This week for That's My Story and I'm Sticking To It, I'll be telling you my thoughts on some of the WWE's recent DVD releases and how it seems like the WWE usually has their own agenda for how it portrays the subjects of its documentary DVDs.

I got the idea for this column after I watched the highly anticipated "The Life and The Times of Mr. Perfect" DVD and I have to say that after watch the only 75 minute long documentary it was somewhat of a disappointment. I'll explain more about the reasons why in a moment but first I want to mention some of the reasons why it seems like the WWE tends to sometimes try to rewrite history when producing their documentaries. If someone is affiliated with the company or if there's the potential of money to be made with them in the future then they are usually shown in a positive light but if not, it seems like the WWE tends to focus on the negative side of a subject. Don't get me wrong here, the WWE has some of the most well produced and some of the most insightful documentaries that have been made about wrestling but sometimes it's obvious they have their own agenda. Here's a few examples when the WWE attempted to rewrite history.

Let's start will probably the most infamous example, "The Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior" DVD, which was WWE's way of burying his career and in some ways tried to cover up or minimize their own mistakes of rehiring the Warrior. Specifically, in the documentary the WWE portrays the Warrior's return in 1996 as minor as if it was going to be just a mid card act but when you look back to that time period, the WWE brought the Warrior back because they were being pulverized by WCW and they brought Warrior back in a desperate attempt to find something to generate some interest in their very stable product at the time. The documentary itself is so biased that it's not really worth the $20 it cost to buy it and we all know Warrior's matches on the DVD won't be worth $20 so there's really no reason to purchase "The Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior." It's almost comical that the WWE would take the time to even produce the documentary just to bury the Warrior's career because if you watch any Warrior interview you will hear him bury his own career. Warrior's speeches will prove that he is as goofy as the WWE portrayed him but they definitely didn't have an objective view of Warrior's career when producing the documentary.

The next example I want to discuss is "The Triumph and Tragedy of World Class,” which was the WWE’s documentary about the World Class Championship Wrestling territory that was run in Texas by Friz Von Erich. I had watch “The Heroes of World Class,” which was independently produced a few years ago and in my opinion probably the best wrestling documentary that has been made so I was looking forward to WWE’s documentary about World Class. While it was a good documentary, Triumph and Tragedy was no where near as good as “The Heroes of World Class.” Michael Hayes is part of the WWE creative team and while The Free Birds were a major part of WCCW, it seems like the WWE portrayed The Free Birds v.s. The Von Erichs as the only major feud that WCCW had during it’s big run in the early 80s but there were others heels that feuded with the Von Erichs such as Gino Herndez, Chris Adams, and Jimmy Garvin. I will agree that The Von Erich v.s. The Free Birds is probably the most famous feud from WCCW but it isn’t the only reason that the promotion was as successful as it was during the 80s. The WWE gave Hayes more credit then he probably deserved because he is a member of the WWE creative team so aside from documenting WCCW, the WWE used it as a way to put Hayes over, which I think the WWE did too much during the documentary and therefore the Triumph and Tragedy was not as good as it could have been but as I said it was still a good DVD that I would recommend picking up as well as “The Heroes of World Class” if you haven’t seen them.

The next DVD I’d like to discuss is “Ric Flair:The Definitive Collection” and this was a really great DVD that took the time to discuss the details of his career. It was really great how the WWE explained the old school territory system in the documentary because it’s good for some of the younger or less die hard wrestling fans to get to an explanation about some wrestling history. I’m glad and also surprised that the WWE stressed how important the NWA title was and demands of being champion. It’s really a tribute to not only Flair but also all the other wrestling greats that have worn the title because it showed that legends like Harely Race, Dusty Rhodes, and others really had to be on top of their game to be the NWA world champion. The only thing I noticed about the documentary that was a little biased was that they have an almost divine view of Flair’s career and don’t really mention any of his infamous career decisions such as his time as booker of WCW or when he demanded Dusty Rhodes not be the booker of WCW before he would return to the company. Naturally, there are two sides to the coin and I don’t think it would have hurt Flair’s legacy at all if the WWE had included information about some of Flair’s real life problems with the wrestling industry during his career. I think it would have made the documentary even better because it would have made it a more complete story of Flair’s career.

Next up is a documentary that I think was the most objective of the ones I’m going to mention in this column and that’s “The Rise and Fall of ECW.” The main reason I don’t think the WWE put any spin on this DVD is because at the time it was produced ECW had been dead nearly four years and aside from the DVD sales, there wasn’t much potential money from the letters ECW at that time. As we all know, the DVD sales are what prompted the One Night Stand PPV, which eventually led to the WWE bringing back the letters but in 2004 when The Rise and Fall of ECW was released the only goal of the DVD was to make money from the DVD sales so there was really no reason for the WWE to spin ECW’s image, which is why I think it’s one of the most objective and best DVDs the WWE has released in recent years.

Finally. We have WWE’s most recent DVD release, “The Life and The Times of Mr. Perfect.” I had been looking forward to this DVD since it was announced but as I said at the start of this column, it was somewhat of a disappointment. One thing I noticed was the WWE only really went into detail with Curt Hennig’s feud with Bret Hart and basically skimmed over the rest of the major feuds in his career. When the documentary got to the part of his career in WCW they almost tried to dance around it in some ways instead of just saying “Hennig kicked back and collected a pay check in WCW,” which is fine because that’s what 90% of WCW’s roster did at the time. They also didn’t mention why Hennig was released from the WWE after he returned in 2002. It’s been said that there was some type of altercation between Hennig and Brock Lesnar on a plane but there’s no reason given during the documentary. There was no detail about his death either and just a newspaper headline that said he died of a cocaine overdose but no details are explained. It seems like the WWE was probably trying to protect Hennig’s image, which is fine to a certain extent but I think in doing so it hurt the overall quality of the documentary. Either way there’s many good matches and promos on disc two of the DVD set so in my opinion it’s still worth it to buy the DVD. Even though Curt Hennig’s life ended way to soon his fans that will watch his matches for years to come will know that he was ABSOLUTLY PERFECT.

I hope nobody takes this column as being totally negative because I was just pointing out some of the ways WWE tries to rewrite history but as I said they have produced some of the best documentaries about some of wrestling’s greatest stars.

Until next week
That’s My Story and I’m Sticking To It
Dr. Wrestling

If you have comments or questions e mail me drwrestlingallpro@yahoo.com

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