Review of WWE: The Ladder Match (3 Discs)

Introduction

A concept born in Canada`s Stampede Wrestling as far back as the early 70s, the Ladder match is now an all-too-often used gimmick in professional wrestling. The concept of the bout is to retrieve a ladder placed at ringside, and scale it in the ring to retrieve a championship belt, a contract, money, or whatever it may be.

The earliest Ladder matches in the United States are believed to have taken place in Memphis, not long after the original bouts in Stampede. There were even Ladder matches in the latter days of British World of Sport wrestling, although going back to watch Kendo Nagasaki vs Clive Myers in a "Disco Ladder Match" will send you into quite the time warp.

To the WWF/WWE generation of wrestling fans, however, the first Ladder match of note was Bret Hart`s bout with Shawn Michaels in 1992. In an interview for this website, Hart told me in 2005:

"When I was trying to sell Vince on the idea of a ladder match, he asked me to give him a demonstration, to see what it was. He asked me to pick somebody (to wrestle), and I picked Shawn (Michaels). It was just a demonstration to show Vince what the match was. I didn`t think that that match represented what kind of a ladder match I would`ve wanted, had it been a pay-per-view."

Still, the match resonated enough with McMahon, and Michaels, for a Ladder contest to be booked between Michaels and Razor Ramon at Wrestlemania X. Hart was furious because he had been promised the first match of this type on pay-per-view, and was likely especially so when Michaels and Ramon got all the plaudits, for what at the time was a tremendous match.

Since then, the frequency of the Ladder match has grown year-by-year, to the point where now, WWE have released this 3-disc set, highlighting the greatest Ladder matches of all-time. Hosted by Todd Grisham, the set contains 22 matches packed into nine hours of disc time.

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen PAL, and is very good for a DVD of this genre. As has now come to be expected from WWE DVD releases, all of the footage is clean, and virtually digital artefact free.

The 1979 match between Jake Roberts and Big Daddy Ritter does not, of course, pack the same visual punch as the more recent offerings. Still, the footage is in incredible condition considering its age, how primitive the production values were at the time, and the fact that the original tapes - from Stampede Wrestling - were probably never properly protected from wear and tear.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and is also very good for a DVD of this genre. All facets of the action are easily audible in the mix, from wrestler theme music, to in-ring action, to commentary. The fact that many of these matches are taken from live television productions, goes to show what a slick effort WWE programming is.

Conclusion

In discussing this title, a friend recently said to me that "this isn`t a drink you chug down - you have to sip at it." Those comments sum up this release perfectly.

In normal circumstances, I would attempt to write a line or two here about every bout available. Here, I`ve decided not to do that, as I would write much of the same thing, much of the time. The fact is that, in my view, too many of these matches look utterly the same.

The concept of the Ladder match being based around using the ladder as a weapon, was one that was largely developed during the aforementioned Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramon bout at Wrestlemania X. Since then, a high percentage of ladder matches have been built on increasingly riskier action, such as more big falls, and dare-devil antics. Somewhere in there, the beauty of a wrestling match`s story-telling was lost. And without a story, once you`ve seen one big fall, it`s heard to wow about another.

There are several matches on this collection that do fit into the story-telling mould. One, ironically, is the Michaels vs Ramon re-match from Summerslam 1995, which holds up tremendously in comparison to the 1994 bout (not on this release, but available on several others). Other bouts with a more story-telling edge include Hart vs Michaels, Triple-H vs The Rock, Chris Benoit vs Chris Jericho, The Undertaker vs Jeff Hardy, and Ric Flair vs Edge.

The others do have their own appeal, and it is likely that fans who have only been watching wrestling since 2000, will be less inclined to enjoy the matches that I`ve picked out. But that is the ever-evolving face of professional wrestling, for better or for worse.

"The Ladder Match", in terms of production, is an excellent compilation. There is a tremendous amount of footage here, with no extra room to spare on any of the three discs. The quality of what is on offer, however, is subjective - nine hours of mostly crash-and-burn wrestling was much too much for this reviewer.