Review of TNA: Unstoppable - The Best of Samoa Joe

Introduction

"Unstoppable: The Best of Samoa Joe" is the UK`s first DVD look at Total Non-Stop Action (TNA) Wrestling, so let`s start with an introduction to what is now America`s "secondary" pro wrestling organisation.

TNA was founded by Jerry Jarrett and his wrestler son Jeff in 2002, several months after the nationally-televised World Championship Wrestling company was sold to WWE`s Vince McMahon. The purchase of WCW by McMahon meant that WWE now had no competition, whereas in the past they had always had some rivalry with the company once owned by media mogul Ted Turner.

With many talented wrestlers out of work, and with a slot seemingly available to replace WCW, the Jarretts developed a concept for TNA, to try and brand themselves as an alternative to WWE. This included the use of a six-sided ring, and weekly pay-per-view events which cost around £6.50 each.

The weekly PPV concept proved not viable, with the most-watched shows garnering around 15,000 viewers, and the least-watched around 5,000 viewers. Weekly PPVs were abandoned in September 2004, in favour of monthly three-hour shows, the first of which was held in November of that year.

Since then, TNA has continued to make small but consistent strides into becoming a real force in the wrestling industry. In the last eighteen months, they have upped their television audience by almost five times with a move from Fox Sports Net to Spike TV in the USA. They have also had much international exposure, particularly in the UK, with a prominent spot on The Wrestling Channel (now TWCFight), and in September 2006, they announced the lucrative signing of Kurt Angle, a factor which the company hopes will now enable them to challenge the WWE`s mainstream dominance.

As of November, TNA have also taken the step into the UK DVD market, with one of their first releases being "Unstoppable: The Best of Samoa Joe". For those unfamiliar with his work - he has never wrestled in the WWE - Joe is regarded as one of the very best "big men" in today`s game. Born in Samoa, but a native of California, Joe`s wrestling style is based on brutal striking and a variety of submission holds, and all-in-all, a more real style of pro wrestling. In his relatively short career, he has been involved in several matches which are the epitome of high-quality modern wrestling, none more so than his incredible bout with Japanese legend Kenta Kobashi for the Ring of Honor promotion in October 2005.

This is a four-hour presentation of Joe`s best bouts in TNA, ranging from his debut in June 2005, to January 2006. The match footage is interspersed with comments from sit-down interview footage with the man known as "The Samoan Submission Machine".

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen NTSC (region 0), and is good for a DVD of this genre. Considering that there are 3 ½hrs of footage packed onto this disc, it looks as well as could be expected. I noticed some very slight compression artefacts, but these are very minor indeed, and anyone who has been used to watching The Wrestling Channel`s TNA broadcasts will delight at the video quality on offer here.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and is also good. All of the matches here are played out in front of a small but vociferous crowd at Universal Studios in Florida, and on occasion the audio mix can sound very cluttered because of their volume.

Commentary is provided by Mike Tenay and Don West, the latter of whom will not be to everyone`s palette, as he has one of those voices that sounds like he is constantly shouting. Generally, however the quality of commentary is good.

One issue arose in the first match on the DVD, as Tenay and West were very low (sometimes inaudible) in the mix. This issue did not affect any of the other bouts on the DVD.

Features

Extras consist of unused snippets from the sit-down interview with Joe, a video of Joe highlights backed by a heavy-metal track, and a slideshow of still photographs again accompanied by music.

There`s nothing here of any particular importance, but the music video in particular is very much worth watching.

Conclusion

The first match on this disc is Joe`s TNA debut, as he faced Sonjay Dutt at the Slammiversary 2005 pay-per-view. This is a short but brutal match, which instantly made Joe a big-time player for the company.

The same could be said about the next bout with Delirious, but the DVD`s third contest, with Chris Sabin as opposition, is our first chance to see Joe in a more competitive match. A brilliantly-paced affair, it is also one of the best American matches of 2005.

Perennial nemesis A.J Styles is up next, in the first of two singles encounters with Joe. This is another excellent match, with both brutal high-impact manoeuvres and some excellent submission wrestling. A very fast-paced match for two men of this size, only a slightly dubious finish prevents this from being truly great.

Styles is back in the next encounter, a Triple Threat match with Christopher Daniels and Joe. This match is fought at an incredible pace, with some absolutely death-defying aerial manoeuvres on show, not to mention brutal kicks, strikes, and suplexes. Clocking in at over 25 minutes, this is extremely close to being the match of the year for 2005, and is one of my favourite matches of all-time.

From those lofty heights, things come down a notch or two, as Joe takes on Japanese superstar Jushin "Thunder" Liger. This is a good match, if a little short, but it unsurprisingly had no chance of following the previous encounter.

A slightly-confusing 8-man match is next, as Joe teams with Daniels, Alex Shelley, and Roderick Strong to face Austin Aries, Chris Sabin, Matt Bentley, and Sonjay Dutt. This is an Elimination X match - similar to a Survivor Series tag team match - where the bout ends when each member of one team has been eliminated by pinfall or submission. This is a very fast-paced match, with a lot of big moves, and again is very good indeed.

A quick bout follows next, as Joe faces The Amazing Red, before his second singles confrontation with A.J Styles. Some people may be put off by the fact that this is the second time that the two engage on this DVD, but this match was even better than their fabulous first, with some brutal moves on show. It was also different from their first match, so there was no feeling of repetition in watching this one.

In another short bout, Jay Lethal makes his TNA TV debut against Joe, in a very entertaining contest, before the final match here, in which Joe faces Christopher Daniels. Whilst not as spectacular as his matches with Styles, or even the earlier match with Sabin, this is a very good contest, which told a great story. It was a fitting way, too, to end the matches on this set.

Interspersed between all of these bouts, we have sit-down interview footage with Joe, as he talks about growing up, his wrestling career, and why he chose to wrestle in TNA, rather than the WWE. In particular, he tells interesting anecdotes about his participation in the 1984 Olympic Games opening ceremony, and about his upbringing in general.

Overall, this is a superb look at one of the best American wrestlers currently active in 2006. Anything that the DVD lacks in terms of WWE-esque polish (which isn`t a great deal) is quickly forgotten when viewing the matches here, of which at least four are absolutely must-see encounters for any wrestling fan. That, dare I suggest, includes past wrestling fans who had given up on the WWE product.

Although this review looks at the American import version of "Unstoppable - The Best of Samoa Joe", it is now available in PAL format on the UK high street. Do yourself a favour and sit down in front of some truly marvellous professional wrestling.