WWE - Unauthorized (DVD)

...the stacks of boring, predictable WWE pay per views and events that stood out merely for it's name and caption alone - 'WWE Unauthorized' which apparently is 'totally unofficial and uncensored!'. Liking the sound of it and its supposedly dark and shady topics masked by the WWE for o so long, I paid and went on my merry way home to test the DVD's theory of being just that.

CONTENT & COMMENTATORS
The DVD is made up of six sections, ...
...with some of the top WWE stars of the time, gives his frank and cynical view of the 'entertainment' value of wrestling, which is by far the most entertaining of all the commentators' opinions. However, he does have a very bias spin on the whole thing and as the co-author of the book 'Broken Harts: The Life and Death of Owen Hart', it could be seen that he has an extremely narrow focus on here and his presence is merely to shoot the company down at ... more

There are days when I feel that I just have to buy something new. Call me a shopaholic but I really do have days like that; days where I could traipse around the shops in search of the next thing to keep me amused. Well, for all of a couple of hours at least.

So, I was in HMV one day and had that urge to reach for my purse once again. Oh dear. I'd just gotten a bunch of CDs for Christmas, so I wasn't really looking for anything that was purely audio. And yet, I had got loads and loads of DVDs as presents too, but they were mainly series that you couldn't watch in their entirety in one hit.

Then, I wondered over to the sports section in hope of finding a near interesting wrestling DVD. Truth to be told, I'd nearly given up with the 'sport' ages ago; it just wasn't ticking many of the boxes for me anymore and I longed for the edgy, gruff characters of the late 1990's and early 00's instead of the newer but bland soap opera storylines and bimbo women who can't wrestle to save their lives.

There was one DVD in the stacks of boring, predictable WWE pay per views and events that stood out merely for it's name and caption alone - 'WWE Unauthorized' which apparently is 'totally unofficial and uncensored!'. Liking the sound of it and its supposedly dark and shady topics masked by the WWE for o so long, I paid and went on my merry way home to test the DVD's theory of being just that.

CONTENT & COMMENTATORS
The DVD is made up of six sections, chronicling the life and times of a company which has had its fair share of ups and downs from the very start. They are:

1: The Beginning
2: Pay Per View
3: Responsibilities
4: Underground Wrestling
5: The Montreal Screwjob
6: Owen Hart R.I.P

Produced in 2006/7, it's important to note that many of the issues that are addressed on the DVD are a little bit dated, with the exception of the last chapter. Lasting about one hour long, each section gets roughly ten minutes of time and is narrated by four men, some of who have an in depth knowledge of the wrestling industry and some that don't.

The most notable of them is Vince Russo, a man that up until his release from the company in the latter part of October 1999 has gone on to be a scriptwriter for rival companies, the now defunct WCW and the latest big American wrestling promotion, TNA which is a company that many people feel with go the same way as WCW due to poor booking and plot decisions.

Vince's appearance on the DVD though is almost essential; as a man who booked many zany things for the WWE, it gave him a chance to express his ideas more fully to the viewer from his first session with the company all the way back in 1996. His opinions are most valuable in the final two sections; 'The Montreal Screwjob' and 'R.I.P Owen Hart'. This was at the time when he was still booking for the company and was backstage when a lot of the incidences expressed in section five occurred between the main perpetrators, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels.

Shaun Assael, the author of 'Sex, Lie and Headlocks' as well as editor of the sports magazine, ESPN, gives the audience his spin on everything, his presence being particularly useful in some of the earlier stages of the wrestling industry, as shown on this DVD. Eric Francis, a journalist for the Calgary Sun who has worked with some of the top WWE stars of the time, gives his frank and cynical view of the 'entertainment' value of wrestling, which is by far the most entertaining of all the commentators' opinions. However, he does have a very bias spin on the whole thing and as the co-author of the book 'Broken Harts: The Life and Death of Owen Hart', it could be seen that he has an extremely narrow focus on here and his presence is merely to shoot the company down at every opportunity.

Tito Santana, a former WWE wrestler from the mid-eighties to the early 1990's, looks back on life on the road and the consequences of some of the more foolish actions on the part of the WWE performers. It is important to remember that at the time of production, Tito was still strongly affiliated with the company; in 2004, he was inducted into their Hall of Fame, marking his influence on many younger wrestlers in the industry and also keeping his name alive amongst new and old WWE fans alike.

As well as these four men who commentated on the WWE and its storylines, there was some input from many woman wrestlers, most notably Cindy Bobcat, apparently the companies first female Hardcore Champion which nobody knew about!

I was a little shocked to see that Candice Michelle had been included on this DVD; she is a current WWE employee, and also a strong representative of the brand at the moment, considering her Playboy cover a couple of years ago and other questionable magazine appearances. Also, one of the then up-and-coming wrestlers of the time, Chris Masters, was included on the set. The two WWE employee's appearances were clearly random, looking as if they were set in a more relaxed social setting as opposed to the one on one interview structures that the other commentators had done.

After a short introduction as to why the DVD wasn't authorized by the WWE (including a very satirical allusion to the Star Wars films), the one disk set begins it's slandering, I mean, opinionated look at the company known worldwide as World Wrestling Entertainment.

SECTION 1: THE BEGINNING
Starting off with the less glamorous side of professional wrestling, 'The Beginning' pretty much does what it says on the box; rushes through with a brief history of the company, right back to the days when Vince McMahon Senior was responsible for the company to when his son, Vince McMahon Junior , took over. In my opinion, it contains stuff that most wrestling fans with a moderate amount of knowledge knew anyway and wasn't all that interesting to watch as it mainly talked about the companies was of expanding the industry into a mainstream, national sport rather than something that was regional and divided by states. It was just used to set the scene for some of the darker elements of the set.

SECTION 2: PAY PER VIEW
The pay per view side of wrestling is the one that is essential to the newer market; it keeps a constant source of money coming in for the company and is meant to be something that keeps the paying fans intrigued by the product. For me, it certainly hasn't done that over the past several years and it didn't come across as being all that important to the makers of this set either! Again, this section did very little for anybody and lacked any real, groundbreaking information to credit the disk as being 'Unauthorized'. To be honest, it was a bit dull and it wouldn't have ruined it for me if I could have been bothered to find the remote and skip the section!

SECTION 3: RESPONSIBILITIES
Finally getting onto something a bit grittier, 'Responsibilities' looked back at the time when things were certainly more difficult for the WWE performers, times when they couldn't afford to pay for their own hotels at night so instead had to sleep in cares and kill their bodies in order to make ends meat (that's why a careers councillor is so important, kids!). Santana's input here is great, and definitely provides a more thorough insight into the life of a wrestler in the 70's and 80's. The topic of the 1992/93 steroid trial once again arises, meaning that nothing too groundbreaking was discussed in this chapter either.

SECTION 4: UNDERGROUND WRESTLING
This is as up-to-date as the DVD gets in all honesty and even then it's just talking about some crappy, back garden wrestling that apparently influenced a very young generation of fans via their watching of the WWE product. To be fair - as with the biggest majority of the footage shown - it had little or nothing to do with anything on the disk and was mainly used as a way to further slander the company. However, the irony here is that whilst the commentators were condemning the WWE for their use of more violent imagery and weapons galore, this DVD was rated an 'E', meaning that it was exempt from classification. Ummm...

SECTION 5: THE MONTREAL SCREWJOB
Even if you weren't the biggest WWE (then known as WWF) fan in the November of 1997, you may have heard of the incident known affectionately by fans as 'The Montreal Screwjob'. This next chapter focuses entirely on the events that occurred in the ring and backstage at one of the company's main pay per views of the year, Survivor Series, set in Canada. As if we hadn't heard it enough already! Again, there was very little new information given by any of the commentators here, with Eric Francis, the guy from the Calgary Sun, even stating that he wasn't aware of what had happened at the event, despite of the fact that he worked with Bret Hart, the man who got 'screwed' out of the WWE Championship! To me, it felt like it was a section added just to attract people to buying the disk, thinking that they'd be getting some new, unclassified information out of it. Unfortunately, I was one of those people and feel extremely cheated by it...

SECTION 6: OWEN HART R.I.P
The final chapter of the DVD was about a topic that managed to get a lot of mainstream media attention, following the events of the 23rd May 1999. At the WWE's pay per view, 'Over The Edge', one performer plunged to his death from 78 feet above the ring, passing away as the result of 'blunt chest trauma' from the impact of hitting the turnbuckle, the pouch covered over metal at the corners of the ring. It was a sad tale of how Owen Hart passed away and one handled with more sensitivity than I expected by the producers and commentators. Vince Russo's feelings towards what had occurred highlighted how the Late Owen had a terrible fear of heights but had to perform the stunt for fear of losing his potential main event spot as a part of his new superhero type gimmick, the Blue Blazer. Arguably the saddest part of the programme but - once again - lacking in any new information.

PRODUCTION AND INFORMATION
Considering this disk was made without any classification purposes, I do think that some of the on screen graphics that were chosen were slightly inappropriate. When introducing a new speaker or commentator, there is a large, bald wrestler that randomly pops up and wacks the screen with a chair! Now if that isn't encouraging violence, I don't know what is!

The video footage, with exceptions of the individual interviews, is somewhat grainy and irrelevant. When discussing wrestlers and other influential people within the stories and sections, the biggest majority of the images were out of date or completely unrealistic for the time of discussion. I did also get a little bit bored with seeing the same picture explode on the screen every two minutes, discussing the same people and storylines.

Also, the video footage used was not of any WWE matches but of old indie promotions or from various other live events. This isn't surprising considering the fact that the WWE didn't sanction the release of the DVD but I did think that some of the footage used was just shockingly appalling and had little to nothing to do with the events of the DVD.

That leads me onto something much worse than the dodgy footage; much of the information on this DVD was wrong! Yep, that's right - a true, insightful documentary that got many key elements of the stories abysmally wrong! Most notably of these is some of the more obvious and widely known information of the Montreal Screwjob section in which Shawn Michaels apparently pinned nemesis Bret Hart as opposed to him actually making him submit with Hart's own finishing manoeuvre! Mistakes like this are frankly inexcusable and make the rest of the opinions and so-called facts stated on this set completely questionable.

ARTWORK AND ON SCREEN PRESENTATION
To be fair, this element is about as far as this DVD gets in terms of being Unauthorized and dark! The front cover, of an abandoned and seemingly broken wrestling ring, is very effective and does make it seem like the DVD and its production will be of a high standard. However, flipping over to the back case, the programmes true colours are there for all to see; it all looks a bit Mickey Mouse in terms of the presentation although the blurb was good enough originally to persuade me to purchase it.

The on screen presentation too is good with the navigation being for the most part easy and simple to find your way around and onto which chapter you want. Its region is a '0' which means anyone anywhere could watch it - as long as they speak English because that is its language of choice.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY (JUST IN CASE YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO WASTE YOUR MONEY ON!)
I managed to get my copy from my local HMV store for £7, which I would say is too much for it! However, in online outlets, the prices are as followed:

Play.com: £5.99 (temporarily out of stock/free delivery)
Amazon.co.uk: £3.97 (eligible for free delivery)
Zavvi.co.uk: £6.00 (free delivery)
DVD.co.uk: £5.49 (free delivery)

OVERALL
To be fair, if you have a moderate to good amount of knowledge of the wrestling industry, than this DVD is for the most part a waste of time. With most of the simple but key facts being wrong and the video footage being completely irrelevant, it makes the whole production seem a mess and outdated. The furthest in the 'history' of the WWE the disk ventures to go is mid 1999 which to be honest isn't that productive as many of the stories have been told over and over again before.

It may be a good DVD to get some new wrestling watchers up to speed with some of the more significant events of the last century but then again the whole production is tarnished because of its bias nature against the WWE. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting anything that would be overly favourable towards the company but the critical nature that many of the on screen commentators chose to adopt in their one on one interviews might leave a bitter taste in some viewer's mouths.

However, this might be the fault of the WWE though because they refused to have anything to do with the DVD. If they'd allowed for a couple of their workers to be a part of the production, in a more professional atmosphere other than a club or whatever, then it may have made for much more interesting viewing and left the audience with more of a reason to make up their own mind about the product. Alas, that didn't happen and the DVD was released anyway.

All in all, not good and a complete and utter waste of time and money! 

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