BRM Reviews WWE Unauthorized (worst ever)
Posted: Jan 20th, '12, 01:49
This was not a WWE product. The DVD makes that very clear. It starts off with a Star Wars-style crawl of words claiming that the people making the DVD (some guy named Michael Bouson) contacted WWE to try to get them on board, and WWE responded with a threatening legal letter. Well... by the time I had finished with this DVD, it is quite apparent why. This is perhaps the worst wrestling-related product ever. It does not deliver on its promises and is disgustingly inaccurate.
It starts off with an utterly moronic attempt at comedy which real makes it clear how seriously you should take this DVD. If you actually tried to take it seriously, the ridiculous sound and visual effects will make sure that you don't. Which is a good thing, considering the content of this cow-pie.
The few people featured at all on this DVD who have been relevant in the WWE most recently were short clips of Candice Michelle and Chris Masters, and what they said was so irrelevant to the DVD that you get the feeling that they only used those clips to try to validate the DVD by having someone modern. Hell... look at the clips of those two: It looks like the guy making this DVD just walked up to them with his video camera in a club and started asking questions, rather than scheduling an actual interview. The people on this DVD who have had any influence on wrestling at all are Tito Santana, Jesse Hernandez, and Vince Russo. With all three of these (especially Russo) it seems like a lot of their statements were either taken out of context, or like they took the one negative statement between a bunch positive ones (which are conveniently left off of the DVD).
This DVD constantly made claims about issues within the wrestling business which most wrestling fans know are true, but never provided any details or evidence. For example, it said that there is a lot of backstabbing going on backstage (with clips of Tito Santana and Bobcat both alluding to it in very broad terms), then just moved on to the next subject. It the same thing for mental health of the wrestlers. To wresting fans, this provides no new information, and to non-wrestling fans looking for an informative documentary, it provides no evidence of the claims that it makes.
Its discussion of injuries really amounted to nothing more than "injuries happen," but this DVD tried to put it in the most negative light possible. It just had a bunch of clips of some guy from some Olympic medal commission talk about the fact that wrestlers can get injured, then had some indy guys and Tito just list off injuries that they have had and pain they have now because of it. This DVD, though, tried to make it seem as if they injuries are unique to pro wrestling. It also tried to blame the WWE for backyard wrestling, and they played about two straight minutes of clips from what, if you look carefully, is only about two different backyard feds.
It claimed that, to win the Monday Night War, the WWF started using Hollywood writers, which it then implies were Russo & Ferrara by taking a clip from their interview with Russo out of context. To anyone who knows anything about wrestling, though, it is clear that when Russo says that before him, it was always "wrestlers writing for wrestlers" he is referring to the fact that he and Ferrara were not wrestlers. Ferrara had a background in TV production, and Russo hosted a wrestling radio show and wrote for the WWF Magazine. Neither of them were ever TV or movie writers.
Then they got to the section about the Screwjob. Eric Francis of the Calgary Sun (co-author of Broken Harts) constantly claims that Bret wanted to leave the WWF with the WWF Title, which according to every source on the issue (including Vince McMahon, HBK, and Bret himself), is an outright lie. Just about the only thing this DVD is good for is learning how to manipulate clips from interviews to make it appear as if your point is correct. They bounce from Francis' BS claim that Bret wanted to leave with the belt to Russo telling the truth talking about the creative team trying to come up with scenarios for Bret to lose the belt to Shawn and Bret rejecting them, the go right back to Francis, reinforcing his phony claim by taking Russo's words out of context. It is also good for a crash course in bad continuity, as Russo then talks about Bret being willing to hand the belt over to Shawn on Raw, which contradicts Francis' claim that Bret wanted to leave the company with the belt. Russo, of course, then takes credit for coming up with the idea for the Screwjob, shooting what little credit he had to begin with.
And then we got to the point where you honestly cannot take anything on this DVD at its word anymore: "Michaels has him pinned. It was actually a gentle hold. Bret thought he was going to circle his way out of it, and then the referee- Earl Hebner, I think- came in and called it. 1-2-3. He had lost."
That's right, ladies and gentlemen. This DVD claims that the finish to the WWF Title Match between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series 1997 in Montreal... was a pinfall.
I was actually going to stop watching here, but I decided to watch on, because I was on the john at the time, and had nothing better to do. I was immediately made to regret this decision when the DVD claimed that Vince McMahon became a character "and dubbed himself 'the Evil Commissioner.'" and
I stopped watching the DVD. This DVD gets a rating of "So bad I couldn't sit through it." I have seen three quarters of this DVD, and it is clearly a pack of lies and BS. A more accurate name for this DVD would have been "slandering Vince and Bret." Even if the things on this DVD were true, its childish visual and audio effects made it seem 8th rate at best. Not only should this DVD not be bought, but all copies of it should be burned its producers should be ordered to return the money they made off of it and reimburse anyone who watched for time wasted as well as the cost of the product.
It starts off with an utterly moronic attempt at comedy which real makes it clear how seriously you should take this DVD. If you actually tried to take it seriously, the ridiculous sound and visual effects will make sure that you don't. Which is a good thing, considering the content of this cow-pie.
The few people featured at all on this DVD who have been relevant in the WWE most recently were short clips of Candice Michelle and Chris Masters, and what they said was so irrelevant to the DVD that you get the feeling that they only used those clips to try to validate the DVD by having someone modern. Hell... look at the clips of those two: It looks like the guy making this DVD just walked up to them with his video camera in a club and started asking questions, rather than scheduling an actual interview. The people on this DVD who have had any influence on wrestling at all are Tito Santana, Jesse Hernandez, and Vince Russo. With all three of these (especially Russo) it seems like a lot of their statements were either taken out of context, or like they took the one negative statement between a bunch positive ones (which are conveniently left off of the DVD).
This DVD constantly made claims about issues within the wrestling business which most wrestling fans know are true, but never provided any details or evidence. For example, it said that there is a lot of backstabbing going on backstage (with clips of Tito Santana and Bobcat both alluding to it in very broad terms), then just moved on to the next subject. It the same thing for mental health of the wrestlers. To wresting fans, this provides no new information, and to non-wrestling fans looking for an informative documentary, it provides no evidence of the claims that it makes.
Its discussion of injuries really amounted to nothing more than "injuries happen," but this DVD tried to put it in the most negative light possible. It just had a bunch of clips of some guy from some Olympic medal commission talk about the fact that wrestlers can get injured, then had some indy guys and Tito just list off injuries that they have had and pain they have now because of it. This DVD, though, tried to make it seem as if they injuries are unique to pro wrestling. It also tried to blame the WWE for backyard wrestling, and they played about two straight minutes of clips from what, if you look carefully, is only about two different backyard feds.
It claimed that, to win the Monday Night War, the WWF started using Hollywood writers, which it then implies were Russo & Ferrara by taking a clip from their interview with Russo out of context. To anyone who knows anything about wrestling, though, it is clear that when Russo says that before him, it was always "wrestlers writing for wrestlers" he is referring to the fact that he and Ferrara were not wrestlers. Ferrara had a background in TV production, and Russo hosted a wrestling radio show and wrote for the WWF Magazine. Neither of them were ever TV or movie writers.
Then they got to the section about the Screwjob. Eric Francis of the Calgary Sun (co-author of Broken Harts) constantly claims that Bret wanted to leave the WWF with the WWF Title, which according to every source on the issue (including Vince McMahon, HBK, and Bret himself), is an outright lie. Just about the only thing this DVD is good for is learning how to manipulate clips from interviews to make it appear as if your point is correct. They bounce from Francis' BS claim that Bret wanted to leave with the belt to Russo telling the truth talking about the creative team trying to come up with scenarios for Bret to lose the belt to Shawn and Bret rejecting them, the go right back to Francis, reinforcing his phony claim by taking Russo's words out of context. It is also good for a crash course in bad continuity, as Russo then talks about Bret being willing to hand the belt over to Shawn on Raw, which contradicts Francis' claim that Bret wanted to leave the company with the belt. Russo, of course, then takes credit for coming up with the idea for the Screwjob, shooting what little credit he had to begin with.
And then we got to the point where you honestly cannot take anything on this DVD at its word anymore: "Michaels has him pinned. It was actually a gentle hold. Bret thought he was going to circle his way out of it, and then the referee- Earl Hebner, I think- came in and called it. 1-2-3. He had lost."
That's right, ladies and gentlemen. This DVD claims that the finish to the WWF Title Match between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series 1997 in Montreal... was a pinfall.
I was actually going to stop watching here, but I decided to watch on, because I was on the john at the time, and had nothing better to do. I was immediately made to regret this decision when the DVD claimed that Vince McMahon became a character "and dubbed himself 'the Evil Commissioner.'" and
I stopped watching the DVD. This DVD gets a rating of "So bad I couldn't sit through it." I have seen three quarters of this DVD, and it is clearly a pack of lies and BS. A more accurate name for this DVD would have been "slandering Vince and Bret." Even if the things on this DVD were true, its childish visual and audio effects made it seem 8th rate at best. Not only should this DVD not be bought, but all copies of it should be burned its producers should be ordered to return the money they made off of it and reimburse anyone who watched for time wasted as well as the cost of the product.