Review of WWE: Rey Mysterio - The Biggest Little Man (3 Discs)

Introduction

Standing at all of 5ft 3in tall, and weighing just 10st, one would have thought that the least suitable career choice for Rey Mysterio Jr. (real name Oscar Gutierrez) would be "professional wrestler". After all, if there is one thing that WWE has been notable for in the last twenty years, it has been the sheer size of its "superstars".

But wrestling has always been a little bit different in Mexico, just over the border from Mysterio`s birthplace of San Diego, California. There, Lucha Libre, as it is called, is based much less on size, but on speed and high-flying manoeuvres. Therefore, having wanted to be a wrestler since his early childhood, Mysterio was trained by his wrestler uncle Rey Misterio Snr, debuting at the stunning age of just 14.

Known at the time as Colibri (Spanish for "hummingbird"), he began using the name Rey Misterio Jr ("King of Mystery") four years later, in 1993. It was at this point that his career really began to take off, becoming one of the most popular wrestlers in the Mexican AAA promotion, before being brought to the USA by Paul Heyman, then running the independent ECW promotion in Philadelphia.

Up until this point, lightweight wrestlers such as Mysterio, and even much bigger performers such as Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit, were considered much too small to wrestle in America`s "Big Two", WWF and WCW. But with their exceptional performances in ECW, WCW began to take notice, and eventually raided ECW`s talent pool, thus bringing to national television some of best wrestling matches seen in years.

WCW was sold to WWF in 2001, but Mysterio did not appear on WWF television until one year later. Over time, Mysterio`s popularity began to transcend the Cruiserweight (lightweight) division, and he began appearing against the company`s heavyweight wrestlers. In 2006, this led to the remarkable story of Mysterio capturing the company`s World Heavyweight Title, a feat that completely broke the company`s "big man" ethos.

"The Biggest Little Man", then, is a retrospective of Rey Mysterio`s career, harking back as far as his first pay-per-view performance, on a AAA/WCW co-promoted event in 1994. There are a total of 29 matches available, bringing us up to 2006, at which point Mysterio suffered a knee injury that would keep him out until the summer of 2007.

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen PAL, and is very good for a DVD of this genre. The match footage spans over a period of twelve years, but looks very good no matter the time period.

With so much footage being crammed on to each disc (approximately 2 ¾ hours per disc) , there are mild compression artefacts present throughout. However, they aren`t in the least distracting, and certainly don`t spoil your viewing.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, and is excellent for a DVD of this genre. Obviously, there is only a certain amount of surround mixing that is worthwhile with this type of title, but the 5.1 is certainly an improvement over the basic 2.0 fare.

For the most part, crowd noise and some in-ring effects come through the rear speakers, supplementing the entire sound (including commentary) coming from the front speakers. This definitely gives things a warmer, more atmospheric feel.

Features

With all the matches interweaved into the main feature, there are no extras.

Conclusion

With 29 matches available here, I was planning simply to highlight a few bouts here that were worthy of either applause, or derision. But in two ways, that idea was fatally flawed. Firstly, there really aren`t any poor matches to be found here, and secondly, there are far too many great ones to mention.

Ironically, with this being a WWE release, Mysterio`s WWE material (from 2002-present) is the weakest of all that is presented here. By his standards, the two concluding bouts with Chavo Guerrero aren`t up to scratch, but even at that, Mysterio was suffering from a legitimate serious knee injury during both. The most-watched bout of Mysterio`s career, the Wrestlemania 2006 Triple Threat match with Randy Orton and Kurt Angle, is also something of a letdown, and is much more abrupt in ending than most would have expected.

The excellent outweighs the average about 6:1, however, and some of the material from the WCW era (1996-2001) is a joy to own on DVD. In particular, the bouts with Dean Malenko (July and October 1996), Super Calo (September 1996), Eddie Guerrero (November 1997), Juventud Guerrera (January 1998), and Blitzkrieg (February 1999) are all outstanding, and half of those have never been seen on UK television.

Aside from the aforementioned, there are a further nine bouts here (from ECW, WCW, and WWE) that would likely qualify for Match of the Night honours if they aired on any current WWE pay-per-view. The Summerslam 2002 bout with Kurt Angle is just about as good a pay-per-view opening match as you will ever see.

If I must pursue a mild negative or two, one is certainly Mysterio`s inter-bout narration, which is delivered with all the charisma of an X-Factor winner. Thankfully, these are kept short, and are easily skippable.

Furthermore, watching even one disc`s worth (2 ¾ hrs) of excellent Mysterio wrestling is likely too much for anyone in one sitting. In that time frame, there`s only so many times you can have one particular wrestler as a focal point.

Overall, however, this three-disc set is a real joy. By the wrestling standards of the era, it is up there with the sensational three-disc releases afforded to Ric Flair and Bret Hart, two of the real legends of the sport.

If you were a fan of wrestling anywhere between 1995 and 2002 (in particular), you will likely have some memories of great Rey Mysterio bouts. Here is an unmissable chance to own them.