Review of WWE: Tombstone - The History Of The Undertaker (3 Discs)

Introduction

Finally, it is here! Having already released 2-disc sets for the likes of Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, Chris Benoit & Eddy Guerrero, the WWE has gone one stage further and released a 3-disc set dedicated to The Undertaker, one of the best known WWE wrestlers in the UK since their first "boom" period in 1991.

The only other competitor so far to have been given a 3-discer of his own is "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, and whilst their pro wrestling achievements cannot be compared (Flair is considered by many to be the greatest pro wrestler of all time), it is also true to say that The Undertaker means a lot more to today`s fan than the now-56 year old "Nature Boy" ever will do.

Mark Callaway - The Undertaker`s real name - first had national exposure in the ring as "Mean" Mark Callous, one half of the Skyscrapers tag team in World Championship Wrestling, along with "Dangerous" Dan Spivey. After feuding most notably with Lex Luger, Callaway found that the path to stardom was full of potholes, and he soon left WCW after being told that he would never have a worthy career in the business - this despite remarkable agility and quickness for a man who legitimately stood at 6ft 7" tall and weighed over 20st.

Callaway had spoken to WWE owner Vince McMahon in mid-1990, hoping that McMahon could find a way to utilise his raw ability in a way that WCW had never thought possible. But he had to wait several months for his opportunity to appear at the WWE`s annual Survivor Series, where he was introduced as a mystery partner under the guise of The Undertaker.

Clad in black, with the pale appearance of someone who sunbathes in Scottish winter, The Undertaker character was a huge hit despite his role as a heel (bad guy). Seemingly able to hide any feeling of pain on his expressionless face, it was not before long that The Undertaker was feuding with 1990s wrestling legends such as The Big Boss Man, The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan, whom he defeated for the WWF title in November 1991.

But that was just the start of The Undertaker`s story, and in 2005 he still frequents the WWE ring. This DVD collection spans his entire WWE career, bringing together matches from 1991 to the present day, as well as a documentary-style retrospective of his career.

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 non-anamorphic PAL and is generally good for a DVD of this genre. Since this is a compilation set, all of the clips featured look quite different, some displaying a very soft picture and others suffering somewhat from MPEG compression artefacts. Still, the material on this DVD looks just as good as it did originally on television, and those who are used to WWE wrestling productions will feel right at home.

Audio

Audio on this disc is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and is more than acceptable for a DVD of this genre. Everything is clear and there are no audio sync issues. Again, this is everything that a WWE fan is used to from their digital telecasts.

Features

Upon the announcement of this DVD set, extras were confirmed as several bonus matches and a number of promotional vignettes. In a strange twist then, the WWE DVD department has seen fit to place these extra matches within the documentary itself. Thus the main feature spans over three discs & lasts over 8 hours!

There are two matches that are included in the bonus features, and they are vs Bret Hart (September 27th 1997 in Birmingham, England) and vs Kurt Angle (September 2003). The first match is fought at a wonderfully methodical pace and is everything one would expect from a match involving "The Hitman". The same could be said for the latter match, although fought at a more frenetic, made-for-TV pace.

The promotional vignettes (including The Undertaker carving a coffin for then-WWF champion Yokozuna and Hulk Hogan`s visit to the Funeral Parlour) give a little background into the matches that they were used to promote, and are a nice reminder of what WWE TV used to be like. However, viewers are unlikely to pop this DVD in solely for that purpose.

Conclusion

Having been a fan of The Undertaker since his 1990 Survivor Series debut, I have to say that I am somewhat disappointed with this DVD set, even though it contains a wealth of good material.

Unlike the aforementioned Hogan, Benoit and Guerrero sets, the documentary that is supposed to be the main feature of this set concentrates solely on the wrestling career of The Undertaker. There is no reference to the man behind the character or any background on his pre-wrestling activities. In short, it is NOT about Mark Callaway, but about his alter ego. Instead, we start at the 1990 Survivor Series and bounce from opponent to opponent, from match to match via a horrible voiceover that shirks details and blatantly bypasses significant events, such as The Undertaker`s WWF title loss to Hulk Hogan in late 1991.

Frankly, as they did with the Shawn Michaels "From The Vault" set, the WWE would have been much better served to simply compile the matches together without the dross that was this "documentary". I couldn`t help but feel a little cheated that I wasn`t allowed to know just a little bit more about the man who may not have created the character, but who certainly made it the phenomenon that it has become.

That said, there are several good matches on these discs that make the documentary bearable. The bouts with Hulk Hogan, Yokozuna, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin & Brock Lesnar are memorable, but the most exciting bouts are unquestionably those with Mankind, Bret Hart and the inaugural Hell in a Cell match with Shawn Michaels, which remains one of the finest WWE bouts ever, despite its horrible conclusion.

Perhaps the most pressing problem with this set is the fact that the opportunity to really dig into the archives has been lost. Where are the matches and vignettes with The Ultimate Warrior, including the infamous episode of the Funeral Parlour where the Warrior is locked inside an airtight coffin? Why has the "Buried Alive" match with Mankind been included at the expense of their magnificent bout at the King of the Ring 1996? Why are there 3 singles matches included against Kane, each of which sent this reviewer to sleep as he watched the event live?!

All in all, there is enough material here to keep the average WWE fan happy, and probably enough to quench the proverbial thirst of Undertaker fans. But there is no question that this is an opportunity missed, and it is remarkable that despite having ploughed over nine hours of material on to this set, that the WWE DVD team could not have done any better.