No Chance – 2011 Holiday Gift Guide

Columns, Top Story

As the last month of the year begins, it brings with it a season of shopping. Yes most holiday shopping began on Black Friday but that doesn’t mean that shopping is over. (As I’m sure the television commercials won’t let you forget.) So what should you get for that WWE fan in your family? Or perhaps for yourself if nobody else will understand why you want wrestling things? How about one of the things from this handy shopping guide? (Links included for the buying)

DVDs: 

Money In The Bank 2011:If you are to spend the money to get one PPV on DVD make it this one. We’ve still got TLC but it seems safe to say that this was the PPV of the year and contains what will probably be the match of the year, which is a major part of the storyline of the year. Yes the reason to buy this is so you can see CM Punk win his first WWE Championship over and over and over again, but don’t forget that you will also get a pair of great MiTB matches as well. After all that’s what the PPV was supposed to be about.

WrestleMania 27: Yes this is not the best WrestleMania in history, (In fact it’s probably in the bottom half) but I’ve gone ahead and put it on here for completion sake. After all WrestleMania is still WrestleMania and the whole thing has a “big deal” feel to it, even if, when you break it down piece by piece, the DVD doesn’t have a whole lot going for it. Worthwhile matches include Undertaker vs. Triple H, Orton vs. CM Punk, and Edge vs. Del Rio. Plus you do get to see Edge’s final match.

The True Story of WrestleMania: This was just a flat interesting documentary. There were a few moments where you wished things weren’t so glossed over and wonder what could have been if WWE hadn’t been in control of this, but still a documentary about the conceptualization and success of WrestleMania is an iterating thing. I actually watched this on Netflix so I have no idea how the special features are but there is a lot of material to choose from.

OMG: The Top 50 events in WWE history: Who doesn’t love a good countdown? Getting to say “this should have gone here,” or “we all know that this should be number 1” or “I can’t believe they left this off of the list.” Yes the countdown is a bit Stone Cold heavy, and yes you do have to listen to that OMG song before every single entry. But some truly great moments are on the DVD. Plus I had never gotten around to owning a copy of the Undertaker vs. Mankind Hell in a Cell match before getting this DVD.

Ladder Match 2: Crash and Burn: Two packed “gimmick match” DVDs came out this year. A Cage Match one and this one. I ended up picking this one for the list simply because I really love the concept of Ladder matches. And sure, we already have a big set of Ladder Matches out there, but that doesn’t mean that this one is full of “leftover matches” that didn’t make it to the greatest hits. Plenty of good stuff on this collection.

WWE: The Greatest Cage Matches of All Time: Ok so I put both DVDs on the list. I haven’t picked up a copy of this one but reading a list of the matches on it, it doesn’t look like a bad buy. The list looks a bit WWE heavy (though who is surprised about that) and some big deal matches are missing, but the first disc of the collection is probably the most appealing, with matches dating back to 1979.

Stone Cold Steve Austin: The Bottom Line on the Most Popular Superstar of All Time: A handful of superstar specific DVDs came out this year including one for Randy Orton and one for Rey Mysterio. I always feel that your desire to watch these, is based solely on how much you like the superstar. But I didn’t want to ignore that whole genre of DVDs, so I figured if there was one that should interest the most people, wouldn’t the Stone Cold one be it? I haven’t seen it yet, but I already know that I’m going to pick it up at some point.

Greatest Rivalries: Shawn Michael vs. Bret Hart: The way this one it titled it sounds like it’s going to be the first in a series of DVD’s that detail big time rivalries throughout wrestling history which would be awesome. Almost this entire DVD is just the two guys sitting in a room talking to JR, but it does feel like a genuine conversation. And even though they do spend a great deal of time on Montreal, its nice that they take time and acknowledge that both of these guys had great careers outside of this one moment. It should be noted that the Survivor Series Match from 97 is only available on the Blu Ray edition.

All of the links above link to the DVD version unless the Blu Ray has exclusive features that are intriguing enough that they might warrant the price bump.

Clothing:

CM Punk Best in the World shirt: I’m not one who usually feels a strong pull to pledge allegiance to a wrestler by wearing the same shirt they wear every week. That being said, I have never wanted a wrestling shirt as much as I want Punk’s new shirt.

John Cena’s Red Shirt: Cena actually came out with two big deal shirts this year, but if you only want to pick up one, I would advise getting the Red Shirt that came out at WrestleMania. Sure it’s not the most recent, but I like the “fruity pebble” shirts far more than the new “Rise Above Hate” one.  (I made sure that this link goes to the kid’s sizes for the shirt.)

*Note: I would have loved to put a “Take Care, Spike Your Hair” shirt but can’t seem to find those anywhere. If you do see one, be sure and pick it up since it seems that they aren’t making them anymore.

Video Games:

WWE 12: I haven’t gotten a chance to actually play the new WWE video game but since its release, it has earned several fantastic reviews. And these are just the reviews screamed to us by Michael Cole in between the twitter pimping every Monday. Many a video game critic heaped praise upon the latest game in the series citing improvement in game play, as it’s biggest appeal. Plus they finally got rid of the clunky Smackdown vs. Raw title. However some of the complaints leveled against the game focus on a downgraded one player and story mode, so this may be a game that suits you best if you have many a friend willing to play with you (The link goes to an Xbox 360 version of the game but I have faith that if you want it you can easily find copies of the game for PS3 and Wii which it is also available on)

WWE All-Stars: Where the Smackdown vs. Raw games were supposed to simulate the in ring footage you see every week, this game looks and feels like something you would find in an old arcade and put a quarter in to play. Yes the character design is crazy and takes some serious getting used to (as do the controls) but the over the top feel is serious fun. (Like WWE 12 above, the link goes to an Xbox 360 copy of the game but it too is available on PS3 and Wii, as well as PSP, Nintendo 3DS, and PSP)

Joel Leonard reviews the latest movies each week for Inside Pulse. You can follow him @joelgleo on Twitter though he's not promising to ever tweet anything from there. Joel also co-hosts the Classy Ring Attire podcast and writes the No Chance column on Inside Pulse as well.