DVD Review: Kurt Angle - The Essential Collection

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Running Time: 531 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Number Of Discs: 3
Studio: Fremantle Home Entertainment
Released: July 31 2017

(Thanks to Fetch Publicity for arranging this review.)

Kurt Angle is one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all-time. Mixing his previous outstanding amateur wrestling ability, style and credibility with his desire to learn allowing him to quickly pick up the pro style along with unseen charisma and a great sense of humour, all during one of the hottest periods in wrestling history, Angle quickly established his legacy as one of the very best in record time. His return to WWE in early 2017 was hugely anticipated, and fans immediately gravitated back to the legendary Olympic gold medallist.

Therefore, it was inevitable that a DVD celebrating Angle's big return would be released, and so we have this collection of matches from 1999-2006. You can't really go wrong with a Kurt Angle match compilation, and this is proven to be the case as this is one of the best WWE DVDs that you will see. We also get pre-match comments from Angle who discusses how pivotal specific bouts were to his career, though they do occasionally border on being slightly self-indulgent at times. But more often than not, they're insightful, and a welcome aspect of the feature (this incidentally does not have any bonus material).

Beginning with Angle's televised debut against Shawn Stasiak from Survivor Series 1999 (where fans are booing and chanting "Boring!" within a minute of the bell ringing; how dare two wrestlers actually try to wrestle during the Attitude Era!), we then jump to Angle's first tastes of gold against the surprisingly over Val Venis from SmackDown and Chris Jericho at No Way 2000 for the European and Intercontinental Championships respectively.

Arguably the highlight of the DVD's first hour is the footage of Angle's promos from this time; he was so hilariously dorky, egotistical and entertaining that it almost makes one disappointed when he becomes more serious as the DVD progresses. But he continued rapidly climbing the ladder, evidenced by the next match, the King Of The Ring 2000 tournament final scrap with Rikishi.

By now, Angle was almost at the main event level. A quick three-way against Y2J and Triple H from Raw is followed by Angle's big moment, his WWF Title match against The Rock from No Mercy, which is a vital match in Angle's career and a great one (no pun intended) to boot. Angle's first PPV title defence against The Undertaker from Survivor Series is next. This has a hugely surprising ending, but if you haven't seen this before, I strongly recommend that you skip the segment which precedes this match as it gives away what happens; this happens often during this DVD but in this particular case, it's a bit of a bummer.

We then get a forgotten bout between Angle and Triple H from Royal Rumble 2001. It's good, but the heel vs. heel dynamic hurts it, and it's arguable that the two never had a truly great match against one another (might that change at this year's SummerSlam?). It's a shame that Angle vs. Rock from No Way Out 2001 isn't here, but the first disc does end with a bang via the brutal and bloody Kurt vs. Shane McMahon Street Fight from KOTR 2001.

Disc two opens by looking back at Angle's infamous feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin, which would include cowboy hats and bloodbaths. It's debatable as to whether their WWF Championship clash from Unforgiven 2001 was their best, but the action and story-telling are of a very high standard, and given its outcome, and the location (Angle's hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), it had to be included.

The next few matches capture Angle in his red-hot 2002 form: a Backlash scrap with Edge is brilliant, and a vital step in Edge's ascension up the ranks. Their subsequent Steel Cage battle on SmackDown is another topnotch battle, which ends a crucial rivalry in Edge's career. Angle vs. Hulk Hogan from King Of The Ring is less spectacular but just as entertaining, and an important result for Angle to boot (plus Kurt's hilarious pre-match promo is included too).

We also see John Cena's televised debut days later against Angle, which admittedly feels more like a way to promote Cena than Angle. Next is a truly classic three-way between Angle, Rock and Undertaker from Vengeance 2002, which is my favourite Triple Threat match in WWF/WWE history. The action picks up a rapid pace again via an outstanding SummerSlam showdown with recent debutant Rey Mysterio, who Angle had previously lost to in a six-man tag match (hence the immortal phrase "I just got beat by a freakin' 12-year-old!"). Around this time, Angle entered into a rivalry with Chris Benoit which produced several incredible matches, but it should require no explanation as to why none of those are here.

However, some may be disappointed that there is only one match here involving Brock Lesnar, with their WrestleMania XIX bout only shown in the form of quick clips, and their famous Iron Man match not acknowledged at all. Still, WWE has a tendency to focus on the subject's win-loss record rather than history whenever possible on these DVDs, which is why only their SummerSlam 2003 match is included, and it's still one hell of an effort by both men regardless.

Disc three kicks off by revisiting Angle's history with John Cena. By the time of No Mercy 2003, Cena had shot up the card via his rapping persona, spitting rhymes and insults which would not even be suggested in today's WWE. So it's nice to remember a time when there were fewer rules on risqué material, plus the Angle-Cena match from said show is arguably Cena's best prior to him becoming a main eventer. Moving onto 2004, Angle subtly implies at occasional troubles with Eddie Guerrero (the two had a backstage fight that year), but mostly complements him for his ability and charisma. Their underrated SummerSlam battle is a good one, though a step down from others on this release, whilst a tag match pitting Angle and Luther Reigns against Eddie and Rey Mysterio from the 2004 Troops special is mostly here to emphasise Kurt's admiration for the American forces fighting in Iraq.

Next up is one of my favourite matches of all-time, Angle vs. Shawn Michaels from WrestleMania 21, which is the embodiment of the word "classic". Though it isn't as fondly remembered, their 30-minute Iron Man match from Raw Homecoming is also well worth watching, and a reminder as to how both Angle and Michaels were somewhat taken for granted back in 2005. Shawn pops up in the penultimate match, another great three-way with Angle and John Cena (who by this point was starting to hear the boos and "Cena Sucks!" chants on a worryingly regular basis for a top babyface) from Taboo Tuesday 2005. The final match is a hidden gem from ECW circa 2006 pitting Angle against Rob Van Dam; it's pretty good, but I think Angle's unbelievable bout with The Undertaker from No Way Out 2006 would have ended this collection with more of a bang. We do, however, get footage of Angle returning to WWE earlier this year to end things on a high note.

Though some key matches are missing, this is still a fabulous collection of matches which lives up to the hype. Mixed with Angle's insightful if occasionally questionable comments, this becomes a great reflection on Angle's WWF/WWE tenure, and one of the best all-round wrestling DVDs that you are likely to see. Even without a couple of notable bouts (which admittedly prevent this reaching the level of perfection), this is a must-own for new and old fans alike. Oh it's true, it's damn true!

Overall Rating: 9.5/10 - Classic

DVD Preview: Kurt Angle - The Essential Collection

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Provided By: Fetch Publicity

The following story is courtesy of Fetch Publicity ...

It’s true! It’s true! Kurt Angle has had some of the most epic matches in WWE history. Now for the first time ever, you can watch them all with Kurt Angle: The Essential Collection! Relive all of his rivalries with Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, John Cena, Edge, Shawn Michaels, Triple H and more in this complete collection.

Synopsis:

Match Highlights:

WWF No Way Out 2000 – February 27 2000
Intercontinental Championship Match
Chris Jericho (Champion) vs. Kurt Angle

WWF King of the Ring 2001 – June 24 2001
Street Fight
Kurt Angle vs. Shane McMahon

WWF Unforgiven 2001 – September 23 2001
WWF Championship Match
Stone Cold Steve Austin (Champion) vs. Kurt Angle

WWE King Of The Ring 2002 – June 23 2002
Kurt Angle vs. Hollywood Hulk Hogan

WWE Vengeance 2002 – July 21 2002
WWE Championship Triple Threat Match
The Undertaker (Champion) vs. Kurt Angle vs. The Rock

WWE SummerSlam 2003 – August 24 2003
WWE Championship Match
Kurt Angle (Champion) vs. Brock Lesnar

WWE No Mercy 2003 – October 19 2003
Kurt Angle vs. John Cena

WWE Raw Homecoming – October 3 2005
30-Minute Iron Man Match
Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels

We like it because:

It’s incredible to have Kurt Angle back as a part of the WWE Universe – and this epic collection is proof of just how incredible a Superstar he truly is!

The set features non-stop action, with matches against all the top Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression era stars. Most exciting for longtime WWE fans are the inclusion of “lesser-seen” matches – such as his SummerSlam battle with Brock Lesnar or Iron Man Match from Raw against Shawn Michaels – which are often overlooked next to more high-profile WrestleMania bouts but no less stunning entries into these classic Kurt rivalries!

It’s also fascinating to hear Kurt’s personal take on his career. Kurt sits down for tell-all interviews between each match, revealing all the backstage stories, who his favourite opponents were, and what happened on his journey from Olympic gold medalist to WWE Champion and beyond!

Don’t miss out on the only DVD collection that has the three I's: intelligence, Integrity and Intensity! Oh, it’s true!

Kurt Angle - The Essential Collection will officially be released on DVD and Blu-ray on Monday July 31 2017.

For more information, click here.

WWE Best Pay-Per-View Matches 2011

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Running Time: 422 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Number Of Discs: 3
Studio: Clear Vision Ltd/Silver Vision
Released: March 26 2012

The Best Pay-Per-View Matches series returned to DVD to cover the big encounters of 2011. This time, the structure was more logical by focusing on the year as a whole rather than a "season". The downside is that WWE chose to release this collection at the tail end of 2011 in the U.S. (meaning, the very beginning of 2012 in the UK), all of which meant that Survivor Series and TLC, the final two supershows of the year, were held too late to be covered in this DVD. This is a trend that has continued ever since, and hopefully one which WWE will end at some point; if you're recapping the year's best matches, you can't justifiably ignore two major shows that close the annum out.

That aside, the 2011 set is a very good round-up of top-drawer matches. Disc one opens with two great Edge matches: a singles battle with Dolph Ziggler from Royal Rumble, and an Elimination Chamber scrap (at the event of the same name) against Rey Mysterio, Kane, Wade Barrett, Drew McIntyre and Big Show. The Chamber bout in particular is excellent, and an example of how this match can still provide thrills and spills in a PG environment.

We head to WrestleMania XXVII for the next two matches: by most accounts, the 27th Mania was disappointing, but Rey vs. Cody Rhodes (featured here) is alright, and The Undertaker vs. Triple H (which closes out the first disc) is an incredibly dramatic battle; yes, it's slow-paced and it's more a collection of spots rather than a back-and-forth match, but it works, and it puts the Streak in the most jeopardy that it would ever be, prior to Brock Lesnar actually ending it three years later.

Disc two kicks off with a Ladder match from Extreme Rules between Christian and Alberto Del Rio for the vacated World Heavyweight Title, which is pretty good if not the most exciting Ladder bout that you'll ever see. Over The Limit is ignored altogether, which is annoying because Randy Orton vs. Christian from that show was one of the year's genuine best WWE matches. Capitol Punishment makes up for this slightly with a really good Rey Mysterio-CM Punk match, at which point the seeds were being sown for a certain wrestler to suddenly become the centre of attention (hint: he's Straight-Edge).

From there, it's off to Money In The Bank, which gives us a strong Raw MITB Ladder match involving Del Rio, Rey, R-Truth, The Miz, Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne and Alex Riley (remember him?). I personally would have preferred seeing the SmackDown MITB clash here instead, but it's still really good. And then we head to that card's main event to close disc two: John Cena (in his first appearance of the DVD, surprisingly) vs. CM Punk for the WWE Title, in front of a red-hot Chicago crowd. It isn't quite flawless, but it is an extremely compelling main event backed up by one hell of a storyline (the match is preceded by the promo video detailing the Punk-is-leaving storyline, the only time such a device is used in this particular set). This is one of the two most memorable matches of the year, alongside Taker-HHH, and the match and the wider storyline is a reason why many fans decided to start watching WWE again. If that isn't an endorsement, I don't know what is.

Disc three starts strong with Randy Orton vs. Christian (at last, one of their matches!) under No Holds Barred rules from SummerSlam, which aside from a subsequent Cage match on SmackDown brought an end to what was the year's best rivalry bar none. After that, the match quality begins to dip as we see Mark Henry challenge Orton for the World Heavyweight Title at Night Of Champions; it plays to Henry's strengths (no pun intended), but it's the weakest match of the DVD up to that point. HHH vs. Punk from NOC is here too, and is a very good, wild brawl, although it gets a bit overcrowded with interference and shenanigans, and the result (a HHH win, with no real follow-up) is one of the reasons why Punk would leave WWE for real in 2014.

The standard takes a nose-dive when we get to Hell In A Cell. A generally mediocre event, it gives us two matches, neither of which are particularly worth watching: Kelly Kelly vs. Beth Phoenix, in the days when the word "Diva" was of greater importance to WWE than actual female wrestling talent, is lifeless and loses the crowd when Kelly practically cries due to the pain of a submission hold (what the hell?). Cena vs. Punk vs. ADR is okay, but it's a match held inside a Hell In A Cell rather than a Hell In A Cell match, if that makes sense; although the finish makes use of the structure, this really didn't need to be inside that massive cage. (The post-match scenes involving Awesome Truth are fairly memorable, though.) Lastly, it's Henry vs. Big Show from Vengeance; in fairness to the slow, cumbersome giants, the match is better than expected, and the finish (which I won't spoil here, even if the DVD cover for that actual event did indeed spoil what happened), whilst recycled, allows the DVD to end on a high note of sorts.

Other notes: Scott Stanford provides hosting duties, and the box art looks like it has had some effort put into it this year. Again, I wish WWE would have delayed the release to cover Survivor Series and TLC; TLC had plenty of memorable moments, whilst Survivors saw Punk begin his 434-day WWE Title reign at Alberto's expense, and the teaming of The Rock and John Cena against Miz and R-Truth. Partly because of that decision, one would never know from watching this DVD that Rock vs. Cena was a huge part of the WWE landscape in 2011 as they expertly built very slowly to their WrestleMania XXVIII clash the following year (although Stanford does give a slight reference to that match as the DVD ends).

With the exception of there being no Orton-Christian match from Over The Limit here and the lack of action from the year's final two PPV events, the title of this collection is pretty accurate, as all of the year's most exciting, memorable or important supershow battles are here. Some choose to remember 2011 for Cena vs. Punk at Money In The Bank; for others, it's Undertaker vs. HHH; and a few might remember the less credited matches such as the World Heavyweight Championship clash from Elimination Chamber. Whatever the case may be, this is a thoroughly enjoyable collection of action, which maintains a strong standard across the first two discs and has some surprises, twists and turns during some of the less fondly-remembered matches. If you want to relive WWE in 2011, this is a very good set to watch.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10 - Excellent

WWE Best Pay-Per-View Matches 2009/2010

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Running Time: 356 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Number Of Discs: 3
Studio: Clear Vision Ltd/Silver Vision
Released: August 16 2010

Considering the importance of major supershows to the WWF/WWE, it's surprising that it took so long for them to begin a regular DVD series focusing on the top PPV battles of a given period. Nevertheless, the first such collection covered the 2009/2010 season, which means Backlash 2009 to WrestleMania XXVI in this case. Future editions of the series would take a more logical route of simply covering the year from January onwards. This meant that some events would be strangely ignored - but we'll cover that in a future review.

Anyway, on this DVD, we kick off with an outstanding Last Man Standing (that sounded weird) clash between John Cena and Edge from Backlash, which was their final major showdown against one another. After that, we go to that card's opening match, a fun Jack Swagger-Christian battle for the ECW Title. Then, we have a Judgment Day main event between Edge and Jeff Hardy which is far better than people give this credit for, and this being so different to the Cena LMS bout, yet with both still being of a high quality, illustrates just how damn good Edge really was. (By the way, many of the matches included here have their corresponding video promo packages shown beforehand, which is a nice touch.)

Extreme Rules is strangely omitted from this collection, but the next match is still a treat: Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio for the Intercontinental Championship from The Bash is a genuine classic, and has plenty of innovative spots and a clever finish, considering the Mask vs. Title stipulation. Closing disc one is a Six-Pack Challenge from Night Of Champions, where Kofi Kingston and company put on a pretty good effort in the face of what amounted to neglect from the WWE creative team on the Raw side at that time.

Disc two only has four matches, but they're all worth watching. We stay with Night Of Champions for an entertaining Triple Threat clash between Randy Orton, John Cena and Triple H in a rematch from WrestleMania XXIV. That it was held when all combinations of this trio had been overdone to death impacted the good work that went into matches like these (and Orton vs. Cena was only just resuming, as we'll see shortly). SummerSlam gives us two fantastic matches: Rey Mysterio vs. Dolph Ziggler is as good a PPV opener as you'll ever see, and the first sign of Ziggler's true potential, whilst Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk under TLC rules is a great main event featuring another insane Swanton Bomb by Hardy. (Unfortunately, the post-match surprise return of The Undertaker isn't included, which is a shame.) Then, co-host Michael Cole talks absolute b-ll-cks when he suggests that the far too long-winded and largely uneventful Orton vs. Cena feud of 2009 was one of the greatest rivalries of all-time, although their I Quit match included here from Breaking Point is very compelling and was the highlight of their lengthy saga from this particular year.

Disc three begins with DX vs. Legacy inside Hell In A Cell from the event of the same name. Although it's a dramatic affair and tells a logical story, one can't help but feel that all of the good work done by Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase is undone within moments by Triple H and his attempts to prove his superiority (certainly not the first time he has committed such an act). Next up, we have the 14-man clash from Bragging Rights which is okay but nothing more; admittedly, the audience looks stunned by Big Show's betrayal near the end which meant that the match did leave an impact (although it shouldn't have been that big of a surprise; it's the flip-flopping Big Show that we're talking about, after all).

The opening 10-man encounter from Survivor Series 2009 (Team Miz vs. Team Morrison) is an enjoyable showcase of younger talent at a time when such a thing was a rarity in WWE, but it's not exactly the best Survivor Series match ever; it's arguably most memorable for Sheamus accidentally kneeing referee Scott Armstrong in the back of the head, causing Armstrong to be concussed and sit out the remainder of the match (to their credit, the official switch was handled so effectively that few will have noticed, besides WWE replaying the moment of painful contact). Christian vs. Shelton Benjamin for the ECW Title in a Ladder match from TLC is an underrated gem, despite some occasional botches. Some observations on this match: the entire front row of the hard cam-side of the ring appeared to be empty (this was the opening match of that PPV, to be fair), and someone hilariously shouted to the then-bleach blond Benjamin "Your hair looks like you've been stung by a bee!"

The running time must have been a concern for the producers at this point, because as we enter 2010, the only contribution from Royal Rumble is a very short Michelle McCool-Mickie James match, and Elimination Chamber isn't covered at all. So we jump ahead to the final match on the DVD, but it's a belter: The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels, the main event of WrestleMania XXVI, Streak vs. Career. Having attended this one live, I can tell you that this was awesome; as a matter of fact, it's one of the greatest matches in WWE history. To follow their outstanding WrestleMania 25 effort with something equally as awesome, and even more dramatic and important (Michaels would never wrestle again, as per the retirement stipulation), makes this a monumental encounter which hasn't been topped in WWE since, and a fitting way to end this collection. Also included are some comments, mostly in-character, about certain matches, and a few extra bouts are thrown in on the Blu-ray.

Some additional notes: the box art seems very generic, as do the menus; they feel as if they were knocked up by somebody on Paint. Surprisingly, John Cena isn't highlighted at all on the cover, unless you count his arm dragging Randy Orton (look at the picture and this will make sense). And whilst the links by hosts Michael Cole and Matt Striker are kept short, they're still a bit annoying, especially the awful dialogue by Cole to try and segue from a Striker practical joke to the comedy provided by DX. Finally, Batista doesn't appear on the main DVD at all (he is included on the Blu-ray), which is weird; sure, he left WWE shortly after this DVD was released, but Jeff Hardy had departed for TNA by this point and he is featured fairly prominently.

Those gripes aside, I felt that this was a really good compilation. If you own all of these events on DVD already, then this will be an unnecessary purchase, but even if you do, it's nice to have most of the season's top matches in one straightforward collection. There are some matches that you could argue deserve to be here, and likewise there are some questionable inclusions. But given the criteria to include a wide range of performers and match types, then this is as good a set as you could expect. And with plenty of memorable matches, not to mention that the DVD ends with a bang, this is a great advertisement for the WWE product from 2009/2010.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10 - Excellent

Twist Of Fate - The Matt & Jeff Hardy Story

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Running Time: 342 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Number Of Discs: 2
Studio: Clear Vision Ltd/Silver Vision
Released: June 16 2008

Following Leap Of Faith, it would be several years before another Hardyz DVD. By the time Twist Of Fate came out, both Matt and Jeff had left WWE and returned, having gone through numerous trials and tribulations, but both seemed to have real potential in singles competition as 2008 began.

Intriguingly, we have two documentaries, one for each brother. Matt's is better as it recaps the TLC era of Hardy matches and runs through their Teenage Wrestling Federation and Omega in more depth than Jeff's feature does; plus, his documentary is around 15 minutes longer. The highlights of Matt's feature come as we go through the Version One character, his feud with MVP and, between those, a lengthy look at the real-life controversy involving Matt, Edge and Lita.

For those unaware, Matt and Lita had been an item since 1999, and Edge was longtime friends with both. While Matt rehabilitated a knee injury in 2004-2005, Lita and Edge had an affair (Edge was married to another woman too). When Matt discovered the truth, he ended his relationship with Lita and told fans what had happened online. WWE then very harshly sacked Matt, leaving Lita and Edge unpunished. As fans justifiably slated WWE, Edge and Lita, the company decided to firstly put the devious duo together on-screen, and then to bring back Matt for a worker shoot feud with his former friend and girlfriend.

This section does a good job of covering the situation from start to finish, and whilst it's fair to say that the feud didn't quite meet expectations (largely because Matt lost), it was undeniably gripping to watch. Some argue that Matt never truly recovered from the real-life break-up, with his regrettable incidents in later years partly being attributed to the pain of his split from Lita. But he is now happily married to another lady (and a wrestler too, Reby Sky), and they have a son (as TNA fans will know), so at least he is now in a better place. After covering the Hardyz reunion in 2006/7, the first doc ends with Matt going through his feud so far with MVP, and his plans to win the United States Title and, eventually, the World Title. Why WWE didn't wait until after Matt beat MVP for the U.S. Title to release this DVD, I don't know.

As for Jeff: their shared history means that his feature only stands out due to a section on his music and his home (which would soon burn down, incidentally), his drugs-related exit from WWE in 2003, a brief mention of TNA as he talks about his stint away, his 2006 return to WWE after proving he was clean (which ignores his 2007 Wellness Policy violation), and his rise up the ranks in late 2007/early 2008 which made him the hottest star in the company and a sure-fire future WWE Champion.

The two main features are entertaining, but it probably would have been better to present this as one long documentary with occasional shifts to Matt and Jeff, due to the level of shared content. They are still worth watching, although WWE would have been better waiting another year to release this set because, by then, both Hardyz had won three singles titles between them (Jeff would win the WWE Championship at Armageddon 2008).

Matt's disc largely features singles matches. His Vengeance 2004 No Holds Barred clash with Kane, occurring at the height of a bizarre storyline also involving Lita, is decent; better is the superb Steel Cage battle with Edge from Unforgiven 2005 as part of the aforementioned reality-based love triangle storyline. We then get two SmackDown bouts with Joey Mercury (a qualifier for the 2007 Money In The Bank Ladder match, which features hilarious guest commentary from King Booker) and Mr. Kennedy, which is a really good match. The only doubles clash on Matt's disc is a 1999 bout from Omega, as The Hardyz face The Serial Thrillers, complete with commentary from both Hardyz, Gregory Helms and Shannon Moore.

Jeff's disc has two Hardyz matches: the great Royal Rumble 2000 Tables scrap with the Dudleyz and a strong outing against Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch from Judgment Day 2007. In singles, we see him face and beat Triple H twice (SmackDown circa 2001 and Armageddon 2007), although neither bout holds a candle to the matches they would have in the future. We also see Jeff face Johnny Nitro in a thrilling Steel Cage match at New Year' Revolution 2007, against Shelton Benjamin in his MITB qualifier (during which Shelton nearly breaks his neck) and opposite Umaga in an exciting bout with an amazing finish, back in the Cage from the 2008 Raw Roulette (exactly a year after the NYR Cage match, funnily enough).

There are some notable omissions here: none of the Ladder/TLC bouts are included (although they have admittedly been released many times before), and the WrestleMania 23 MITB bout is also absent (bear in mind that both brothers' qualifying matches for the 2007 MITB scrap are here). What's more, the Jeff-Umaga bout helped to promote Jeff's big WWE Title showdown with Randy Orton at Royal Rumble 2008, but that major encounter has also been left off the set. On the whole, though, the matches are pretty good, despite not being a definitive history of their careers by any means.

There are some bonus segments (such as a tour of Matt's house), and a couple more are hidden by pressing arrows at certain points on the menus (these are known as Easter Eggs). One involving Matt, Jeff, Helms and Moore is noteworthy because it's about toasting their friendship with beers, and during this Helms unnecessarily slags off CM Punk (who hadn't yet become a main eventer in WWE), calling him a dweeb for not drinking, which is backed up by the others in the room. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, but it's an insight into how certain wrestlers treated Punk due to his Straight-Edge lifestyle. Not that Punk would be bothered, to be fair. Ironically, Punk ended up becoming a bigger star than all of those in this segment, and certainly a much bigger star than Helms ever was.

Twist Of Fate is enjoyable but by no means a classic. It does perfectly illustrate the potential that both Hardyz had in singles around the spring of 2008. For Matt, a United States Title win would indeed come, and would be followed by an ECW Championship later that year. But a heel turn on Jeff in 2009 would end up harming his career in the long-run, for despite beating Jeff at WrestleMania 25, he would never come close again to achieving his full potential in WWE, and left under acrimonious circumstances in 2010 following a suspension and some baffling online videos. Jeff, meanwhile, would achieve great success as a solo star; because the rest of his WWE run is covered on My Life, My Rules (which I will review soon), I won't go into what came next for him, only to note that by the time this DVD was released, he had lost much of his momentum due to a (second) Wellness Policy violation.

I'll conclude the Hardyz tale in the My Life, My Rules review, but I'll just say that despite its flaws, Hardy fans should really enjoy this particular set, and it's hard to believe from watching this that Matt never did get to ascend to the main event level in WWE. Mind you, had Matt not left WWE, we wouldn't have ended up having the Final Deletion in TNA, so I suppose that's a positive.

Overall Rating: 7/10 - Respectable

SmackDown's Most Memorable Matches

Image Source: Hyper-Pars

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Running Time: 86 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Number Of Discs: 1
Studio: Clear Vision Ltd/Silver Vision
Released: April 3 2007

Initially designed to be the first of a lengthy series of budget-priced DVDs relating to WWE's two top brands (it was scrapped after four, which is fairly lengthy I suppose), SmackDown's Most Memorable Matches provides six bouts which stand out as being noteworthy. In some cases, it's debatable as to whether this is applicable, but all six provide entertainment in their own way.

Kicking things off is Hulk Hogan and Edge facing Billy & Chuck for the WWE Tag Team Titles in a July 2002 bout that WWE has often released under the proviso of it being massively memorable, but it actually isn't (the huge crowd reaction to Hogan is noticeable, though). Better is Rey Mysterio's WWE debut three weeks later against Chavo Guerrero in the first of many great WWE matches for Rey Rey.

One week later, a tag team match that isn't really memorable but is still engaging to watch pits The Rock and Edge against new SD signings Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero, which sees a finish that fans of today's WWE would consider greatly damaging to a top babyface (that it did no harm to Rock in 2002 is worth pointing out). We then jump ahead to June 2003 and to a genuinely memorable bout between Brock Lesnar and Big Show (hint: the ring plays a role in the finish).

We then leap to January 2005 and a really good Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero bout which not only combines great wrestling with some clever comedy, but acts as the beginning of the long-running Rey vs. Eddie feud of that year. The DVD ends in October 2005 with Chris Benoit defending the United States Title against Booker T, in a hard-hitting match that sees Benoit take an extremely painful-looking bump into the side of an announcer's table off a missed tope.

This isn't a true representation of the most memorable or even the best SmackDown matches of its first few years (the absence of TLC III being a classic example), but with some thrilling matches and a few surprising moments, this budget DVD is more than adequate. If you enjoyed WWE's product in the mid-2000s, this is a good DVD for you to own.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10 - Good