Review for HISTORY OF WWE - 50 YEARS OF SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT

WWE is the greatest wrestling promotion of all time. If anyone tries to make you believe that it's WCW or ECW or any other, just ignore them. WWE is a company that has survived for half a century and the reason is that it is simply one of the greatest, most recognisable brands in the whole world. If you are still not convinced, watch this documentary and you will have no doubts about it.

This documentary charts the history of the WWE, from its days with Vince McMahon Sr in the NWA as Capitol wrestling, its break away and debut as the WWWF to its takeover by McMahon's son, current owner Vince McMahon Jr no stone is left unturned. We get to see the success of wrestlers such as Bruno Sammartino and Hulk Hogan, the buying up of all the territories and of course Wrestlemania. If you haven't seen the previous documentary on Wrestlemania, this would be a perfect accompaniment to this set, as although they do cover the debut and Wrestlemania 3 it could really have been given more time.

Following this success, we see the debut of Saturday Night's Main Event, the rise of the PPVs, Raw, Smackdown and of course the Monday Night War. Also covered is the impact of the steroid trial in 1994 and the sad death of Owen Hart in 1999. This is where I come to my only real problem with this DVD. I applaud WWE trying to cover everything, but there are times when I felt like by doing this, important things were rushed through or even forgotten completely. Despite showing Austin, by not showing the infamous Austin 3:16 or at least acknowledging his impact you could be forgiven for thinking he was just one of multiple stars who saved the company. I think Val Venis gets more screen time?

The inclusion of the Owen Hart incident was nice, but I can't quite figure out its relevance in the history of WWE. I am not saying it wasn't an awful tragedy (I watched it live in 1999 and can say that it was as sad now as it was then), but I expected after all the people saying it was disgusting that the show carried on that maybe this was going to be their way of explaining what happened that night. By including this moment, it also made me notice that the other two big moments in WWE history, namely the death of Eddie Guerrero and the murder-suicide of Chris Benoit and his family is not mentioned. I can understand them not wanting to touch the Benoit situation, but not mentioning Eddie and his positive effect with the introduction of the Wellness Policy is odd.

I do feel sometimes when WWE have a subject like this that they might give this over to a professional documentary maker (apologies to whoever created this) to try and create something that could be released theatrically. If this had been edited a little differently, maybe added a few things here and there it could have easily have worked as a feature film in the vein of Beyond the Mat or Wrestling with Shadows. Not saying that it would be Oscar nominated or anything, but if Beyond the Mat can be short-listed, no reason why a WWE produced feature with access to all of the WWE tape history could not do this?

After you have finished with the documentary there are two disks with the most bizarre selection of matches that I have ever seen. If you were to ask me to pick the ten most important moments in WWE history for this set I would have said:

1.) Bruno Sammartino wins the title
2.) Wrestlemania: Hulk Hogan and Mr T vs. Roddy PIper and Paul Orndorff
3.) Wrestlemania 3: Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant
4.) Wrestlemania 10 Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna
5.) Austin 3:16
6.) Survivor Series 1997: Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
7.) Wrestlemania 15 Stone Cold vs. The Rock
8.) WWE buys WCW
9.) Any John Cena Title Victory
10.) CM Punk Pipebomb

Of these, they include five, which is good, but the things they include are so bizarre that you wonder who the creators thought would want to watch Koko B. Ware vs. Yokozuna? Sure it's the first match ever on Raw, but even watching the first main event between Damien 'Don't call me a Jobber' Demento jobbing to The Undertaker is at least a watchable match.

The WWE Championship match between Bruno Sammartino and Superstar Billy Graham is a great classic match and I do wish they had included a few more of these. Wrestlemania 3 match between Hogan and Andre is always great to see and sure I have seen it a million times, but seeing Hogan slam Andre still gives me goosebumps. His match against The Rock is also great to see again too. It is inevitable that they also included the Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart match from Survivor Series and forgetting about 'The Screwjob' for a second and you have to admit that this is actually a pretty great match. Including the first Royal Rumble is great and I have no problem with that. I could watch any Rumble from any year and that is fine.

Including the actual match between Stone Cold and Jake Roberts before his infamous Austin 3:16 speech is a little weird. It is great to see, but they could have easily just included the speech and used the other time for another match or moment such as the debut of The Undertaker. Austin's interaction with Tyson was also great to see as is Mr McMahon being so smug about having purchased WCW.

What is bizarre is including a random WWE Championship match between The Rock and Triple H from Smackdown. Now disputing how great these two are together, but this was not a memorable WWE history moment, or in either of their careers for that matter. The Tribute to the Troops match seems to be just a 'we need a match with lots of notable superstars in it' and so this is their way to keep Batista, Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Big Show and Rey Mysterio fans happy. Why they included the painfully bad Umaga vs. Bobby Lashley match is anyone's guess, I can only assume that they wanted to include more of Stone Cold and McMahon, but anything else would be better than this.

The final bizarre match is between CM Punk and John Cena. I am not disputing that they should include a John Cena match or a CM Punk match, but their match at Money in the Bank 2011, a match that was most people's (mine included) match of the year would have made more sense. However, including his full 'Pipebomb' interview is great as always and certainly one of the best moments in WWE history and I've always wanted to know what was 'the personal story about Vince McMahon' that CM Punk is stopped from telling.

Despite its flaws, this set is excellent and though I do wish that Vince McMahon had contributed to it a bit more than just archive footage, I can't think of anyone who wasn't interviewed or spoke to some degree. If there was one documentary to own this year from the WWE library I would say that it is this one.