Review of WWE: Road Warriors (2 Discs)

Introduction

It is 1983 in the regional Georgia Championship Wrestling, and the landscape is about to change. Black Sabbath`s "Iron Man" blasts over the public address system as the Road Warriors, Animal & Hawk, charge the ring and mangle their opponents. Professional wrestling in general is on the brink of change, and the Road Warriors are plotting its direction…

And twenty-two years later we are presented with a wonderful DVD set chronicling the Road Warriors (known to many fans as the Legion of Doom, they used both monikers) career from 1983 to 2003 and the death of Michael "Hawk" Hegstrand. Included is a 100 minute documentary feature on the team, plus over 4 hours of interviews and matches, spanning their entire career.

Considering that the WWE have yet to produce DVD sets for The Undertaker, Bret Hart, The Ultimate Warrior or Triple-H, this release has surprised many. What will not surprise anybody is the action that this set contains. As the promotional material points out, "history`s most feared tag team returns…"

Video

Video on this disc is presented, as we come to expect, in 4:3 non-anamorphic PAL. The documentary itself looks wonderful, looking a little better than we would expect from a digital television broadcast. Of course, we cannot judge the 1980s matches by the same visual standards due to the quality of the source material. However, even the old-style, technophobic matches from the early 80s are finely presented here.

Audio

In a very interesting development, the audio on these discs is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 format. This was somewhat surprising considering the documentary audio from the Region 1 release was presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, with only the extra matches given the 2.0 treatment. Although the effect on most fans will be minimal, the 5.1 soundtrack provides a little extra warmth from the surround speakers that the 2.0 is obviously lacking.

However, please note that the disc under review is not Saving Private Ryan; a 5.1 mix is not critical, and the 2.0 mix afforded to British customers is perfectly acceptable. All interviews, conducted mostly with the surviving Road Warrior Animal, are easily audible & there are no audio sync issues.

Features

Not for the first time, the WWE has spoiled us with a wonderful set of extras that makes me thankful for the brilliance of DVD. Can you imagine navigating through a VHS to find what you wanted?!!

Amid a number of ringside & pre-match interviews with the Road Warriors & their manager Paul Ellering, there are some interesting and rare bouts contained here. Wrestling traditionalists will be intrigued by the 1983 match against the Brisco brothers, which, whilst it was not as good as it certainly could have been, foreshadows the changing of the guard in tag team wrestling.

Also included is the infamous 1986 scaffold match against Jim Cornette`s Midnight Express. For those unfamiliar with Scaffold Matches, the entire bout takes place 25 feet above the ring on a narrow platform. This invariably means that the action is limited, but the risk is high, as both members of a team must be thrown from the scaffold on to the floor in order to win the match. This bout is the reason that manager Jim Cornette claims to have the knees of a seventy year old!

Admittedly, not all of the matches here are as interesting as the few I`ve mentioned. The bout with Sting & Lex Luger is an utter shambles & should have been quarantined immediately. And whilst they have value in that they show the Road Warriors at their most dangerous, the short, dominating matches against virtually nameless opponents are not for repeating viewing.

Conclusion

Overall, this was another very pleasing set from the WWE. The documentary could have been a little better, by adding comments from a wider range of people than are included, the most conspicuous of all being WWE owner Vince McMahon, whose falling out with Hawk is passed over rapidly. However, it is also fair to say that such topics may be best ignored in the wake of Hawk`s tragic death.

The extras presented here are also to be commended, even though I was slightly disappointed that a bout with the Steiner Brothers was not included, as these teams were probably the two most exciting teams of the decade.

This is a wonderful DVD set for fans of the Road Warriors & 1980s/90s wrestling in general. Those who unfamiliar with wrestling in this era will be intrigued by a tag team who had it all, and will realise that tag teams had much more credibility in the days of the Road Warriors than they will ever have now. Furthermore, the Road Warriors were an exciting team whose apparent brute force belied their in-ring ability, and there has never been a more well-received tag team in wrestling`s illustrious history.