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Digital Rewind: Pro Wrestling Nostalgia Pays
By Sheldon Goldberg | January 8, 2006
Thanks to the advent of the DVD and digital cable it seems like everything old is new again. The WWE has given us a whole slew of DVD releases incorporating their vast library of matches from the Crockett era NWA, WCW, ECW, AWA and soon World Class Championship Wrestling. The WWE 24/7 service has been showing old Madison Square Garden, Boston Garden and Philadelphia Spectrum house shows from as far back as the late 70’s. Indeed, it seems that the WWE has woken up to the fact that nostalgia has value – big value.
Here’s an interesting fact that puts things into context. WWE made more money on the 3 disc “Ultimate Ric Flair Collection†DVD than it cost them to buy the assets of WCW. There’s gold in them there videos, kids!
It also represents a noteworthy change in the WWE’s attitude toward the past. Up until recently, the legacies of yesteryear were largely ignored, since comparisons with the current product were not welcome. The general feeling was it was more important to sell tickets and pay per views today than relive the exploits of past stars that are too told to come back and mean anything significant at the box office. Today, there is simply too much money on the table to continue to ignore the past or even keep it buried in the archives.
In fact, WWE has bought up just about every library of American pro wrestling there is. WWE 24/7 is there own personal ESPN Classic with enough potential program material to last for decades. There are some that consider this a heresy and cry out that the history of pro wrestling will be rewritten McMahon-style.
If anything, the WWE produced documentary style DVD’s have been as respectful to the past as one can reasonably expect. I’m not expecting to see tributes to Jim Crockett, Sam Munchnik or others, but the production and the detail that has gone into some of their DVD releases has been exceptional.
For those of you that long for an alternative to the current WWE product, the answer may be as close as your DVD player. Some of my personal favorites of the WWE DVD’s are:
The Life & Death of The Road Warriors: This is one of the most compelling documentary pieces they have produced. The Roadies changed the business in profound ways and the stories of Mike Hegstrand and Joe Laurinitis are fascinating viewing. The matches included are a darn good representation of the one of the most influential tag teams of all time.
The Rise & Fall of ECW: Stunning for its honesty regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the company as led by Paul Heyman. While some major players, such as Tod Gordon and Eddie Gilbert are slighted in the documentary, it is well worth your time as a chronicle of a pro wrestling phenomenon unlike any other.
The Greatest Wrestling Stars of the 80’s: 15 mini-bios of the top stars of the 80’s, along with great matches from the era.
The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection: A chronicle of the greatest wrestler of his era, lovingly produced with tons of great matches and moments.
I would be remiss if I did not talk about some of the non-WWE wrestling DVD’s on the market and some you should definitely look for. Yes Virginia, there is older wrestling footage out there that WWE doesn’t own. A few notables to look for:
Wrestling Gold Special Edition 5 DVD set: 10 hours of classic matches from the 70’s and 80’s with an alternate commentary track by Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer and Jim Cornette. There are plenty of great stars and classic bouts here, but this is a must have for the commentary, which is a history lesson from Professors Meltzer and Cornette.
Mike Graham presents The Best of Classic Championship Wrestling, Vol. 1: Mike Graham has put together matches and vintage clips from his father’s Championship Wrestling from Florida archives. There are numerous volumes of these in stores under the Turnbuckle Memories banner. There is also a two disc set called Wild Men of Wrestling from the same archives that is an excellent buy as well. Florida was one of the greatest territories of all time and while the selection of matches is spotty, there are many, many gems.
Kevin Von Erich presents The Best of the Von Erichs: A single volume released prior to the sale of the World Class library to WWE. The match selection leaves something to be desired, but for those of you that may be too young to remember World Class Championship Wrestling in its heyday, this is a glimpse into another pro wrestling phenomenon, the likes of which will never be seen again. The story of the Von Erichs is almost too unbelievable to be to be true. But the legacy that lives in the matches and that incredible Dallas Sportatorium atmosphere is something that must be seen to be appreciated. It will be interesting to see what WWE does with this collection.
Sheldon Goldberg is the owner of New England Championship Wrestling
Topics: All Topics, Pro-Wrestling, Sheldon Goldberg, WWE | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It’s funny cause I have all the dvs mentioned here except for the wrestling gold set and the Von Erich stuff. The one sad part of Vince’s owning virtual all of wrestling’s media library is that from now it’s all gonna be WWEcentric. Basically WWE is the wrestling Europe of American History.
Rich,
I agree with you to a point. WWE is absolutely going to put their spin of things. Another series of DVD’s I neglected to mention is the Classic St. Louis series, which you can get at http://www.highspots.com. It’s a shame that more of the St. Louis TV was not saved, because that was one of the great territories, but what is offered in these DVD’s is great stuff.
As leery as I was of Vince’s purchase of the material from other promotions, I have been very happy with what has been offered up so far. My only gripe is that he didn’t purchase more of Southern territory libraries. Shel, any chance that Vince might have recovered the “missing” footage from Ole’s garage. BTW, greetings from VT.
Hi Chris,
I don’t think Vince got to Ole’s garage because he doesn’t have Gorilla around anymore as his policeman. (Anyone fanmiliar with the Black Saturday story will appreciate that comment.)
I have seen some tape traders that have some of the late 70’s/early 80’s Georgia and Mid-Atlantic stuff. There is lots of Memphis stuff floating around too. Ebay is a good place to look for some of that on DVD.
Many promoters back in the territory days failed to save their tapes due to the cost and due to the mistaken idea that they would have no future value.
The major libraries that have not been snapped up by WWE are Mike Graham’s Florida stuff and what he’s released is just a small fraction of what he has, and the Houston Paul Boesch fottage, which I beleive is held up in estate litigation between Boesch’s widow Valerie and his nephew Peter Berkholz, who I beleive has claimed ownership. The Bill Watts UWF library is owned by Watts’ ex-wife who got it in a divorce settlement, much to the chagrin of the Cowboy. The Harts still own the Stampede library and very little of that has been put out on home video.
Something that I hink would be of interest to American fans is some of the major Japanese company footage involving American stars that routinely is shown on the Samurai Network in Japan, but has never been commercially released here.
Will vince purchase wccw footage? stampede? uwf? global? uswa? florida? st louis? can u please tell me bout the current staus of any sale if possible?