Review for WWE- Diamond Dallas Page DDP Positively Living

Diamond Dallas Page is one of the most popular wrestlers to ever step foot in the ring. The original ‘People’s Champion’, DDP’s story is amazing when you consider that this is a man whose first match was at the age of 35.

Now for those who are unsure why this is significant here are a few stats for you:

The youngest WWE Champion was 24 Years old, youngest WCW Champion was 23 Years old. John Cena was 22 years old when he stepped foot in the ring… Mick Foley actually retired (albeit semi officially) at the age of 35… the age DDP was when he started.

As with all WWE documentaries, we get a quick overlook of his early life and how he really had no experience of wrestling beyond an enjoyment of watching. His interaction with the business came socially with his club where he would encounter various wrestlers. To promote his club he created a character ‘Diamond Dallas Page’ and this lead to him being noticed by the AWA to be brought in as a manager and announcer before moving on to WCW.

It was here that he finally made the transition to the ring, a move that caused most people to laugh at him. As I said before, 35 was generally the twilight era of the wrestler’s career when they have already had their runs with the belt or in the main event. If you watch DDP’s career from this point you can see just how much drive and ability to learn and push himself that he had.

He went from a wrestler as green as they could be, but gradually over time got better and better until he became one of the best workers in the business winning PWI’s Most Improved Wrestler in 1996 and the year later was voted PWI Best Feud for his work with Macho Man Randy Savage.

As he progressed, he became more and more popular now accompanied by his amazingly beautiful Diamond Doll valet Kimberly, his real wife, the use of the finisher The Diamond Cutter, the Diamond hand gesture and he went on to some amazing matches. His popularity resulted in some major mainstream matches with the likes of NBA Superstar Karl Malone and also a perfect feud with the nWo.

This cumulated with him eventually winning the World Title at the age of forty-three (The oldest ever WCW Champion was Ric Flair at Fifty-One, but this was his sixteenth reign having first won a world title aged thirty-two). He went on to win the title three times before the closing of WCW.

After this, he decided to become part of the awful, awful, AWFUL Invasion angle which saw his storyline being him stalking the Undertaker’s wife. Nothing against Undertaker’s wife Sara, but compared to DDP’s actual wife Kimberly she was nowhere near as hot.

The only highlight from his WWE run was his ‘Positively Page’ character which led to a European Championship run and a great match against Christian at Wrestlemania X8 (where over a decade before he had appeared as the driver of a limo for Rhythm and Blues at Wrestlemania VI).

After the end of his in-ring career, he went on to create the amazingly successful DDP Yoga. This training and exercise system has helped so many people and become a worldwide phenomenon. Many WWE Superstars from the likes of Chris Jericho, Mick Foley and AJ Styles have had improved lives and extended careers thanks to his help.

Anyone who has watched the documentaries on Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts and Scott Hall will be aware of the amazing work he has done to help give these two their lives back and this documentary throughout shows just how nice DDP is as a person. Stone Cold Steve Austin says that Dallas is the one guy he could rely on for anything and I watched this documentary thinking that everything said about him was true.

The documentary ends with Triple H calling him to tell him he is going to be in the Hall of Fame and his reaction is just beautiful to watch. It is a shame that this wasn't released after he is inducted to make the set complete, so you will have to wait for the Wrestlemania 33 Bluray release for this.

The two disks are just brimming with extra matches and features. If you are a fan of DDP in the ring then you will love what is on offer here. The twelve extra ‘Stories’ are all interesting and could easily have been slotted into the main documentary. They do include a look at the embarrassing Jay leno angle and match, which I can understand why it was done because Leno was such a massive star. However, it did not make for a great match. We also get to watch DDP’s original demo reel which is fantastic to watch.

There are Twenty-Four matches from DDP’s career and I must say that if you ever want to watch the perfect progression of a wrestler from fresh, but green, to getting better and better, until you can see him becoming the wrestling superstar that we all came to love. He seems to have wrestled all the top stars of WCW from Ric Flair and Sting to Goldberg and Bret Hart. Most of his matches are great. They do include the two awful matches that feature Karl Malone and Jay Leno, though they are interesting from a curiosity point of view.

His best matches on the set are his Halloween Havoc 1998 match against Goldberg, which was one of the first real ‘wrestling matches’ of Goldberg and when you consider this was the same night as the awful Hogan/Warrior rematch you can understand why people rave about this match. Though with good reason as it is good. His Four Corner Match against Ric Flair, Hollywood Hulk Hogan and Sting is nice because it is the match where DDP won his first championship, however upon watching it is a very awkward match mainly due to the awful theatrics of Hogan.

There are some great matches against the likes of Eddie Guerrero, Bret Hart and more. Most of the matches are entertaining and there are only a few where I wanted to skip, but that was mainly due to who he was facing and not due to DDP. I would say any matches from 1996 and 1997 are definitely worth watching and any time DDP was in a US Championship match it is almost a perfect match up.

DDP: Positively Living is possibly one of the best documentary/match sets that WWE have produced. I enjoyed watching the rise and rise of Diamond Dallas Page and unlike a lot of people it is great to see someone who has not had to battle demons or been destroyed by the wrestling business. If you are someone who has ever wanted to do anything then you should watch this set and see someone who time and time again was told he couldn't do it… and then watch how DDP proved them all wrong.