The Monday Night War - WWE Raw vs. WCW Nitro (2004)

A little too self-congratulatory...

Yes I know this is a WWE product and therefore things will be a bit biased on their side, but cmon guys... Pretty much they gloss over the 84 weeks that WCW was beating the WWF in the ratings and instead focus on the rising star of Steve Austin. Yes he was instrumental in helping the WWF during that time but to shift the focus away from what was really happening is pretty lame.

Interestingly enough, of all the promos and clips they show...one thing they do NOT show are the promos that say the WWF has gone to the US government to look into why WCW was running their show on the same night as RAW and making wrestling fans choose a side to be on. I remember seeing those promos and thinking...Vince...you are whining like a baby.

I'd give this a cautious thumbs up, but keep in mind that things are pretty biased here.

T August 21, 2008

The Monday Night Lies

The Monday Night War is a pretty good documentary between the war. People who get talk on here is Eric Bischoff, Vince Mcmahon, Jim Ross, Eddie Guerrero, Gerald Brisco, Mick Foley, Chris Benoit, Big Show, Chris Jericho
Rey Mysterio, Jim Cornette, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, gene okerlund. They show some clips before the monday night war started. It talks about when first Raw started and Eric Bischoff talks about how he became executive producer and started nitro. It has a lot to talk about the formation of the NWO, well anyways I would like to explain more. In my opinion, I would rather read information on the internet, cause this dvd is basically a one-minded story. The WWF makes it to sound like WCW is nothing but pure evil August 7, 2008

There's some neat things here, but it really shows how history truly is written by the winners.

Ah, the Monday Night War. I'm a child of this era, a wrestling fan who grew up on the head-to-head programs of WCW Nitro and WWF (now WWE) Raw. Make no mistake about it: this was truly THE best time to be a wrestling fan. Both companies were pushed to dish out the best they could offer and put on the best damn wrestling shows they could come up with to entertain their fans and stand alone and triumphant in the wrestling business. The tale of the Ted Turner-owned WCW's spectacular rise and equally jaw-dropping fall in particular remains one of the most talked-about elements of wrestling history. Therefore, I was really looking forward to a DVD that would allow me to both relive this era and explain the workings behind the crucial events within it. Was it successful? Did I learn anything?

Well, I did learn one thing for sure. And that's the truth behind a quote from Sir Winston Churchill: "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."

Basically, it's the tale of the history of WCW vs. the WWE, written in hindsight by the WWE. Granted, Eric Bischoff is given a good amount of interview time to discuss his rise to power in WCW and the incredible innovations he made that nearly did the impossible and drove Vince McMahon out of business. A lot of his segments were quite informative about how things were working on WCW's end during the era. Of course, that could be because he's pretty much the only guy in the DVD who's defending WCW, but hey.

But mainly, the documantary's bias shines through, as expected. With a few exceptions in which the WWE's mistakes along the way are, in fact, acknowledged (the Billionare Ted skits come to mind), a lot of it is devoted to painting WCW in a negative light both when they were on top (basically talking about how horrible Bischoff was for trying to put them out of business) and when they were struggling (highlighting just how big of incompetent doofs they were. Although, to be fair, there's really no defending the outright idiocy of 1999-2001 era WCW, so this part is pretty much true and acceptable). Some of it is understandable; guys like Big Show, Chris Jericho, the late Eddie Guerrerro, and Rey Mysterio, for example, all give justifiably negative comments, given how they all struggled under the weight of WCW's political machine.

But some of the bias is just re-freakin'-diculous. I'm thinking here of Gerald "The biggest lesson of the Monday Night Wars was 'don't mess with Vince McMahon!'" Briscoe. His relentless towing of the company line was the funny kind of ridiculous: I couldn't help but laugh every time he came up in the DVD and shamelessly buried his nose further down McMahon's kiester.

But some of the ridiculousness is just infuriating. Here, I'm thinking of a comment by Vince himself during the section about Bischoff's going head to head with the WWF on Monday night: "My philosophy of business is 'help yourself, don't hurt the other guy.' And I daresay that Ted...has a different philosophy. I think his philosophy is 'win any way you can. If you can hurt the other guy, great. That's good.'"

"Help yourself, not hurt the other guy," Vince? Just like you "didn't hurt" all the territorial NWA promotors by signing away all their talent and stealing away their TV time? Or Jim Crockett, when you drove him out of business when the WWE was already the top mainstream promotion? Or Paul Heyman, when both you and WCW raided the roster of ECW and ripped off of Heyman's creative innovations? Don't get me wrong: there's a good reason why Vince is the most successful promotor in history, due to his effective and downright ruthless business decisions. But for him to cry and moan when somebody else pulls the same tricks on him, and claim himself to be some benevolent, non-competitive saint is a new low in hypocracy. At least Gerald Briscoe made me laugh: this sort of B.S. makes my blood boil.

The pro-WWE bias aside, there's also problems with omission of certain events. Most of the big turning points in the war, like the formation of the nWo, the Montreal Screwjob, and the start of Austin/McMahon, are present. But some other things either aren't addressed in much depth (Vince Russo's reign of terror. God, no words can describe how terrible that was), or aren't even addressed altogether (ex: The Fingerpoke of Doom. I watched that incident live, and the sheer anger and scorn that it provoked among fans, as well as its representation of everything wrong with WCW's backstage structure, cannot be underscored). For the most part, it's an okay overview of the era, but it's incomplete.

Yet for some reason, I still enjoyed this DVD, in the end. It's a decent overview of some of the key events of that era. And there's some pretty decent extras. My favorites are two of WCW's biggest (and last) true mark-out moments: Goldberg's title win, and Ric Flair's return in Greenville. And there's also a good 1997 Raw tag match featuring Stone Cold and HBK vs. the British Bulldog and Owen Hart, that really reminded me just what a great talent Owen was and made me miss him all over again. However, the extras still aren't as rich as in other WWE DVD's.

I'm giving this DVD half-a-star off for Gerald Briscoe's shameless cheerleading, one full star off for Vince having the gall to play the victim when it comes to ruthless business practices, and another half off for its omissions in both the presentation and extras. It's not too bad a DVD, but there are better. It's definitely a nice, basic walk through memory lane of a classic era in pro wrestling. But if you're looking for a more definitive examination of the historic events of wrestling from 1995-2001, particularly from WCW's side, I'd recommend Bryan Alvarez and R.D. Reynolds's excellent book "The Death of WCW." June 1, 2008

War Worth Watching

I have been a wrestling fan since 1996 and have watched all kinds of wrestling. I have a wrestling DVD/VHS collection spanning over 50 all together. This is the most complete and accurate review of this DVD you will find. I hope you find this review helpful; remember to vote helpful or not helpful. (Note-Each DVD I review has a "Match of the DVD" award somewhere in it.)

The Monday Night War
WCW Monday Nitro VS WWF Raw, the greatest battle of all time wasn't fought in the ring but between those two franchises over ratings. This DVD shows the history of The Monday Night War accurately, yet somewhat it is somewhat biased considering WWE made it. WCW was a company that got over by using controversy and shock to steal the audience away from the long-standing empire known as WWF, now known as WWE. This DVD tells about the History of WWE and WCW before fighting on Monday Nights. They go into how WCW stole talent from WWF like Lex Luger, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and so on. It tells the roots of the nWo idea and how it put WCW in the lead. The Mexican and Japanese stars coming to America to work for WCW is explained. The struggles of WWF to stay alive, and how they used Austin, Jerry Springer-like segments, and new stars to elevate them back to the top. Various superstars tell all that went on during this amazing time. Chris Jericho, Vince McMahon, Eric Bischoff, Big Show, Gerald Brisco, and many others tell this incredible story. In the end, WCW lost this war, but the fans won.

This DVD is an hour long and is one of WWE's best works. It's one of the DVDs you have to own if you are a wrestling fan. It may be bias, but it was fairly accurate. It isn't 5 stars because of the bias and it doesn't go too deep on the details. I still suggest this to anyone.

Extras Include-
Stone Cold Steve Austin & Shawn Michaels VS British Bulldog & Owen Hart (RAW)
Stone Cold Steve Austin Stuns Mr. McMahon (RAW)
Jim Cornette Commentary
Vince McMahon Interview- "Bret Screwed Bret"
Shawn Michaels & Triple H VS The Legion of Doom (RAW)
D-X Invades WCW
The Last Nitro (Clips of WCW's final show)
nWo in the Production Truck (Nitro)
Eric Bischoff Challenges Vince McMahon
Chris Benoit VS Booker T (Nitro)
Goldberg VS Hulk Hogan (WCW Title, Nitro)
Ric Flair returns to WCW (Nitro)
Rick Rude Appears on Nitro and Raw on the same night May 18, 2008

Don't Work Me Vince

This could have been a semi-decent synopsis of the Monday Night Wars, but unfortunately objectivity is thrown by the wayside. But then again, how else would you expect a WWE video from McMahon to be? History is written by the victors...
What I really find insulting is the snippets from Brisco, Cornet and McMahon himself - they want to portray the WWF as this magnanimous company and WCW as some robber barons. Anyone with knowledge of Vince and how he raided talent from the territories and put many out of business himself will find this an affront to one's sensibilities. On numerous occaisions, it's lamented how McMahon had uncontracted talent leave because "he took them at face value" (poor, naive Vince trusted these sleazy guys too much you see). Well, if they were worth so much to you, why the heck didn't you sign them? How would you feel working for someone that won't sign you to a contract, that means no guarantees, no benefits, no pension, no insurance, any day could be your last if you get injured - I can't blame someone in that position for jumping ship for greener pastures. WCW enabled a lot of wrestlers to make much better money, and in turn forced WWF to take better care of it's talent. That's a bad thing? Only if you're Vince I guess.


The most ironic thing about this movie is the admission that competition was the best thing ever to happen to wrestling and took it too it's high water mark during the Monday Night Wars - it was a fan's dream come true. So now WWF without stout competition can go back to being fat and happy - oh joy. January 28, 2008

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