost the presence of WCW after the original promotion closed in April 2001. History The original plan was for the WWF-owned WCW to be a babyface group, led by Shane McMahon (who was the owner of WCW in the angle) to go against the heel owner of the WWF, Mr. McMahon. During May and June 2001, wrestlers identified as being "under contract to WCW" (such as Lance Storm and Mike Awesome) "invaded" WWF programming, by making several run-ins. The ultimate goal, reportedly, was for WCW to "take over" WWF's flagship show Raw Is War and rebrand it as its own television program, while the WWF would retain control of SmackDown! as their own show. To test the waters for this, the final twenty minutes of the July 2 edition of Raw Is War was given over to WCW, which brought in its own commentators (Scott Hudson and Arn Anderson), ring announcer (Stacy Keibler), referee (Nick Patrick), ring apron, and Chyron graphics, to present a match between Booker T and Buff Bagwell for Booker's WCW Championship (which he had won on the final episode of Nitro). This continued later that week on SmackDown!, where Gregory Helms lost the WCW Cruiserweight Championship against Billy Kidman and Booker defended the WCW Championship against Diamond Dallas Page. The Booker/Bagwell title match, however, was very poorly received both by television viewers and the live crowd in the arena; sports journalist Michael Landsberg reported that many have called the bout "the worst match ever". The two other WCW matches also received a negative fan reaction. The decision was thus made to make WCW a heel group who was out to destroy the WWF. On the July 9 episode of Raw Is War, when then-face WCW owner Shane was scheduled to face Page in a street fight, the two instead attacked The Undertaker, turning Shane heel (Page had already debuted in WWF as a heel, as part of a stalker angle with Undertaker and his wife). Later that night, during a tag