WWE's The Monday Night War

 

By Don Carpenter
http://www.livejournal/users/iowawriter

 

The Monday Night War DVD is like a playoff football team that lost to the eventual champion is a close game. It was good but fell short of being great.

I like a lot of things about this DVD. The interviews are outstanding as is the continuity of the documentary. It covers about everything the Internet has talked about in regards to the war. The highlights in the documentary are important moments and help tell the story.

My main criticism of this DVD is that there was only one disc. If The Monday Night War was the most important part of pro wrestling history and everybody’s career depended on the outcome, shouldn’t that be worthy of a three-disc set? I’m also very disappointed in the extras. They’re fine themselves but many don’t represent the very best of the War. They’re also not in chronological order. The best original extra I’ve seen on a WWE DVD so far-“The Last Nitro”-should’ve been the last thing we could see.

(I realize that we can watch the extras in whatever order we want. It just seems a little unprofessional to me.)

The first cool thing about the documentary is the narrator. I don’t know his name-because WWE never puts any credits with their shows-but we’ve heard him narrate Frontline and other PBS documentaries. This is one time that it was cool to have someone from the mainstream be part of wrestling.

We start with what wrestling was like before Monday Night Raw started in 1993 and what Raw was like at The Manhattan Center. Eric Bischoff is, of course, featured prominently during this film and from the start he’s different than he is on any other DVD. On the other shows, Eric seems annoyed to be there because he’s getting criticized tremendously. Here, Eric wants to tell the story that he was such a part of. He smiles about a thousand times more and even talks about the bad times in a mature way.

. I didn’t have cable at the time so it was wonderful to see things like Lex Luger showing up for the first Nitro, Scott Hall invading WCW and the Last Nitro. Things that I had seen were fantastic to see again. That however, does again point out the flaw that this is only a one disc DVD.

Many fans have pointed out that this story is told from the WWE point of view. That’s life. I would assume that if the NFL did a documentary about the USFL, the NFL POV would be seen. It’s also a criticism that isn’t entirely accurate. For the most part, everything I’ve read everywhere has opinions represented on this film.

I disagree with both Bischoff and Vince McMahon each about one of their comments. Eric disagrees that he lost lots of WCW money while he was running things. There are plenty of places on the Internet and in the book, “The Death of WCW” that point out the foolish ways Eric spent money and how much money was lost. Eric says that WCW made money and it did for a short time.

Vince McMahon says that his business philosophy is, “To help himself-not hurt the other guy.” His point is that Ted Turner wanted to hurt the other guy. I’m sorry but I don’t think that’s always been true. Having said that, I can’t think of many examples where he obviously did try to hurt someone with the exception of the story that Ric Flair told in his autobiography about McMahon trying to sign Harley Race before Starrcade’83. That would’ve hurt Jim Crockett more than helped him.

Like in the Road Warriors DVD, Jim Cornette is outstanding. His thoughts about the start of Nitro and Lex Luger, Hall and Kevin Nash leaving are most interesting.

The nWo is covered and is done well although there aren’t any comments about it from any of the founding members. There’s not much about them said that I didn’t know.

Steve Austin becoming a star is covered very well. There’s some footage I haven’t seen such as Austin’s 1996 King of the Ring promo and Owen Hart’s piledriver. Cornette and Jim Ross talk about the process that made Austin a star.

The Montreal Screwjob is discussed and that leads into the start of the Attitude era. Mick Foley subtly criticizes McMahon for that night. Cornette talks about The Rock turning heel and getting over as mark-out-for footage airs.

The chapter entitled “Mr. McMahon and Austin also has plenty of mark out footage including the night Vince challenged for the World title.

DeGeneration X II is given some time and that’s cool as they were a big part of why the WWF started dominating. I would’ve like to have heard more about how DX started and how they were over seeing how that discussion was given to Austin and The Rock.

“WWE wins a round” and “WWE takes the lead” discusses that with Cornette and Ross talking about how the WWF was onto something special and did something with it. Ross says WCW didn’t make any new stars except Bill Goldberg and then Bischoff talks about Goldberg becoming a star.

The film then talks about Ric Flair coming back to WCW and shows part of his famous “Fire me” promo. Bischoff tries to explain what he was trying to accomplish with Flair, booking wise.

We then get deeper into the demise of the nWo and WCW refusing to push young stars. Eddie Guerreo has a wonderful quote about how, “You didn’t know what month it was,” in WCW because of the staleness of the nWo.

Big Show and McMahon talk about acquiring talent from WCW in Show and Guerreo, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn.

Eric Bischoff talks about his professional faults and how he was fired. We then talk about Vince Russo but not any longer than necessary. Benoit does a nice job talking about how excited he was about Russo coming to WCW and then reality hitting about Russo’s talents.

“The Last Chapter” has Bischoff talking about his attempt to buy WCW and of course the last days of the war.

The first extra is Austin and Michaels versus DaveyBoy Smith and Owen Hart. Decent enough match but not great.

Next is Austin stunning McMahon. Vince doesn’t get enough credit for his speech that set up getting stunned.

Jim Cornette talks about his promos that aired during Raw. The actual promo is amazing and is from October of 1997.

McMahon’s “Bret Screwed Bret” promo with Ross airs. It’s fun to see and Vince makes some valid points. But I remember it being longer.

The next extra is about D-X invading WCW. It brings back memories and has commentary from Triple H, Billy Gunn, Sean Waltman; Bruce Pritchard-who helped planned the day, Eric Bischoff and Kevin Nash. Trips talks about how WCW should have let their jeep (guys, I don’t know much about military things, but that was not a tank you were riding around in) into the arena and Nitro could’ve started with D-X on their show. Imagine what that would’ve been like.

“The Last Nitro” extra is outstanding. Shane Helms, Lance Storm, Billy Kidman, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff do a fine job talking about their emotions about that night. It you let yourself mark out, you’ll become a little emotional during this.

“nWo in the Production Truck” is cool to see but like people talk about matches, I don’t think it’s aged well in comparison to other “shoot” moments.

Next, Bischoff challenges McMahon. A very good promo.

Chris Benoit versus Booker T is next and considering all I had heard about the program these two had, I was disappointed in this match.

Goldberg versus Hogan was better than I remember it.

Next is Flair’s comeback promo. The best part is the crowd’s reaction.

The final extra is Rick Rude appearing on both shows on November 17. Eight years later, it’s still amazing to see.

 

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