Review for WWE Top 50 Superstars of All Time

Now anyone who knows me knows that I love doing lists. But the thing is I always have to restrict myself i.e. Top Ten, Twenty... maybe at a stretch a Top Twenty-Five. Anything beyond that and you are really not getting to the best of the bunch. This is my problem with this set. Sure if they had dedicated three hours to the Top Ten I might have got bored or I might have complained that this person wasn't represented or this person was missed out, but at least I would get a full explanation as to why they are there. This set is a little baffling and although host Todd Grisham does point out at the beginning that there will be some controversies I could not believe this list would be as annoying as it is.
When I came to watch, the thing that puzzled me was how they compiled it. I thought it might have with maybe a number of suggested possibilities, but that is not the case. WWE asked all the superstars in the current WWE locker room to vote and therefore you would think that anyone who is currently on the roster would not get a say. I mean who is to say that Cena didn't rate himself a 10 or Undertaker or Randy Orton? They did not give them criteria to go by and so it seems it is based on nothing and as such all it does is make the list totally irrelevant.
Each person on the list gets almost less than two or three minutes which consists of a montage of their career surrounded by various superstars from past and present giving their opinion on the star. I'm just not sure if this is enough and sometimes you are left whether they deserve to be there at all.
Of the Fifty, Thirty are in WWE's Hall of Fame (Though whether that actually means anything is another debate altogether) and really as a list of great wrestlers I can't really argue with it. There are only a few people that are missing. Some are obvious Chris Benoit, Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, Ultimate Warrior and some not so much with the inclusion of Nick Bockwinkel who has never competed for the WWE and yet no Sting. The one thing I do have a problem with is of course where people are placed in the list. There are some obvious ones that make you almost dismiss the list entirely and although I don't necessarily disagree with the Top Ten, the two people who are not in the Top Ten (Two men who between them are the icons of wrestling FULL STOP) is obviously because they are in TNA and if Jeff Hardy was still in WWE there is no way he would be this low on the list.
However, as I say if I ignore that this is supposed to be in an order this is a good list of superstars that would be considered the greatest of all time. My issue is of course with the fact that there is simply not enough time given to explain why they are here and maybe they should have split the list in two and dedicated at least five-ten minutes to each person even if they went from Fifty to Ten on one disk and then spent longer on the Top Ten it would have made me care a little more. As it is, as soon as Number Twenty Three is announced I couldn't stop myself from shaking my head as they told me who was greater and when you discover who is in that place you will also cry foul on this list. Brother!
The set comes with two disks crammed with matches both rare and matches that are widely available in other places. Two matches one featuring Lou Thesz and one featuring Jack Brsico against Dory Funk Jr are both black and white archive matches and I would love to say they show exactly why these three are usually said to be the greatest. But they don't. Both matches are a little boring and the match between Funk and Brisco is just bizarre with Brisco calling the action on his own match? However, the match that saw the confrontation between Gorilla Monsoon and Muhammed Ali is great. However, Monsoon's boxing match against Andre the Giant is a waste of time and not the best way to prove why Andre deserves to be on this list. The six man elimination match between Roddy Piper, Ricky Steamboat and Junkyard Dog vs. Macho Man Randy Savage, Harley Race and Adrian Adonis is a great match and certainly a big influence on what would become the Survivor Series concept. What is surprising is the hugely successful 1990s is represented by only two matches, there is only one Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair match and even some of the matches here are a little questionable in their choice. If you were going to include a Mr Perfect match surely any of his matches against Bret Hart would have been better, though I understand them including the match against Lawler as it really is one of Lawler's best performances. There is a great fatal fourway between The Undertaker, The Rock, Stone Cold and Kurt Angle, or it would be if they didn't keep mentioning the infinitely better Armageddon Hell in a Cell which could have been included instead as the ending of the match was stupid. Speaking of stupid, also included is the absurd Mankind vs. The Rock empty arena match. I would love to say this was an interesting match and it is, but it is also an awful match and if they wanted to include a rare Rock/Mankind match they could have included their Ladder Match from Raw.
The oddest thing is that not much is given to the actual Number One and although he is represented with one match it is a throwaway match that isn't even about him. When you consider who this superstar is (and I won't spoil it) I could have picked hundreds of matches to represent why he was chosen as Number One. Instead this time is given to the Edge vs. Undertaker match from Wrestlemania 24 which is great, but when both men are in two other matches it just seems like a wasted opportunity to allow someone to shine. A few people are also not included with a match and that makes me think even more that they should have dedicated more time to explaining why they are here.
For new fans to WWE who may not know about the huge wealth of heritage that Pro-Wrestling has will get to see some faces that they may not be familiar with. For fans of the classics this is a nice stroll down memory lane and though I don't disagree with who is in this list I do have may problem with where they are listed, but then that is something that we will debate between ourselves anyway. However, this is a great set and with a little longer on each Superstar and maybe a few different matches this would have been a set that I would recommend to everyone.