| From WorldWrestlingInsanity.com Canadian Bulldog
So here's the deal - I have a ton of DVDs that have been sitting on my rack for weeks... months... in some cases, years... and it's about time I reviewed them. My vow to you stupid marks is that I will conquer about a dozen DVD collections this month, both here and on my Complete and Utter Bulldog audio show on ClubWWI.com. Thus, the powers-that-be have declared:
Previously reviewed on the Rack:
Believe it or not, the release of Stone Cold later this month (International Bulldog's DVD Rack Month, in fact) will be the first full-fledged documentary WWE has done on Stone Cold Steve Austin to date . Sure, there are (at least) five different Stone Cold videos on the market, but none of them really give you a total picture of who the guy was and why his contributions to the business were so important. Unfortunately, neither does this collection. To be perfectly fair, this was originally a 2004 UPN special that told The Texas Rattlesnake's story. After its release, WWE decided to repackage it as they did with Eddie Guerrero's Cheating Death, Stealing Life and throw a few extra matches our way. The special is also based on Austin's autobiography of the same name. The fact that it was a made-for-TV special means the production values are slightly slicker than most WWE documentaries. Less wasted space between interviews, tighter cuts and more distinctive theme music. The story itself is a familiar one: Steve growing up with his family in Victoria, Texas, learning to wrestle from the late "Gentleman" Chris Adams, travelling from Memphis to Dallas to WCW to ECW and finally to the World Wrestling Federation, where he'd go on to be a household name. What I like about this documentary is that it covers pretty much Austin's entire wrestling career and talks a wide variety of people, including contemporaries such as Mick Foley, Eric Bischoff and Vince McMahon, but also his siblings, ex-wife Jeannie Clark Adams (a/k/a Lady Blossom) and his even his young daughters. There are also informative bonus segments where you, too, can learn how to peel potatoes and shave you head just like Stone Cold does. At one disc, The Stone Cold Truth is a little on the skimpy side. About the only bonus match worth checking out is a tag team match where Austin and Brian Pillman (The Hollywood Blondes) take on Ric Flair and Arn Anderson. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot here.
While the set certainly isn't horrible, WWE could have done far better here. The Legacy of Stone Cold Steve Austin, which came out a couple of years llater, if much better in terms of overall content, though it doesn't really have much of a documentary. And that's the bottom line, 'cause Bulldog said so!
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