WWE: Starrcade - The Essential Collection

As I have stated on my other wrestling DVD reviews. I am NOT a wrestling fanatic. I haven't followed wrestling regularly since the Monday Night Wars. But I was feeling a little nostalgic and purchased some of the collections that took me back to my youth. Some have been pretty good (WCCW) and some haven't (AWA)...but this was the best by far!The documentary just reviews the history. Starcade was the biggest show and launched in the days before PPV. But it was still a super popular event. The documentary takes you year by year through the Jim Crocket days. But then unfortunately it skips over most of the rest of the years.The matches are what makes this set. You can find the list on other reviews so I won't repeat them. The years skip around of the matches because it is a countdown of the 25 best matches from Starcade. Another added feature is before the different matches there are I guess you would call them hype from some of the best wrestlers from the era including Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Animal (from the Road Warriors), Jim Ross, and others.Overall, a great set and exactly what I was looking for.

Well, another trip down memory lane and what I always call "the good old days" of wrestling--particularly, the days when the old NWA/WCW was around. But--instead of focusing on the great Monday Night Wars--this collection covers the scope of what was the NWA/WCW premiere event, Starrcade.As the documentary on Disc 1 covers, Starrcade was created with the intention of being the NWA's version of the Super Bowl--a tradition that started out being an annual Thanksgiving event, but later--due to some finagling by one Vincent Kennedy McMahon--Starrcade being moved to the month of December and how the event evolved over the years. Particularly, I enjoyed hearing Dusty Rhodes talking about the changes Starrcade went through & how Big Dust--in his own words--talking about how in the early 90s when WCW bought out the NWA & how there were people behind the scenes who didn't know "jack-bleep" about wrestling.As for the matches themselves, I would say it was a mostly excellent choice of matches. Of course--as with any WWE wrestling collection that has come out on DVD--you can always question some of the matches that get included. For instance, how the hell did Sting vs. Hogan from 1997 get included as being one of the Top 5 Starrcade matches of all-time. I could go on for days about how badly WCW botched that match, but I won't bother.Focusing on the good, this DVD is Ric Flair heavy--which is always a good thing, as Flair in his prime could pull a 4 or 5 star match out of just about anybody; just see Flair's '88 battle with Luger. And Flair's epic battles with Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, Big Van Vader and the list goes on.Overall--if you enjoy the glory days of wrestling--then this is a must have. 5 stars

Old school wrestling

This vid rocks! If you like old school wrestling and seeing matches that they will no longer sanction, then this is worth a look. Road Warriors/Midnight Express scaffold match is worth it alone to see Jim Cornette take a real dive from 25 ft and blow both his knees all for the biz. Real stuff going on here. I got this for the Greg Valentine/Roddy Piper dog collar match, which was brutal. This was a first for both of these men and still to the day that Roddy passed would say he lost hearing in his ear because he took a beating that lasted. They even scrubbed it from YT, which is really why I bought it in the first place.

As I sat watching The Best of Starrcade DVD, I thought to myself “What could I say that would be different than a simple match listing or talking about my favorite matches? It was during this process that I realized that I am a lapsed professional wrestling fan whose prime viewing years were probably 1998-2003, which meant that I never saw 92% of the content on this DVD. Complicating matters further, I primarily watched the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) instead of WCW.Therefore, it might be hard for a current fan of the WWE Universe type of matches or my preferred era (1980’s and 1990’s World Wrestling Federation) to appreciate the contents of this DVD. Minus the overdone Goldberg-Kevin Nash match and maybe the three way ladder match, the matches are more technical and it’s more about the wrestling, rather than these big cartoonish characters that populated the WWF/E. It’s a jarring transition at first, but I grew to really like it, despite it being alien to me.If you were a longtime NWA/WCW fan this is a must grab. For newer fans, it could be either really good or bad depending on your taste.

Awesome matches on 1st 2 discs I have seen so far. Definitely a worthy addition to collection.

This DVD arrived very quickly and the product was exactly as advertised. If you love wrestling from the 80s and 90s you should add this one to your dvd collection.

I don't really have any beefs with the matches, but i thought the "documentary" aspect of the presentation was pretty lacking in anything resembling in-depth content -- the main thrust of the documentary footage seems to be to drive home the point that Starrcade was a big deal, it's like they're retroactively hyping it to "add value to the brand" or however you'd say that in businessman-speak. I stopped watching the documentary portion about halfway through, it was like watching an infomercial for a discontinued product. I also really disliked the lack of associated interview footage for the matches -- i'm sure that having 25 matches didn't leave much room for interviews, et al, but Tully Blanchard's match introductions are rather bland and insipid, and i really love the old interviews. All in all, i think there's a good amount of content here, but, taken as a whole, i find this box set comparatively uninteresting.