Review for The True Story of WrestleMania

The True Story of Wrestlemania should be my wrestling DVD of the year. It certainly felt like it should be. I thought that it would be an indepth look into the creation of the original Wrestlemania, the ins and outs and problems that the company had to overcome to get The Granddaddy of Them All created. If that's what you expected, then like me you will be sorely disappointed. However, I really didn't expect to be this disappointed!

The documentary covers Wrestlemanias from 1-26. Now there's no real problem with that except that the length of the documentary is around two hours. Now WWE can barely give a thorough covering of the career of a WWE Superstar in two hours and so the idea of them covering twenty six Wrestlemanias seemed ridiculous. If anything they should have split this into a few sets covering a number of years (1-10, 11-20 and so on) as I knew from the off that this DVD would be uneven. However, I didn't think it would be this uneven. Within fifteen minutes Wrestlemania 1 was covered and at least gets a fair look, as does Wrestlemania 3, but if you wanted some indepth stories about Wrestlemania 5 or 11 or a number of other Wrestlemanias you will again be sorely disappointed.

Many of the events are brushed over in a matter of minutes and without any comments whatsoever. If you watched this DVD and then someone asked you to name a match from each event I doubt you could do it. This wasn't so much 'The True Story of Wrestlemania' more 'Random Facts and Stories that no one really cares about from Wrestlemania'.

One of the main problems I have with the documentarty is that it feels utterly directionless. For the most part it run chronologically, but then when they mention that Wrestlemania 4 took place at Trump Plaza they jump to Wrestlemania 23 and Trump's involvement with that. Then when they talk about Wrestlemania 6 being at the Skydome they jump to Wrestlemania 18 which also took place there and then start talking about Hogan/Rock from that event and then talk about how much Hulk Hogan means to Wrestlemania.(This is followed by almost every WWE Superstar saying that Hulk Hogan is the most important figure in wrestling... a man who they voted 23 in the Top 50 WWE Superstars of all time???) It is almost like the DVD suffers from Attention Defecit Disorder and simply cannot stay on topic. When they mention Tyson at Wrestlemania 14 they then go off on a tangent about Celebrity involvement. Now this is not disputing the content of these sections, but they halt the flow and feels like they were struggling for time and so just slotted them in wherever they could to pad it out.

When the documentary ended I was left feeling that I had learnt nothing about Wrestlemania. If you were new to wrestling you would learn nothing other than where an event took place, a few of the problems they had and a couple of matches. When I say that, I mean that for most of them they don't even reveal who was in the main event! By the I had no idea what the actual point of it all was? Was it to praise Mania? Was it to give vague facts and stories about each show? I'm just not sure, but I was thoroughly unsatisfied with the whole thing.

Now with such a lack of content, I expected the extras to include at least a short 2-3 minute highlight reel from each event. Then at least you would know that Hogan/Savage Main Evented Wrestlemania 5 and that Undertaker won the belt at 13. It would make sense. If this was then accompanied by a Top Ten Matches that would also make sense. Even if they couldn't fit all that on having maybe highlights from various matches with people talking about their favourites would make sense. That is not to be. Instead we have two disks of seemingly random matches.

The eleven matches cover ten Wrestlemanias and although I will agree with the majority, there are a few that make me scratch my head.

Hulk Hogan & Mr. T vs. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper & Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff WrestleMania
I understand why they included it, but this was not a great match.

WWE Intercontinental Championship Match
Randy 'Macho Man' Savage vs. Ricky 'the Dragon' Steamboat WrestleMania III
No arguments here. Probably the best wrestling match ever. FULL STOP!

WWE Championship Match
Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant WrestleMania III
More a spectacle if anything, but I understand them including it for the impact it had.

Retirement Match
The Ultimate Warrior vs. Randy 'Macho Man' Savage WrestleMania VII
Why? I'm not disputing that it's a great match, but if you were going to include a Warrior match, surely him winning the belt against Hogan at 6 would have been more apt?

Ladder Match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship
Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels
WrestleMania X
No arguments here. Five Star match. One of the best ladder matches ever.

WWE Championship Match
Shawn Michaels vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin
WrestleMania XIV
Surely if you are going to include a Stone Cold match it would be his match against Bret at 13? Considering they spend so long going on about how great it was (And it is) in the documentary?

WWE Tag Team Championship - Triangle Ladder Match
The Hardy Boyz vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. Edge / Christian
WrestleMania 2000
A great match, but I think it's overused in sets. Anytime WWE do a ladder match/tag team or a DVD featuring anyone involved in this match, this is the one they use.

Street Fight
Shane McMahon vs. Vince McMahon
WrestleMania X-Seven
Why is this here? Why? Was this to appease Vince's ego? I just don't understand why this is here and so many are not?

The Rock vs. Hollywood Hulk Hogan
WrestleMania X-8
Much like Andre/Hogan it is here for the spectacle rather than the match.

WWE Championship Match
Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar
WrestleMania XIX
Great match. No arguments with this inclusion.

WWE Championship Match
John Cena vs. Triple H
WrestleMania 22
Why? I don't even recall this match ever taking place... that's how little impact it had on me. If you wanted to include a Cena match his win over Edge/Big Show at 25 would have been better. As for Triple H his Wrestlemania 17 match against Undertaker (Who does not appear in a single match despite the fact the documentary declares that he had the GREATEST MATCH AGAINST HBK END OF STORY???)

These matches would be a nice bonus if it wasn't for the fact that there are so many Manias not represented. Some of the choices leave me puzzled and I really feel like this set should end with a slogan saying 'Wrestlemania Anthology Boxset Still Available for all the stuff we missed out!'

The True Story of Wrestlemania is possibly one of the most disappointing DVDs that WWE have released in a long time. If they had given each Mania a respectful amount of time each and made each feel special it may have had the desired effect, which I assume is to make us seek out these forgotten Manias and watch them again. Instead only a half dozen are covered in any depth (if you can call it that) and most are forgotten entirely. I did not enjoy watching it and probably never will again. From me, a guy who will happily sit and watch a WWE DVD over any other in my collection, that is not a good sign at all.