WWE – Greatest Stars of the 90s – DVD Review

Wrestling became a part of my life back around 1986 when I was the tender age of seven years old. Automatically my attention was drawn to the superstars as they performed in the ring and told stories both in and out of it. As time went on, though, wrestling took a turn and changed their methods of madness to not only draw in more fans but also to make it more fun and exciting for the long-time fans. When the nineties rolled in, the face of wrestling changed forever and it seemed to happen every single year. New faces were making names for themselves. Wild and exciting never before heard of storylines were making people cheer, boo, and sit there in shock. The performers themselves were getting better in the ring and taking us on a journey out of the ring. A brand new attitude had come over all of wrestling whether it was WWE, WCW, or ECW; but it all comes down to who were the true stars of those companies.

With WWE’s Greatest Stars of the 90s we take a journey through the decade and see vignettes of some of the greatest names to perform – and those that made the biggest impacts. Sometimes we see someone that is fantastic in the ring but doesn’t quite have the skills on the microphone. Other times we’ll see someone that has the charisma and speaking skills to tell an awesome story, but they’re overly green in the ring. All of the superstars showcased in this DVD set are the men and women that had it all. Their in-ring abilities were enough to make even non-wrestling fans sit up and take notice. When their voices rang out through the arena, everyone just shut their mouths and paid attention. Throw on top of that the God given charisma along with natural appeal and you’ve got yourself a born and bred wrestling superstar that will never end up anywhere but the spotlight.

This set is hosted by now former WWE talent Tazz and he focuses on each superstar for their own segments that take a short look throughout their career and especially their time during the nineties. While some of the talent does get more time then others, it’s still a bit of a tribute to each person included here because they are given credit for being part of one of the biggest decades in wrestling history. No full matches are shown during this feature but they are included on the second and third discs with a lot of great choices being made that have never been listed in any other DVD sets before. Like other sets, the main feature is really good and does a great job of showcasing the main points of each wrestler’s career throughout the nineties, but so much is missing. Knowing that so many superstars get individual collections like Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Triple H, Undertaker, The Rock, and more, it’s hard to see them all get three hours focused on them and someone as awesome as Owen hart be whittled down to about eight minutes.

Those that were privileged enough to be labeled as a greatest star of the 90s are:

Shawn Michaels
Yokozuna
The Rock
Kevin Nash / Diesel
Owen Hart
Ric Flair
Mick Foley / Mankind / Dude Love / Cactus Jack
Hulk Hogan / Hollywood
Triple H
Bret “Hit Man” Hart
Mr. McMahon, Eric Bischoff, and Paul Heyman
Lex Luger
Sting
Scott Hall / Razor Ramon
Undertaker
Stone Cold Steve Austin

Other chapters included in this set bulk some other stars together such as the women of the nineties which is a nice little tribute to the great talent of days gone by. Other chapters though don’t necessarily showcase the great moments that made the nineties, but some that shamed it and were big parts of it. Failed gimmicks like Aldo Montoya, The Yeti, and the Berzerker just to name a few. I actually kind of dug the Berzerker with all his running around yelling “HUSS HUSS!” every flippin’ second he was out there. Another interesting note is that Owen Hart’s death is talked about a little bit, but not a single mention of his role as The Blue Blazer is anywhere to be found. Just seemed a tad strange to me because it wasn’t the “reason” he died even though he was in that costume when it happened and it was a big part of his time in the nineties. Other than that, I have no real problems with this set because it’s a fun and nostalgic look back at one of the greatest ten year spans in all of sports’ history.

Disc 2

~ Madison Square Garden November 30, 1991: Hulk Hogan Vs. Ric Flair – This is of course long before Hogan’s jump to WCW in the mid-nineties and was a dream match to be seen by all. Sadly though this wouldn’t be the best of the dream match-ups as it is a rather short match and on an underwhelming small card. Flair had originally come to the WWE with the big gold belt from WCW (the current World Heavyweight Belt), but that stopped quickly and here he comes out with an old Tag Team Title belt. Doesn’t matter though because it is blurred out on television due to President Jack Tunney telling Flair he wasn’t allowed to have “that belt” with him. A short match that sees some back and forth before Flair locks on a figure four only to have it reversed for Hogan to start his comeback. But Mr. Perfect hands Flair some brass knuckles with which he knocks Hogan out and PINS HIM! The crowd despises the result but I love it, and then extra refs come out to reverse it. Boooooo!

~ Survivor Series November 25, 1992: WWE Championship Match Bret “Hit Man” Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels – It honestly doesn’t matter what the case was or when these two stepped in the ring because they always delivered. Odd how five years later at this same event, an occurrence would happen that would change the face of wrestling forever. Heh! The match itself isn’t their best performance together, but it’s still a fantastic match that goes almost thirty minutes. Bret was the WWE Champion and HBK was the Intercontinental Champion so it made the suspense and intensity of this champion versus champion match even greater. You can’t go wrong with these two.

~ King of the Ring June 13, 1993: WWE Championship Match Hulk Hogan Vs. Yokozuna – A little bit of backstory here as Hogan was about to head out of the WWE and jump on over to Atlanta and WCW so those in the know at the time knew Hogan wasn’t winning this one. I’ll admit that I was a huge Hogan fan back in the day, but as time has gone on his popularity with me has dwindled. Good God, Yokozuna was a beast of a man. The match itself is far from a classic and just not a masterpiece but look at the two involved and you can kind of expect that. Hell, you could even fast forward through the match and miss nothing except you must stop with about two minutes left for that is when things get good. Not good, but phenomenal and that includes the awesome sights of Yokozuna kicking out of the patented leg drop, Hogan losing to his own leg drop, and being able to hear a pin drop in that arena. BWAHAHAHAHA!

Even more humorous is Jim Ross calling the legdrop that Yokozuna dropped on Hogan, “Hogan’s own maneuver.” I know it is something he does, but it’s a friggin legdrop dude. Everyone has done one.

~ WrestleMania X March 20, 1994: Bret “Hit Man” Hart Vs. Owen Hart – Not only one of the greatest opening matches in PPV history, but one of the greatest matches in history period. I don’t have much to say about this match because it is an absolute masterpiece and evidence that the Hart family is nothing but awesome. Check out the match no matter what you do.

~ Superstars April 13, 1994: WWE Intercontinental Championship Match Diesel Vs. Razor Ramon – Does it really get any cooler than Scott Hall and Kevin Nash before they were really known as Hall and Nash? The match itself isn’t their best battle ever much like the earlier Hit Man/HBK match-up, but since it’s never made it to a DVD before it’s still fun to watch. Rather short and uneventful but it leads to Nash’s first championship reign.

~ Slamboree May 22, 1994: International World Heavyweight Championship Match Sting Vs. Vader – ECW was just really getting rolling under the Extreme Championship moniker and Slamboree was taking place in Philadelphia so it is very evident that the fans shit all over this at times. Shame too because it’s really not that bad of a match and a fun really big man versus a very strong smaller guy. Back and forth match-up after some stalling at the beginning and it ends up being a good match but with a crappy finish.

~ Royal Rumble January 22, 1995: WWE Championship Match Bret “Hit Man” Hart Vs. Diesel – Diesel was the champion at this point and a bit of a fan favorite as was the Hit Man making this kind of an odd match. Well, odd match for the time because you didn’t see faces take on one another before the late nineties that often. Halfway through this decent match, Shawn Michaels runs out and starts attacking Diesel but for some reason that doesn’t merit a disqualification. The referee instead allows the match to go on? Not too long after all that confusion, Owen Hart runs out and starts to decimate Bret but again the referee just gets rid of Owen and allows the match to continue. The match finally ends when Shawn Michaels, Jeff Jarrett, and the Roadie (Road Dogg) come out and attack Diesel while Owen Hart and Bob Backlund take out Bret calling for a double disqualification. WTF?

When the locker room wasn’t in the ring ruining it, this was a really good match between the two men and it’s a shame that we couldn’t get a clean finish.

~ RAW April 3, 1995: Women’s Championship Match Alundra Blayze Vs. Bull Nakano – I think Bull Nakano had the Orient Express’ old music which was awesome. Blayze gets a great ovation as she comes out in her onesie. Both women really put everything on the line here and do some great moves and even break out some interesting submission holds. You could never really figure out who exactly would win this one which made it even better. The sad part about this match is that it was fourteen years ago when the women’s division had maybe five or six chicks in it. Today the division is probably twenty deep and ninety percent of the match-ups you could make from it would never come close to the quality of this match.

Disc 3

~ In Your House September 24, 1995: All Titles On The Line Match Diesel & Shawn Michaels Vs. Yokozuna & British Bulldog – The idea of the match is that the person that gets pinned ends up losing their title. Diesel was the WWE Champion, HBK was the Intercontinental Champion, and Yokozuna was a tag champ along with Owen Hart. Hart was not there though and replaced by the British Bulldog in an event that isn’t exactly explained. It wasn’t too bad for a tag team match with four kind of random people involved, but it was all the titles being on the line that really added any suspense to it whatsoever.

~ In Your House February 18, 1996: #1 Contender For The WWE Championship Match Owen Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels – Winner of this match would actually go on to fight in the main event match at WrestleMania XI. HBK goes on to prove that when he was in the ring with any member of the Hart family then it was a given that it’d be a great match.

~ SummerSlam August 18, 1996: WWE Championship Match Shawn Michaels Vs. Vader – Forgot how much I missed the whole, “It’s time…it’s time…it’s…VADER…TIME-Time-time-tim…!” HBK got the ever-living hell beat out of him during this match and really took a beating from the big man. This is a decent match overall until a very awkward moment after about ten to twelve minutes that sees HBK go up top for the elbow drop, jump off the ropes, land feet first, kick Vader in the head, and scream at him. Weird. It eventually leads to a countout but Jim Cornette doesn’t want the victory that way and has the match restarted. Five minutes later, HBK gets disqualified for using Cornette’s tennis racket, but again Cornette has the match restarted. This eventually leads to Vader’s clean loss by pin and causing me to be annoyed because of the last ten minutes of nonsense.

~ SummerSlam August 3, 1997: Steel Cage Match Mankind Vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley – Hunter immediately makes a beeline for the door which leads me to wonder why more don’t try that at the start of every cage match. He fortunately doesn’t make it though or else we’d have us one hell of a short match but I give the WWE credit for still having the “win by escape only” stipulation for a cage match. Chyna is with Hunter here and she is still a post-op man with the big chin and all that. It’s really not much of a match between these two compared to their great battles in the years to come, but it had much more significance behind it all. The finish sees Mankind rip off his mask, stand on top of the cage, and drop the elbow onto Hunter as a tribute to Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka. It’s a classic and memorable moment in an otherwise forgetful match.

~ Nitro August 4, 1997: WCW Championship Match Hulk Hogan Vs. Lex Luger – What an utter piece of crap this match is. Hmmm, and we don’t even get entrances for either man but the match just starts with them already in the ring. Hogan was in full control with the nWo while Luger had “racked the world” (thank you Mike Tenay) the past few months as a card-carrying member for WCW. This match just truly sucks, but it serves a purpose as the nWo had been running wild through all of WCW since their inception and Hogan was just controlling everything. Even with the interference of just about every other nWo member, Luger prevailed and brought the title back to WCW. The crowd loved it and it was a big moment, but he’d go on to lose it back to Hogan a week later making his title-reign pointless and short lived.

Tons of WCW wrestlers and agents come out to celebrate with Luger as the crowd eats it up. Man, I had almost forgotten how much trash and debris the fans used to throw into the ring whenever the nWo was out there and yet the announcers never said a damn thing about how dangerous that could be.

~ SummerSlam August 30, 1998: WWE Championship Match Stone Cold Steve Austin Vs. Undertaker – This match took place during Taker’s sort of techno theme music that I honestly loved and miss. Austin has the crappy looking smoking skull belt which I blame for the God awful WWE Title belt that is in use today. While it’s not an awful match, it’s kind of difficult for me to remember Austin ever being this bad. He just looks horrible out there with his timing off and Taker constantly having to improvise in order for things not to look totally out of whack. It’s a match that just doesn’t come off well but doesn’t make for an overly bad watch.

~ Halloween Havoc October 25, 1998: United States Championship Match Sting Vs. Bret “Hit Man” Hart – Sting is adorned with the goatee which he blends into his nWo Wolfpac face paint. Yeesh, and I thought the last match was bad? This one made my ass hurt it is so awful. You would think that Sting and Hart could not possibly have a bad match as good as they both have been throughout their careers, but they did nothing worthwhile here and almost looked to not give a damn whatsoever. The crowd doesn’t care either and a lame-o finish just makes this entire match useless.

~ Fully Loaded July 25, 1999: Strap Match Triple H Vs. The Rock – Man, the ending of this set just really dies as this is the third match in a row that is so incredibly blah. Rock and Trips would go on to have so many great matches but this one just stunk things up. It is very slow paced and sees a lot of pointless brawling that leads to some very dull moments and leaves the crowd bored in their seats. Strap matches were never some of my more favorites, and this one continues that trend. Meh.

The event is shown in 1.33:1 Full Screen format for the matches and the main feature is shown in Widescreen format; both of which look great.

The event is heard in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and everything sounds great. All of these matches being older then the PPVs we are graced with on DVD each month; they still come through with dialogue being clear and loud while the entrance themes and crowd noise surround the room.

Matches – Discs two and three are strictly matches and listed as special features for this set.

Razor Ramon Restaurant Vignette

Undertaker Builds A Coffin For Yokozuna

Bret “Hit Man” Hart New Generation Vignette

Owen Hart Inside A Steel Cage

Shawn Michaels Press Conference Before WrestleMania XI

Hunter Hearst Helmsley “Riff Raff”

Mankind “And God Created Mankind”

Scott Hall & Kevin Nash “Modern Day Gladiators”

The Hart Foundation Reunites

D-Generation X Reenacts The Montreal Incident

The Rock Reads Stone Cold Steve Austin’s Eulogy

Stone Cold Steve Austin Remembers The Shockmaster

Trailers – The Best Of Saturday Night’s Main Event and Starrcade: The Essential Collection

Greatest Stars Of The 90s is a must have set for any wrestling fan or anyone that happened to miss out on the whole wrestling phenom decade of the nineties. It is a great feature and a good collection of matches (minus the stinkers) for a really decent price that is hard to pass up. Watching all this old footage really makes me hope that the WWE will take the first step forward in getting out individual sets for wrestlers like Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sting, and especially Owen Hart. I honestly can’t imagine a better six hours or so spent then those spent watching the career of Owen Hart play out before me. Still, this is really a fun set that, while not perfect by a long shot, is still good enough that you should grab yourself a copy. Oh and you’ll thank yourself even more due to the vignettes thrown into the special features because they just don’t make them like they used to.

………………………………………

WWE Home Video presents Greatest Stars of the 90s. Featuring: Undertaker, Steve Austin, Bret Hart, Yokozuna, Shawn Michaels, The Rock, Owen Hart, Sting, Paul Heyman, and many more. Running time: 540 minutes on 3 discs. Rating: PG. Released on DVD: April 14, 2009. Available at Amazon.com