Review for WWE Tagged Classics: nWo Back in Black, Big Daddy Cool Diesel & Oozing Machismo! Razor Ramon

This one of the few Tagged Classic sets that I got really excited about getting. It covers not only the rise and fall of the nWo, but also includes great features on two of its key members. nWo Back in Black starts with a great recap of the careers of Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash (Diesel) and Scott Hall (Razor Ramon). All of these seem to prove that WWE made these stars and also covers their departure to WCW (including the infamous 'Curtain Call' from Madison Square Garden).

The debut of Scott Hall in WCW is shown in full and it is funny that I have no idea who was in the match he interrupted. However, his promo including the infamous 'You wanna war? You're gonna get one' line is just amazing. Kevin Nash's appearance and his powerbombing of Eric Bischoff was amazing and the lead up to Bash at the Beach was so well planned that when people criticize 'The Invasion' from 2001, this is the reason. By having two men look so dominant and by turning Hulk Hogan, WCW had the greatest story either company had ever created.

The development of the nWo is gone through, from Hogan spraypainting the Heavyweight belt, Kevin Nash shooting Rey Mysterio into the side of a truck and also the development of the group into a shadow of its former self with almost everyone joining it. The decline of the group is almost a sad sight to see and the more people who joined, the more diluted the group became and the reason was simple: They had no one to wrestle. Ric Flair was made to be a joke and even when they had Goldberg they still failed.

The odd thing about this DVD is that they completely forget about the ending of WCW and how it contributed to it and skip straight to the return of the nWo in the WWE. This of course is highlighted by Vince McMahon's epic 'Inject a lethal dose of poison' promo which is included in full as an extra and is possibly one of the best promos I have ever watched. Also included is The Rock's promo with the nWo in which he buries them all and is hilarious in doing so. The WWE version of the nWo was interesting, though it was cut far too short, mainly by Kevin Nash injuring himself and being unable to wrestle and Hogan's decision to turn back to the yellow and red good guy he had been after his amazing fight against The Rock at Wrestlemania X8.

The DVD includes a number of extra matches, including the Bash at the Beach 1996 match in full, the War Games from 1996 (WWE should really release a disk of all of these as this match type was awesome), Kevin Nash against Goldberg and also a pretty good match between Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin and the nWo in the WWE. The inclusion of an original nWo promo and the Vince McMahon one round off this disk perfectly and make it a must have for fans of the nWo or WCW in general.

Coupled on the second disk are Big Daddy Cool Diesel and Oozing Machismo! Razor Ramon. I understand why they were included, though you would have thought including one of the early Hogan videos would have made sense too. However, these two are the typical 'Best ofs' that WWE used to produce that are essentially just a collection of five matches from Diesel and nine from Razor Ramon. Both are nothing special, but do include some great matches like Diesel vs. Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and the highlight from the Razor Ramon side is of course the ladder match against Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania X.

This set is worth buying simply for the nWo Back in Black feature, but the second disk is certainly worth watching and any time you get a chance to watch the classic ladder match between Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon is a good thing. Though I wish there had been combined with something more nWo related, such as an old WCW tape, but for what it is, this is still a great set to have.