WWE - The Monday Night War [DVD]

There are two things I find funny about this DVD, the first being when Vince McMahon talks about the Montreal screwjob incedent saying he was trying to be the biggest heel he could ever be. The truth is he did what he did because Bret Hart could NOT go to World Championship Wrestling with the World Wrestling Federation title belt.Why he didn't say this is a mystery. The second being the WWE's sour grapes towards Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara. The two are absolutly buried.

Between 1996 and the start of 2001 it was a great time to be a wrestling fan, with the Monday night wars in full swing, kayfabe being broken through the internet and sheets, on screen characters becoming alot more complex and cutting edge storylines that thought outside of the professinal wrestling world. Its no wonder why the industries popularity exploded at this time, it trully was the renaisance of professional wrestling.

With the purchase of WCW in 2001 by the the WWF the quality of the then WWF programing was poor. The WWF had an opportunity to do something classic, but with no competition the storyline of WWF verses WCW/ECW was a major flop. This DVD shows how the two companies needed each other more than they didn't need each other.

The Monday Night War began in September 95' when WCW's Senior Vice President, Eric Bischoff devised Monday Nitro. Deliberately going head-to-head with WWF Monday Night Raw, many fans and insiders predicted Bischoff to fail with his plan of Monday night domination. But he didn't. In fact, he actually beat the WWF in the ratings for an 18-month period, before the WWF bounced back in 98' and eventually became the true kings of Monday night wrestling (WCW went out of business in March 2001).

As this is a WWE production, there is obviously a large amount of WWE bias to it (for example, Vince McMahon is still convinced that he was battling Ted Turner's chequebook and nothing else). But there is still a surprising amount of credit given to the opposition from certain Superstars and WWE staff.

Eric Bischoff (who ran WCW during the ups and the downs) gives some very honest thoughts about the tactics he used to try and get viewers to switch of Raw. As this DVD will tell you, it was Bischoff who started the personal rivalry between the companies, by giving away pre-taped Raw results live on the air. Every other cheap shot is also included here (such as Madusa returning to WCW and binning the WWE Women's Title), as well as the WWE's (childish) reactions (i.e. the Billionaire Ted skits).

The birth of The NWO (which led to WCW's near 2-year dominace) is also featured as well as the birth of the Cruiserweight Division. Of course, WWE take great pride in describing how they came back (on the back of Austin VS McMahon) and maintained the lead for nearly 3 years.

That's one of the main problems with this DVD. WWE just can't wait to sing their own praises and put the boot to WCW in the process. There are also some shocking and hypocritical comments from Ric Flair to put up with, as well as some total garbage from Eddie Guerrero (and Gerald Briscoe's closing line is unbelievably stupid) Also most of the key moments of The War included can be seen elsewhere (e.g. DX invading WCW, Austin/McMahon etc).

The extras are pretty good. There's the Vince McMahon post-Montreal Double-Cross interview, DX VS LOD, British Bulldog and Owen Hart VS Stone Cold and Shawn Michaels, Chris Benoit VS Booker T (although that's a bit short), Goldberg VS Hollywood Hogan and more.

Overall, this isn't the unbiased, truthful account that it should be. If it was produced independently (like Beyond The Mat, or Wrestling With Shadows) then it may have turned out differently. But it's still a nice trip down memory lane for fans and rounds up the Monday Night War quite well. Worth buying for historical significance more than anything.