Five Second Review ; The Triumph and Tragedy of World Class Championship Wrestling
This is a tale of two DVDs. If you were to break this review down into two discs, it would mean reviewing a disc comprised of a documentary, and a disc comprised of nothing but WCCW matches. Now, in principle this is a pretty damn good idea ; it allows WWE to pump out a long documentary with a ton of focus on what made WCCW tick and why it was so successful/what made it go out of business. There's a little problem with this structure that I'm going to address about this format that could have been easily corrected, but first I'm going to talk about the documentary.
This documentary is just... WOW. It's one of those documentaries that focuses a ton on the Von Erich family and the various shit they've been put through over the years, making it seem almost like a modern day A & E documentary at times. Fuck, it feels like I could sit down with my family and watch this documentary, something I can't say about any other one that has been produced by the WWE. Extremely personal to the Von Erichs, it still manages to bring a compelling side when addressing the various feuds , characters, angles, etc of the WCCW product. In this doc I was introduced to a TON of guys that I never even heard of before (because I never knew much about the Dallas wrestling scene, being a fucking Canadian), some interesting and some being WTF.
When it comes to their documentaries on various promotions, WWE always knocks these right out of the park (AWA, ECW directly come to mind), and this documentary is no exception. The interviews in here are fantastic, from the sympathetic look at Kevin Von Erich (who receives a ton of criticism about this, undeserved in my opinion) , to the brutal honesty of Micheal Hayes, Buddy Roberts, and Jimmy Garvin (boy has he gotten FAT) about the product, feuds, and the family in general. I don't like giving too much away here in a short review, but I'd definitely recommend this documentary to any wrestling fans out there. Doesn't rival the likes of "Rise and Fall of ECW" but it ranks up there with the AWA doc in terms of how good it is.
Documentary Rating : 7.75/10
I don't even need to talk about the second disc of matches, let me just show you my own personal ratings for them, and let you decide :
Duke Keomuka vs Ricky Starr (2/3 Falls Match) : ** ¼
King Kong Bundy vs Fritz Von Erich (Retirement Show) : **
Ric Flair vs Kerry Von Eric (Steel Cage ; Christmas 1982) : *** ¾
The Fabulous Freebirds vs Iceman Parsons/Kevin & Kerry Von Erich (1983) : ** ½
Iceman Parsons vs Buddy Roberts (Star Wars 1983) : * ¼
The Fabulous Freebirds vs The Von Erich’s (1984) : *
Jimmy Garvin & Precious vs Chris Adams & Sunshine (1984) : ½ *
Kamala vs Kabuki (1984) : DUD
The Midnight Express vs The Fantastics (1985) : **
Chris Adams vs Kevin Von Erich (1985) : ** ¾
The Missing Link & Bruiser Brody vs One Man Gang & Rick Rude (1986) : * ½
Abdullah the Butcher vs Bruiser Brody (cage ; 1986) : * 1/2
Completely un-fucking acceptable for a match listing in this era. If these were the matches that would best represent what WCCW was all about, I'm GLAD they went out of fucking business (kidding). For all of this talk about how great Bill Dundee is, or how awesome Gino Hernandez was, WHY THE FUCK WOULDN'T YOU FEATURE THEM IN A GOD DAMNED MATCH. Instead we get an almost half an hour long contest between two people that weren't mentioned in the documentary for a single second, and the likes of "The Missing Link". WHAT IS THIS SHIT ? There were TWELVE matches on this one disc, with ONE of them being a great match.
I did the math, and that's a fucking NINETY TWO percent FAIL rate. The only match on this disc that's worth owning is the awesome Von Erich-Flair Cage match, which you can own on the "Greatest Cage Matches" set. This disc was more than likely a disgrace to all those who were ever involved in the company that was World Class Championship Wrestling, and to say that this was one of the hardest discs I've ever had to sit through would be a HUGE understatement, as I had more fun with some discs on the "you know what" DVD than on this one.
Where the hell is the variety ? It seems like every single match takes place at a "Star Wars" or a "David Von Erich Memorial" show, most of them being really shitty matches. Kamala vs The Great Kabuki? Did we REALLY need to see that horrible, horrible match ? How about Bruiser Brody vs Abdullah the Butcher (WHICH WAS ACTUALLY RELEASED AGAIN WTF) ? DID WE REALLY NEED TO SEE THAT ? My blood pressure is rising just thinking about it actually. Seems like over half of these matches feature an overaged , out of shape Fritz Von Erich in them, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE WANNA SEE AS WRESTLING FANS, RIGHT ?
Again, if you need to ask me ANYTHING about an individual match and why I rated it what I did, just ask me and I'll give a pretty good response, but this DVDs second disc FAILS and FAILS hard. This second disc was PUTRID, it was fucking NWO STANDARDS ! Ugh I felt dirty just saying that. Anyways, download the documentary, and pick up the DVD if you can buy it for really cheap like I did. Stay the fuck away from the second disc besides the awesome Flair-Von Erich cage match, and............You know what ? Download the entire first disc (w/extras) if you can find it out there, and but the "Cage Matches" set. You'll get the only match worth owning on this set that way without having to see the rest of this filth. Fantastic documentary keeps this away from "Epic fail" territory, but the second disc would literally be a 1.5/10 in my books.
4.75/10