Review for WWE: Ricky Steamboat - The Life Story of the Dragon DVD (3 Discs)

Introduction:
In every celebrity endeavour, be it making movies or competing in sport, there are always those who are universally revered, in particular within that industry. The reverence goes beyond what they are able to do in their respective roles; it's about their professionalism and modesty, and their ability to disassociate their stardom from the person that they really are.

The Russell Crowes or the George Bests of the world may be loaded with talent, but for whatever performing magic they have, their bad-boy reputations are often the first things that people think of when describing

In wrestling, in speaking of someone universally revered, there is no need to look any further than Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat.

Born to an American father and a Japanese mother, Steamboat (real name Richard Blood) was able to be one of the elite performers of the 1970s and 80s, while genuinely being one of the most down-to-earth men in a business loaded with huge egos.

Steamboat divided his most famous times between the NWA/WCW and the WWF/WWE, and this DVD set, a WWE production, covers both of those bases admirably, with a documentary on one disc, and matches on the other.

Video:

Video is presented in 16:9 widescreen, in what is a departure for WWE compilation DVDs, which are normally kept to 4:3 for archive footage purposes. Unfortunately, the 16:9 dimensions are to the huge detriment of the set, as the matches originally shot in 4:3 have awful-looking borders to make up the widescreen. The bouts remain watchable, of course, but when it comes to wrestling, the improvements in using widescreen are so limited that this decision is very frustrating.

Audio:

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and is very good for a DVD of this genre. Everything can always be heard easily above other portions of the soundtrack, ensuring that no words are stuck behind background music.

Extras:

Not totally dismissing the documentary out-takes on Disc One, Discs Two and Three, with the actual wrestling matches, are where it's at.

It's almost impossible to find a bad Ricky Steamboat match, even in the WWE's vaunted vault, and there are some excellent bouts on show here, in particular the two very long (but very different) matches with Ric Flair, the Wrestlemania III bout with Randy Savage, and the Iron Man match with "Ravishing" Rick Rude. Everything else, including the 1989 bout with the much-maligned Lex Luger, and the 2009 bout which saw a 56-year-old Steamboat face Chris Jericho, is also good, and it's quite the pleasure to watch Steamboat go up against all-time favourites like Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Don Muraco.

No matter who the bout is against, there's plenty here for the fan at home to enjoy, and for the student wrestler to take note of.

Main feature:

With the hundreds of thousands of hours of archive footage they have in their vaults, and millions of dollars in their bank accounts, the WWE can realistically put as much effort into their documentaries as they so choose. The use of footage is almost always top-notch, and the interview segments often aren't bad either, even if there can occasionally be some re-writing of history, to suit their needs.

As regards the archive footage and interviews on "The Life of the Dragon", those previous standards are lived up to. But when it comes to re-writing history, it's more a case of leaving out a lot of history, as opposed to changing it. The first 30 minutes of the documentary are very good indeed, as Steamboat talks about his upbringing, how he learned to wrestle, the influences that he had, as well as the early part of his career. However, once the DVD moves forward from talking about his years-long feud with Ric Flair, many things are rushed, most notably his tenure back in the WWF in 1991, and the disagreements he had with the company which prompted his departure after less than a year.

When the documentary is over, you'll be left asking a lot of questions about the period 1990 to present, but there's still enough here to make it very much worthwhile viewing.

Overall:

The documentary is very good in parts, yet sparse in others - overall, it is certainly worth watching. The extra-feature matches do not represent the very best of "The Dragon", but range from entertaining to classic.

Recommended.