WWE The Rise And Fall of WCW DVD (PG) +Movie Reviews

Better Suited if it was titled "The Rise & Fail of a WCW Doc

3/26/2001 - The Day Wrestling Died | 08/26/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I never review anything but felt it necessary on this one.

If you have seen The Rise & Fall of ECW DVD, you'd have been hard pressed to believe that this one would fall so short. Considering Eastern Championship Wrestling, later on becoming Extreme Championship Wrestling, had a life span far shorter than WCW and its Jim Crockett Promotion ties, this disc should have had tons more info to share.

The ECW disc was so informative, and not just from the stand point of the players involved. It spoke on its biggest feuds, changing points in the company, the ways they were able to grow and compete with the "Big 2" and made you understand how important and revolutionary their company was. It spoke on the history of its biggest players and how them coming to ECW helped their business. It was also shown in detail of how the company ruined itself. Some of that was in the WCW disc, mostly the competing with WWE, but not enough.

And while I know I may sound like a mark, I am a big WCW fan and feel there will never be a bigger angle in the history of wrestling bigger than the NWO, for better or worse. But I was a fan of WCW even before then. So why not recap the history of the "Big Gold Belt" briefly. I mean WWE still uses its likeness, so why not show it some love. Talk about how it was separated from the NWA Championship and the whole 9 yards. I think one would believe it was the same belt from the Crockett Promotion glancing over this.

Another strange thing to me is how Sting-Hogan is just refused to even be mentioned, it wasn't mentioned in the Monday Night Wars disc either. If you think about it, it is one of the last feuds to take that 80's and earlier approach in where Sting and Hogan had a long, drawn out program before fighting at Starrcade. Stranger than that, how they refuse to speak on Sting period. Sting turning into "The Crow" in gimmick because he felt betrayed by WCW was huge. Sting was WCW. For him to portray himself as a free agent, attacking random WCW wrestlers, the coming from the rafters, the black bat and white face paint was just as new for WCW as the NWO. I feel that the Sting/Crow gimmick/angle was a big turning point in WCW as Sting was the NWO's biggest threat and rival ever. Let's not even mention the feuds he had with Vader, Flair, ect. I think him wrestling Flair as the last match ever in WCW was a testament to who the "guys" were of that company.

The last big miss in this DVD to me is the failure to mention Bret Hart and how they failed to utilize him when coming over to WCW. After the "Montreal Screw Job", WCW could have went over big time if they did good with "The Hitman". Instead, they used him in a lame NWO storyline (if he would join or not, seen that a million times), a weird role as a back-up referee in the Sting/Hogan Starrcade match, actually joining the NWO and a early retirement from a Goldberg MMA kick to the head. How could that not be included as a epic fail. And speaking of epic fail, how about Ultimate Warrior...

Also, the little attention that was giving to the Hogan/Goldberg match (I've still never seen a hotter crowd than that) and the brief mention of the "Finger Poke of Doom" was confusing. No mention of the Ric Flair/Horseman reunion that won the ratings that one glorious night when WWE had regained control and Bischoff's hatred of Ric Flair. The departure of X-Pac, The Radicals (Benoit, Malenko, Saturn, Guerrero) along with Big Show and Jericho jumping ship and WCW's failure to jump off the NWO ship all played a part in its demise. Let's not forget, not only did WWE take back over the ratings, WCW was pulling in horrid numbers by the time it ended in comparison. Also, WCW's attempt to infuse new talent with the old guys (Millionaires Club vs The New Blood, Hogan and Billy Kidman had a feud for God sakes) and them pushing younger guys in general (3 Count brought you The Hurricane/Shane Helms, and I still remember A.J. Styles doing the "Styles Clash" as a part of the team "Air Raid" on Thunder lol).

I know this all seems like a lot of rambling, but when something you have enjoyed so much has no chance of coming back, you would at least like to see it given a fair send off. And with the extensive collection of footage and stories the WWE has in the vault, I thought this would be a lot better then it was. But it seems like more slanted WWE perceptive and a quick cash in on all us true WCW fans.

On a side note, I hate how much self-promoting and WWE promoting Flair and Big Show did on this disc. Jericho did some too, but he genuinely was held down in his last months in WCW, so I can somewhat understand his take. But Big Show was booked as a monster in his "Dungeon of Doom" days and they put the strap on him. If you ask me, he hasn't done much more in WWE then he did in WCW, especially for his size. Ric Flair, that is a conversation in itself. This DVD left me waiting for the hot tag only to be giving the cold shoulder.

"

5 stars for the matches...

Movie Fan | 08/25/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Just received this long awaited DVD, so here's my review:

I'll stick to the packaging and content of the doc, because it looks like most have already listed the matches.
First, whoever is in the art department over at WWE designing the look of these DVD covers and packaging, deserves
a raise! Excellent cover, and your jaw will drop when you open up the digi-pak and see the two panels of art staring
you in the face. One panel is an awesome collage of Arn Anderson, Ric Flair and Goldberg, while the other features
the Outsiders, Sting and Hogan holding up the spray-painted WCW world title belt. Great stuff!

Now, as for the documentary. If you're like me and you have a stack of WWE DVDs at home, you've seen your fair
share of WWE produced documentaries on wrestlers and rival promotions. They have all contained a little bit of
revisionist history, but this one is hands down the worst when it comes to this. Again, Dusty Rhodes is still not
taking any responsibility for the fall of Jim Crockett Promotions. Yes, JCP was poorly run from a business sense, but
Dusty pushed himself to the moon and was cramming himself down the fan's throats and it hurt business big time!
They skip over big parts of the companies history like why Vince Russo was brought in, how Eric was let go and then
brought back and the reasons behind it and they completely ignored the mass jumping from WCW to WWF by Benoit,
Guerrero, Saturn and Malenko. That was a HUGE story at the time, and signaled to wrestling fans that WCW was in
trouble. I understand why they no longer want to mention Benoit, but they could've talked about this without even
mentioning his name. That was disappointing. And I don't believe Vince for a second when he describes how he felt
after purchasing WCW. If he truly felt that way, then he's not human. Watch it and judge for yourself.
No mention of Bret Hart... at all?! Really? No mention of WCW missing the boat on Austin? No mention of the talent
trade agreement and later raids of the original ECW? So much was left out that the documentary feels slapped
together. To this day, still the best WWE produced documentaries can be found on The Rise and Fall of ECW
and WWE - Bret "Hitman" Hart: The Best There Is, The Best There Was, The Best There Ever Will Be.

The documentary does have some great moments. I was thrilled to see Kevin Sullivan interviewed for this, who looks
great by the way. Kevin offered some refreshing insights and was an excellent addition to the older interviews included
that we've seen on other WWE documentaries numerous times over the years.
It was nice to hear from Harvey Schiller, would've liked to have heard more from him.
It was nice to see them acknowledge where the idea for the nWo came from - an angle in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
I was glad to see WWE acknowledge how the WCW cruiserweights were one of the most important factors in making
Nitro the must-see show every Monday night. As a fan back then, I know they were the reason why I would watch
Nitro instead of Raw, that's for sure. In fact, those cruiserweight matches are some of the only matches worth re-watching
from that era in WCW's history.
Goldberg talking about the creation and evolution of his character & career was pretty cool. He shared a few things that
I had never heard before. Also, check the extras for "The Origin of Goldberg" which offers some great little stories about
how Goldberg's character and gimmicks came to be.
I also liked how they acknowledged that several people within WCW believed Russo was being controlled by Vince McMahon
and did the things he did to put WCW out of business. That's been a longtime wrestling rumor, and WWE usually doesn't
discuss those rumors.
Finally, they really stuck it to Jeff Jarrett, thus WWE is sticking it to TNA, when talking about him in the documentary. Fair or
unfair, it's entertaining to watch.

Overall, the documentary really leaves you wanting more. I would give the doc portion 2 stars, but the matches I give 5.
As for the matches, there are some classics here, many of which are making their DVD debut! All of the NWA matches
here are great and worth your time. Being a huge Vader fan, I was glad to see his match against Sting included here from
the Great American Bash '92. Also, Rude vs. Sting from Spring Stampede '94 is pretty solid. Flair vs. the Giant and the cruiserweight
bouts make the best of what's on disc 3.

This is definitely a buy, but don't get your hopes up over seeing an insightful or revealing documentary.

UPDATED 9/07/2009
A user in the Comments section wanted to hear more about the matches, so I thought I would add a little bit about that.
Match compilations on these DVDs are tough because it's impossible to please everyone, myself included. And when
you consider the rich history of NWA/WCW, you don't even come close to scratching the surface of it with just 2 DVDs
worth of matches. Most of the matches are good choices. I was glad to see Vader vs. Sting where Vader captures the
world title on this release. Jericho vs Juventud is an underrated classic cruiserweight bout, and having Juventud's mask
on the line just adds to the drama. Syxx vs. Eddie Guerrero is a satisfying ladder match from the terrible nWo themed PPV Souled Out.
While not as violent as today's ladder matches, it's still action packed and tells a great story. Goldberg's best in-ring performance
is here against, of all people, DDP. Perhaps the DVDs best must-see match is the classic tag team bout pitting Sting and Lex Luger
against the Steiner Brothers. This is a tremendous match that you should go out of your way to see! Plus, it was also nice to see
the Big Show's first world title win against Ric Flair on Nitro. I remember being so bummed that Flair lost the belt so soon after
winning it when that match aired.

Now, with that said, I would have cut Flair vs. Hogan, Flair vs. Steamboat, Midnight Express vs. Southern Boys, Rey vs. Malenko, the
celebrity tag match, Booker T vs. Lance Storm & the Outsiders vs. the Steiners and replaced them with...

1. Ron Simmons vs. Big Van Vader for the WCW World Title (WCW Saturday Night) - why on earth this match didn't make this set
is beyond me! Not only was it a great match, it was important from a historical perspective. One of the top glaring omissions from
this DVD.

2. Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage vs. Sting Triangle match for the WCW World Title from Starrcade. I think most of us would agree that we've
wanted WWE to release this match for quite some time. It was a really great bout and one of Flair's best title wins.

3. Rey Mysterio vs. Ultimo Dragon from the first World War III PPV - Here's another one that I don't understand why WWE has never released
on DVD. It was easily my favorite Mysterio match from his WCW run. These two went all out that night, and I saw high flying moves I had never
seen before.

4. Cactus Jack vs. Big Van Vader in Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal from Halloween Havoc. Tremendous brawl from these two, but it wont see
the light of day now that Mick is in TNA, which is a shame.

5. Sting vs. Flair from the 1990 Great American Bash - Sting's finally beating Flair for the title should've made it on this set.

6. First War Games match - I agree with another reviewer, War Games was such a huge part of WCW that to not include the first one is a shame.
I understand why they included the match they did (it set up Sting's transformation into the Crow character), but it would've been nice to still see
the first one on this set. Maybe we'll see a War Games themed DVD set in the future instead?

7. Rick Rude vs. Steamboat Iron Man Match from Beach Blast - Their feud was touched on briefly during the doc, so why not show their best match?

Well, that's what I would've done. The match selection was still good and worth a look."

Could've Been Better But Not As Bad As People Claim

Ervin Griffin | Bluefield, WV | 09/07/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I'll be honest, there are things in terms of content and matches that WWE could've done better on this set but in their defense on the documentary, a lot of key figures (including Ted Turner, Eric Bischoff and Brad Seagal) declined to be part of this project so their abscence did hurt it a bit. Still, it isn't as bad as some of the other reviews both on Amazon and on other sites have claimed it to be though I will agree it could've been better, especially on some of the match selections! Here is what you'll find on here starting with the chapters:

Jim Crockett Promotions
Georgia Championship Wrestling
Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling
Black Saturday
The Expansion
Crockett Sells to Turner
Greatest Talent in the World
New Management
Bill Watts Era
Bill Shaw Hires Eric Bischoff
Hulk Hogan Arrives
Nitro Debuts
nWo
Cruiserweights
Goldberg
WCW Ratings Champ
Celebrities
Goldberg vs. Hogan
Mistakes Begin
Vince Russo
A Corporate Merger
McMahon buys WCW
Legacy of WCW

I have to say that the most interesting parts were the history of Jim Crockett Promotions, Black Saturday (in reference to when Vince McMahon temporarily took over the Georgia Championship Wrestling show in 1985) and thru the Bill Watts era. Where it gets muddled a bit is when discussing Bischoff, Russo and the nWo angle. Surprisingly, many take up for Bischoff though they ultimately admit he was one of the reasons for its downfall! Still, its is an interesting take on what happened.

Some history is left out which has already been discussed on other DVD's such as The Four Horsemen, The Road Warriors, the backstage controversy between Chris Benoit and Kevin Sullivan, the misuse of Bret "Hitman" Hart, and the departure of Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn. Some history has never been touched such as the botched ending at Starrcade '97 (which I believe was the real beginning of the end of WCW) or the mophing of Sting into what we know him now.

Now granted, I understand why Benoit isn't mentioned but the Radicalz departure was a key blow to WCW talent-wise and could've been done without mentioning his name and on that one, showing him would've been completely understandable as they have done it in recent months (see Ric Flair: The Definitive Collection).

Bonus features:

* Lost in Cleveland (Cactus Jack vignette) - This took place during Cactus' short but memorable program with then-WCW Champion Vader in 1993. Dusty Rhodes disuccess this vignette.

* Bill Watts Defends Himself - Bill Watts answers the critics for his no-nonsense style and the accusations that have dogged him for years, particualy charges of racism. While I have been aware of the stories of Mr. Watts, he raises some good counterpoints.

* Spam Man - This one is explained by Dr. Harvey Shiller. Worth one look.

* The Origin of Goldberg - Nice to see Goldberg again as he discusses his journey into the phenom he was in WCW. He even discusses the rumor that he was made as a counter to "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (who was WWE's biggest star at that point).

* Bischoff Gives Away RAW Results - Bischoff (by way of a past interview) explains why he did that and even discusses the night that he had announcer Tony Schivone give away that Mick Foley was going to win the then-WWF title that night against The Rock (which was a BIG backfire in my view)!

Now, for the matches:

"Nature Boy" Ric Flair Vs. Magnum T.A. ($10,000 Challenge Match) - Classic stuff here and the true beginning (in my view) of The Four Horsemen! This one should've been on Ric Flair & The Four Horsemen BUT I am glad to see it again after all these years!

Sting, Lex Luger & Barry Windham vs. Ric Flair, Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (w/ JJ Dillon) - Not a bad six-man as this took place shortly after the first Clash Of Championships where Luger & Windham took the NWA World Tag Team Titles from Blanchard and Anderson and Sting had that legendary 45 minute draw with Flair.

"The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes Vs. Barry Windham (NWA U.S. Title Match) - This was at the 1988 Great American Bash. In terms of today's wrestling, this match doesn't hold up well but it was good for its time. Ending is a classic "Dusty finish."

"Nature Boy" Ric Flair Vs. Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat (NWA World Title Match) - This one was the first of three classic bouts from 1989 at Chi-Town Rumble '89. No words I can say can do this match justice! This one is a must see! To be a little street for a second, Flair/Steamboat in 1989 was the s***!

The Rock `n' Roll Express vs. The Midnight Express - Let me say that this match is a classic tag team encounter! A lot of reviewers slam it but I actually thought it was pretty good. I saw some older bouts between the teams that were better BUT this is a good match if you've never seen a Rock n Roll Vs. Midnight match!

The Midnight Express Vs. The Southern Boys (NWA U.S. Tag Team Title Match) - This is what I would call a "lost classic." The Midnights were legendary but the team of Tracy Smothers and Steve Armstrong were great in their own right!

The Steiner Brothers Vs. Sting & Lex Luger (WCW World Tag Team Title Match) - This began as a jog but quickly turned into a sprint! One of the definitions of a "high spot" match! In an era when Rick and Scott were nearly unbeatable, Sting and Lex Luger took them to their limits. A must see.

Sting Vs. Big Van Vader (WCW World Title Match) - Their first PPV face-off and it was a good one! I don't recall these two ever having a match that sucked!

"Ravishing" Rick Rude Vs. Sting (WCW International Title Match) - Here is another one that Sting had good bouts with and that was the late Rick Rude. Personally, while this is a good match, I would've rathered seen Rick Rude Vs. Steamboat in their underrated 30 minute Iron-Man match (which preceeded Shawn Michaels Vs. Bret Hart in terms of a marathon bout like that being done on PPV by 4 years). Still, its worth a look.

"Nature Boy" Ric Flair Vs. Hulk Hogan (WCW World Title Match) - Their first one on one meeting on PPV! Not the greatest match but it doesn't suck. Much like Rock/Hogan at WrestleMania X8 and Warrior/Hogan at WrestleMania 6, the crowd made this match!

"Nature Boy" Ric Flair Vs. The Giant (The Big Show)(WCW World Title Match) - This is only significant because TBS wins his first World title here. These two have had better matches against each other. Also, we see the late Nancy Benoit and the late Ms. Elizabeth too.

Rey Mysterio, Jr. Vs. Dean Malenko (WCW Cruiserweight Title Match) - Another pair that rarely had a match that sucked!

War Games Match
Sting, Lex Luger, Ric Fair & Arn Anderson vs. Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall & a Mystery Partner - I personally would've rather had seen the original WarGames bout or (and I know this wouldn't happen because Benoit was involved) the 1997 version when The Four Horsemen of Flair, McMichael, Benoit and Hennig took on nWo members "Buff" Bagwell, Konnan, Syxx and Kevin Nash. Both of those were better overall WarGames than the one picked. Its only good for historical reasons because it shows the dominance of the nWo and the beginnings of the transformation of Sting.

Syxx Vs. Eddie Guerrero (WCW U.S. Title Ladder Match) - I remember Eddie Guerrero saying on "Cheating Death, Stealing Life: The Eddie Guerrero Story" that he felt this match wasn't quite what he wanted. I thought it was pretty good on its own but when you compare it to Eddie's WWE bouts with Rob Van Damn and Rey Mysterio, it does seem to be rather weak!

Still, this is a good one to peep. The intro of Eddie on this "nWo" PPV was rather funny!

Eddie Guerrero Vs. Dean Malenko (WCW United States Title Match) - In my view, this one was the BEST WCW encounter they ever had! Making it No DQ gave them lattitude that they used very well. While still falls short of their ECW encounters, this one comes very close to matching those.

Chris Jericho Vs. Juventud Guerrera (WCW Cruiserweight Title Match) - You see flashes of the Jericho we know now in this classic! The cruiserweights were the bomb in WCW and this match was a great example of it.

The Steiner Brothers Vs. The Outsiders (WCW World Tag Team Title Match) - Not really a match as it was used to set up Scott Steiners turn to the nWo and his transformation into "Big Poppa Pump." Not much in the match department.

Diamond Dallas Page & Karl Malone Vs. Hulk Hogan & Dennis Rodman - Only good for entertainment. Don't expect a classic here!

Goldberg Vs. Diamond Dallas Page (WCW World Title Match) - One of his best title defenses as DDP really worked well with Goldberg. This is also the infamous match that got cut off at the PPV time at Halloween Havoc '98! Fortunately, we get to see the whole match.

Booker T. Vs. Lance Storm (WCW World Title Match) - Nothing against Booker or Lance but this bout really didn't need to be here! It isn't even one of their best matches. It does, however, give you an idea of how bad WCW had fallen by that time! View just to get that perspective.

Overall, this product is a 3 1/2 star DVD set. Not the worst I've ever seen but falls short of ones like "Triumph & Tragedy Of World Class Championship Wrestling" or "The Spectacular Legacy Of The AWA." It definitely pales compared to "The Rise & Fall Of ECW!" Worth a buy but I would try to find it at a lower price!"

A Fair Look At WCW's History...FINALLY!

D.P. | California | 09/08/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"They were Pepsi to WWE's Coca-Cola in terms of being the closest competition that the company has ever had in it's entire history to the point where they were the #1 wrestling promotion in wrestling...this is the story of the company that started off as Jim Crockett Promotions but morphed into World Championship Wrestling. Throughout the presentation, you do hear from the usual crop of WWE associates who's had a history with WCW (Vince McMahon, Jim Ross, Michael Hayes, Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Ron Simmons, Big Show a.k.a. "The Giant", Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Gregory Helms, Mike Graham) but you also hear from those who you don't normally hear from & probably didn't expect to hear from at all (Kevin Sullivan, Jim & David Crockett, Magnum T.A., Bill Watts, Goldberg, and Dr. Harvey Shiller who was the President Of Turner Sports). Now a couple of notes here as well is that the big controversy surrounding the project was that Eric Bischoff chose to not be involved with this project based off WWE's negative showcasing & rewritten history of WCW over the years. WWE fixed that problem as best as they could by using past interview footage taken from other WWE projects (the old "Confidental" show & the Monday Night War DVD) & used here to get comments from people like Bischoff along with other names like Hulk Hogan, Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, and Scott Hall. And for those who didn't catch on alright, the two disc of matches are split between the pre & post era's of "Nitro"

The documentry begins talking about how Jim Crockett Promotions came together along with the birth of Georgia Championship Wrestling and how that was the show that built the cable network we know know as TBS. The politics of the National Wrestling Alliance along with the creative innovations like Starrcade are discussed before into the story of "Black Saturday" where Vince McMahon took over the TBS timeslot and the aftermath of that whole deal where David Crockett said, "we payed for WrestleMania." The national expansion of JCP along their new talent being brought in (along with the tragic story of Magnum T.A.) are talked about before going into how that backfired on them & caused the sale to Turner. The transformation into WCW with changes behind the scenes along new talent, the inring wrestling quality that even made Jim Ross admit they had a better inring product than WWE at that time, and the classic feuds that happened during that period (Steamboat/Rude, Sting/Flair, Steamboat/Flair) were heavily talked about. Jim Herd's history with WCW along with the "revolving door" of bookers is discussed next before getting into the positives & negatives of what happened during Bill Watts' era of WCW. The introduction of Bill Shaw & the hiring of Eric Bischoff (along the irony behind that after what happened with Bill Watts) is talked about next before going into the steps taken to usher in the new era of WCW like the higher production level and the impact of Hulk Hogan signing with WCW & other ex-WWE personalities coming into the company leading to the birth of WCW Nitro & what Eric Bischoff did to be controversal & make his product different than WCW. The story behind the format of the nWo is heavily discussed next such as where the concept REALLY came from, the lawsuit filed by WWE, Hulk Hogan morphing into Hollywood Hogan, the innovations made to made the nWo look completely different from WCW, and Big Show talking about the details of Hall & Nash's contract which was pretty intresting to hear. The impact of the crusierweight division & Goldberg, how WCW dominated wrestling with their TV ratings/PPV buys were discussed next before going into the influx of celebrities into WCW with DDP telling the story of how the tag matches involving himself, Hogan, Dennis Rodman & Karl Malone, Eric Bischoff & Jay Leno came together and the mixed reactions by other WCW talents to it. The story behind the Goldberg vs. Hogan match on Nitro is heavily discussed next (you won't believe how Goldberg found out about it) before going into the heavy series of mistakes that WCW started to make ranging from what happened at Halloween Havoc '98 to certain wrestlers becoming the booker & being out for themselves to infamous "Fingerpoke Of Doom" to the undercard talent starting to leave the company. Incidents during the "Vince Russo" era of WCW is talked about such as David Arquette becoming the WCW Champion and the incident at Bash At The Beach '00 with Hulk Hogan and how it was so bad to the point where the talent themselves thought Vince McMahon sent him over to kill off the company...and listen to what Mike Graham had to say about Jeff Jarrett. The story of how the corporate merger of AOL Time Warner led to the end of WCW, WWE buying the company, and the legacy left behind of WCW close out the documentry.

DVD extras include bonus stories such as Dusty Rhodes talking about the "Cactus Jack Is Missing" series of videos, Bill Watts talking about the issues of "racism" that were put on him during his run of WCW, Bill Goldberg talking about where the elements of his character came from (you'll laugh when you hear how he got his "Who's Next" catchphrase), Harvey Shiller talking about a character named "Spam Man" which you have to hear to believe, and a piece from the old "Confidental" show with Eric Bischoff & Vince McMahon talking giving Eric away the results of RAW on Nitro.

Matches Include:
$1,000 Challenge Match: Ric Flair vs. Magnum T.A. - This match was short but non-stop action between both men with the story being that Flair had to beat Magnum to get the money.
("NWA World Championship Wrestling" June ' 85)

Sting, Lex Luger, Barry Windham vs. Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard - This match was your average TV main event but from bell to bell between all 6 men, this was a fun match to watch. It wasn't a classic wrestling match by any means but just each man doing what they do best as far as being entertaining, having great inring quality, & being able to hold the hot crowd in the palms of their hands.
("NWA The Main Event" Apr. '88)

NWA United States Champion Barry Windham vs. Dusty Rhodes - This was a "teacher vs. student" match as Windham turned his back on his friends & associates to join the Horsemen. This wasn't a classic match but it was an enjoyable match for most of the match for the first 10 mins. until the ending when Barry Windham put the claw on Dusty & held it on for what seemed like at least the last five minutes. The ending & who got involved with it was unexpected at that time but in the end, it was an enjoyable match between the two overall.
(NWA Great American Bash '88)

NWA Champion Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat - If your asking me to describe/summerize a Steamboat vs. Flair match then your out of your mind because these are just classic encounters that you have to see with your own two eyes as anything I say here wouldn't do them justice.
(NWA Chi-Town Rumble '89)
[Greatest Wrestling Stars Of The 80's]

Rock `n' Roll Express vs. Midnight Express - If anyone knows the history between these two teams dating back years then you know that you'll expect the best tag team action possible. This match was no exception as you got everything great about tag team wrestling: double teaming & building towards the hot tag, great in-ring wrestling & storytelling, and even the comedic spot with Jim Cornette including the classic one where he gets into verbal conflict with the referee & teases a fight between the two. Another classic match in their series of matches.
(NWA Wrestle War '90)

NWA United States Tag Team Champions Midnight Express vs. Southern Boys - Eventhough the Southern Boys isn't known by most wrestling fans...they were a underrated team in the likes of the Fantastics where they were a compliment to the style of the Midnight Express. This was a match that was so good that it had the crowd cheering for both teams as the match went on. Look out for one moment when there was a "karate showdown" along with Jim Cornette's usual antics at ringside.
(NWA Great American Bash '90)

WCW Tag Team Champions Steiner Brothers vs. Sting & Lex Luger - This was the dream match for WCW at that time as the two most popular singles wrestlers teamed up against the most popular tag team. Luger used this strength in this match as at one point, Steiner ran straight into him & bounced off him. Both guys used countered each other's moves & even their own move against each other at one point. This didn't last long but I think lived up to the hype.
(SuperBrawl)

WCW Champion Sting vs. Big Van Vader - I've said before that aside from Flair & maybe even Rick Rude (as you'll see in the next match), Sting's best opposition came in the form of Vader as I never recall them having a bad match. This was their first televised match that started their long term feud that lasted for years in WCW with Sting selling the ribs that Vader injured weeks earlier.
(Great American Bash '92)

WCW International Champion Rick Rude vs. Sting - Before I get started, for those who don't remember the story behind this championship...this was the "big gold belt" (currently referred to as the World Heavyweight Championship in WWE) that was originally the NWA Championship but when the NWA pulled out of WCW for the last time, WCW owned the belt and just renamed it but kept the status of it being a World Championship.
Now before the match, Harley Race issued a challenge on behalf of Vader to the winner before Sting clocked him with a punch. Just like their past matches, this was a back & forth encounter between each other with Race & Vader getting involved which led to Sting once again winning the World Championship in what is my second favorite encounter between these two only surpassed by their "King Of Cable" semi-final match from Nov. 1992. Unfortunally, this would be the last in-ring PPV appearence of Rick Rude as he would suffer a career ending neck injury within the next month.
(Spring Stampede '94)

WCW Champion Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan - Hogan's debut match in WCW and one of Hogan's best wrestling matches in his WCW reign. He all know Ric Flair is one of the best wrestlers in the history of the sport & Hogan knows what to do to get the crowd hooked into a match. This was a match that did live up to all the hype it had surrounding it.
(Bash At The Beach '96)
[Hulk Still Rules & Hulk Hogan: The Ultimate Anthology]

WCW Champion Ric Flair vs. The Giant - This was pretty short & sweet as Flair tried his best but the future "Big Show" dominated this match & broke the figure four as only he can to win the WCW Championship.
("Nitro" Apr. '96)

WCW Cruiserweight Champion Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Dean Malenko - What can I say here that hasn't been said before about this feud that put WCW's crusierweight division on the map. It was everything that you expected here as this was fast paced action full of counters with Mysterio's high flyin' offense & Malekno bringing his technical wrestling along with some high impact moves here such as a brainbuster & a version of the gutbuster that you have to see to believe.
("Clash of the Champions" Aug. '96)

War Games Match: Sting, Lex Luger, Ric Fair, Arn Anderson vs. Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, ??? - For those who never seen this, it's a two ringed cage match with a caged top on it & the first two wrestlers go in for 5 minute period. A coin toss is held (which the heels always seem to win) to determine who goes in next and the teams alternate wrestlers entering the match. When the final wrestler enters the cage, the only way to win is by submission or surrender.
This was match was significant in many ways as this was the match that started the feud that would eventually end Arn Anderson's career and the match that would begin the transformation of WCW's most popular character leading up to the biggest match in WCW's history. As for quality, this wasn't as violent & bloody as the other War Games matches but it was still a good match with quite the swerve at the end.
(Fall Brawl '96)
[nWo: Back In Black]

Ladder Match: WCW United States Champion Eddie Guerrero vs. Syxx - This match was Eddie's first ladder match from the nWo's first (and only) PPV "nWo Souled Out" and this was one of the highlights from that PPV. Eddie was going for revenge against the man who stole his United States Championship from him in the Syxx (1-2-3 Kid/X-Pac). This wasn't the best ladder match in history but far from the worse as well as this was more of a wrestling match featuring a ladder instead of what you would usually expect in a ladder match. As Eddie said in his commentary before his ladder match with RVD on his first DVD set, he didn't think this match wasn't that good...and he had a point as this was a good wrestling match featuring a ladder but didn't match up to the standards to set by previous & future ladder matches in wrestling.
(nWo Souled Out '97)

No Disqualification Match: WCW United States Champion Eddie Guerrero vs. Dean Malenko - This was a spinoff feud of the previous match as Syxx would go on to steal Malenko's crusierweight title and eventually win it at SuperBrawl the next month thanks to Eddie interference towards Syxx backfiring costing Malenko the title leading to this match. As the commentators would constantly point out, both men were more aggressive & intense than usual here right from the start through their moves & even both doing some trash talking and a bit of brawling with slaps & punches & illegal tactics to each other that didn't let up one bit & played towards the "No DQ" rule in this match. A great match like their usual classic encounters with a more aggressive twist here.
(Uncensored '97)

Title vs. Mask Match: WCW Cruiserweight Champion Chris Jericho vs. Juventud Guerrera - This was around 2 months into Chris Jericho's best run in his WCW career that showcased the personality that we've all known him for today. The stipulation here was that Juventud must not just win the match but win the championship or unmask. With the stipulation, not only did both men put on the performance that we expect & praised the crusierweight division for but also had Jericho try to use the stipulation to his advantage in unique (and comedic) ways such as purposely trying to get counted out at one point.
(SuperBrawl VIII)

WCW Tag Team Champions Steiner Brothers vs. Outsiders - This was one of those "put a storyline over" matches as this was all about the birth of "Big Poppa Pump" Scott Steiner & the end of the Steiner Brothers (for that time).
(SuperBrawl VIII)

Dallas Page & Karl Malone vs. Hollywood Hogan & Dennis Rodman - This was actually a very fun tag team match with Malone & Rodman both putting in more effort here than you usual get from celebrities in the ring. One real highlight was the aftermath involving Karl Malone.
(Bash At The Beach '98)

WCW Champion Goldberg vs. Dallas Page - Unlike the live PPV broadcast, you get to see more than the first minute here in what was voted as WCW's "Match Of The Year" in '98. They were aggressive & as DDP liked to say, "Jacked Up!" right from the start with Goldberg using his power and working over DDP's arm to counter the Diamond Cutter (RKO for current WWE fans) while Page used his experience to counter Goldberg's offense & used his power against him at moment. One of the best matches in Goldberg's career
(Halloween Havoc '98)

WCW Champion Booker T vs. Lance Storm - Lance Storm was only in WCW for a short time here but made one hell of an impact as he became a triple crown champion by capturing all of the singles titles (U.S., Hardcore, Crusierweight) so now he was going for the "Grand Slam" by challenging for the biggest one of them all in the WCW Championship. The match was real short but was a good contest here for what it was if you can get past the distractions like Mike Awesome on commentary doing his "Fat Chick Thriller" gimmick (Don't Ask!).
("Nitro" Aug. '00)

As usual with every DVD, there are some positives & negatives. The big negative here is that the documentry seemed to go through all the post-Nitro era of the company too quickly for me (you went from the birth of Jim Crockett promotions to the nWo before the first hour was up). Eventhough certain incidents & feuds in WCW's history were heavily talked about on other DVD's....there were still incidents here that could have been talked about or gone more in detail with like the expansion & merging with various promotions like the UWF, the Clash Of The Champions going head up against WrestleMania IV, the controveral ending of Starrcade '97 with Hogan vs. Sting, how the nWo got so big that there were more stars in that group than in WCW, and the issue of racism that was always apparent in WCW's history just to name a few.
The positives were that eventhough everyone has their own list of what should be on the WCW, they did a nice job in giving us quality matches overall (eventhough I could have did without the Outsiders/Steiners & Booker/Storm match) and not a lot of repeats. The major positive for me that overshadows that is the fact that after seeing the negative image WWE gave out on WCW in the past...they did what they did on the Starrcade DVD and give a fair view on the company & kept it away from being a burial like how we've gotten before.

Overall, this isn't on the level of how the documentries of ECW & World Class were but it was better than "Monday Night War" so this is something I would recommend as a "starting point" to learn the history about WCW and later get the documentries on Starrcade, Monday Night War, Legends Of Wrestling: Heatseekers along with those on other ex-WCW personalitles to hear about specific incidents & feuds.
"

How did they screw this up so bad?

dowwwe | Ontario, Canada | 08/29/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I went out to get this DVD the day it came out because I was really looking forward to seeing it. I was anticipating the documentary part more than the matches. You can get one of those WWEClassics subscriptions and get access to MUCH better matches than this DVD set had.

The documentary portion was a disappointment. A big one.

They spent too much time on how WCW came to be, and not enough time on what WCW was when it was at it's highpoint and how bad it was when it died. It's almost like they forgot to include more than five minutes of coverage for 1999-2001. They could've covered nWo Wolfpac vs nWo Hollywood, Raven's Flock, Millionaire's Club/New Blood feud, some of WCW's crazy endings that made NO sense. Instead, they covered Goldberg, Hogan, and the NWO... stuff we've seen to death.

Their Monday Night War DVD was much better.

"

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	WWE The Rise And Fall of WCW Genres: Action & Adventure, Sports PG 2009 9hr 0min WCW grew out of a southern promotion, into a giant that battled World Wrestling Entertainment every Monday night. For the first time ever, the complete story of World Championship Wrestling, from Ted Turner?s purchase and ... more » « less
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