The Rise and Fall of WCW

Pick a side.
Seriously.
You are either WWE or WCW.
Whichever you are will depend on how you view this DVD. It will either be (as a WCW fan) the whitewashed thinly-veiled version of the truth, or (as a WWE fan) a fair assessment of a company who lost.

WCW was a company born out of the old NWA territory system. The actual origin of the WCW that existed under Ted Turner is fairly complicated and this DVD tries to explain how it worked under such leaders as Jim Crockett and later his sons. Before Ted Turner bought the company, it was essentially a failing company who could only draw money in a few areas of America. Some comment that if they had stayed in those areas it would still be alive, but due to the expanison of Vince McMahon's WWE, they had to branch out and thus became riddled with debts which thankfully Ted Turner's huge cheque book saved them from. Once bought by Turner it seems someone in the production company who made this dvd decided to press fastforward on the history of WCW as all of a sudden in a matter of minutes we cover Jim Herd (without the firing Ric Flair story) the hiring of Bill Watts and his bizarre ways and eventually the hiring of Eric Bischoff. It's almost as if, the creator decided they didn't want to dwell on the boring past of WCW failing between 1990-1994 and get to the bit with Bischoff and Hogan.

We of course cover the creation of Nitro, the jumping ship of so many wrestlers (Hogan, Luger, Savage) though no mention of the 'raids' on ECW. We then have the introduction of the cruiserweights and the lucadors who are shown for what they were, fast-paced matches aimed at getting the crowd excited, but not destined for anything beyond the first two or three matches. Then of course we get to the nWo. This was of course WCW's greatest success and we can argue as much as we like about how having 50+members didn't help it, the fact is for a short period that angle was the hottest thing in wrestling. One of the funniest things is them talking about the use of celebrities in wrestling which I can only assume was created before WWE came up with the 'Celebrity Guest Host of Raw' yawnfest that we have to endure every Monday. They quite rightly point out that a celebrity is a great way to gain publicity in places where you wouldn't normally get it, but if it's done too much then it can kill the whole point of the wrestlers. If you have Hogan selling for Jay Leno and then not selling for Billy Kidman then how bad does that make Kidman look?

Despite all this success they do point out that the only character created during this time was Goldberg. No one else. Granted, Goldberg was an amazing at getting an impact, but if the match went more than five minutes it was just painful to watch. Goldberg vs Hogan is covered with Goldberg taking credit for having 40,000 fans there with only four days notice... despite the fact the building had been sold out many months before that. It's rushed over the fact that a one week rating pop that this match gained Nitro was also the flushing away of potentially millions of PPV buys. This of course leads to the PPV cutoff at Halloween Havoc 1998 which meant that millions of fans asked for their money back and thus the snowball of WCW's downfall began to start rolling. It's odd that Bret Hart is not mentioned and the guaranteed money is hinted it but never explained properly

ie. In WWE the wrestlers would get a downside guarantee which could be $75,000 for a lower card and up to $1million for a main eventer. Then the wrestlers would get paid bonuses based on how well they got themselves over. Basically if you went out and just had a run-of-the-mill match and the crowd didn't respond then you'd get a bare minimum. If you went out like The Rock or Stone Cold and got people responding to your every word then you could get rewarded hugely. Wrestlers would also get shares of house shows and events they worked at and of course this leads to merchandise sales too

In WCW most of the wrestlers would be given a guaranteed contract of say $200,000 and that's it. No bonuses. No incentives. They could go and have a five star classic or go and have a sleep in the ring. Because of this there was no incentive to get over because their money came whether they sold out the building or whether they only drew one person.

As you can imagine the fact that by 2000 no one could draw a crowd is one of the many reasons why WCW went out of business and yet they don't go into this in any detail. However, they do mention the hiring of Vince Russo, David Arquette winning the title, the awfulness that was the booking over this time and the merger of AOL/Time Warner which pushed Ted Turner from his seat of power and meant that WCW was sold to WWE.

Accompanying this documentary, is two disks jampacked with matches these include the Five Star Classic Ric Flair vs Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat Chi-Town Rumble from 1988. This is worth the price alone. There's no Roadwarriors on this disk, which is a shame, but a great match between The Rock and Roll Express and The Midnight Express. The interesting thing about the matches on offer is the jump in time. We start in 1985 with a match between Ric Flair and Magnum TA (which was really only included to try and backup the uneccessary amount of time they spend talking about him) but then we don't get a match until 1988. It seems odd that they would skip over almost three years when NWA was so hot. Some years like 1993,1995, 1999 and 2001 you can understand why they did not get represented.I think the odd thing is that they didn't create a small video of all the horrible matches over the years (Chamber of Horrors match, David Arquette, Vince Russo, Oklahoma) though you kind of get the feeling that with almost an entire disk of nWo matches which showed almost everyone and their momma become a part of that group, that they hinted at this sudden downward spiral of quality from 1998.

The two disks are good at highlighting the best of WCW and what they had to offer: Vader, Steiners, nWo, Cruiserweights and of course Ric Flair. But you kind of get the feeling someone is saying 'Don't include that match it's already on this set' as there are so many matches missing-Hogan vs Sting Starrcade 1997, nWo formation at Bash at the Beach 1996, so many of Flair's matches are missing. It's odd at the number of matches that you know they included simply because of the person (eg. Eddie Guerrero, Hogan) and not because of the quality. The choice of the 1996 Wargames (which was still a good match) over any of the others that had preceeded including the ones from 1991 and 1992 which were both awarded Five Stars from Dave Meltzer??? The fact they end with a Booker T vs Lance Storm match from Nitro...not disputing the quality of the match, but it does seem to be WWE's thinly veiled hint at just why WCW died when the best they could offer was a Booker T and Lance Storm match over what WWE had to offer on Raw at the same time- a Triple H vs Kurt Angle vs Chris Jericho. I know which match I would have watched on that night!

The Rise and Fall of WCW DVD is a good set for those who want a quick overview of why WCW was successful and why it is no longer in business anymore. For those who want a more indepth look I'd recommend The Death of WCW book, but this is still a good set with some great matches to enjoy.