The Wrestling Menu - Anthology Review & NWO Back In Black (but not for long)
    Submitted by DaveyBoy on Wednesday, March 5, 2003 at 1:32 AM EST


    THE WRESTLING MENU #37

    Welcome one and all to the 37th edition of The Wrestling Menu, the column that is sure to satisfy your taste buds when it comes to discussing all things wrestling.

    A couple of things before we get started today; Terrible news has surfaced within the last 24 hours that the much-anticipated Kurt Angle vs Brock Lesnar WrestleMania match will most probably be called off. This is due to a serious neck injury that Kurt Angle has sustained. This is a damn shame!!! I was really looking forward to this main event, and the WWE have genuinely taken care & time to set this feud up. I hope the WWE do not revert back to 'booking-on-the-fly' because of this incident. Furthermore, I'd like to send my best wishes out to Kurt. If indeed he has to take a year off, he'll be sadly missed by myself.

    Just quickly, I'd like to thank all those that e-mailed me their thoughts last week on No Way Out & Raw. I'd especially like to thank those that replied sensibly regarding my thoughts on the Montreal crowd (from No Way Out). For anyone that was live at the pay-per-view and has yet to read my column from last week, I strongly recommend you track it down, give it a read & then send me your opinions. I'm always interested in what my readers have to say, especially when they are in a better position to comment than what I am in.


    APPETIZERS - Anthology Review

    I know I am not the first to review the WWE's 3 CD Anthology collection, but seeing as though I've owned it since Christmas & listened to it many times now, I thought this would be a good time to add my opinion. Anthology is what I like to refer to as a 'flawed masterpiece'. That is, it is really good, yet still has many things wrong with it.

    Just hearing some of the tracks brought back so many memories. The WWE have wisely decided to release this collection for exactly that reason, while furthermore including some of the more recent themes to complete the collection. The 3 CD's are titled 'The Federation Years', 'The Attitude Era' & 'Now'. These are all fairly self-explanatory.

    The man responsible for the collection is Jim Johnston & one of the probable flaws of the collection is his following quote in the liner notes; "But they do tell a story, both individually & as a collection. To me, that story is at times disturbingly autobiographical & personal". You can really tell this, as some of the tracks just shouldn't be there. Of the earlier tracks, leaving out Undertaker's Graveyard Symphony, Slick's Jive Soul Bro & the Demolition theme is an absolute crime. You can add Randy Savage's & The British Bulldogs' theme to that if you like. Yet, they have included shockers from the Bushwhackers, Bertha Faye & Los Boricuas. This can only be because they had some sort of personal significance to Johnston.

    I pretty much have no problem with the 'Attitude Era' disc, while it's hard to comment on the final 'Now' CD, as you don't know to what extent the WWE had control over songs from bands. We get Naughty By Nature, Little Kim & Saliva, but no Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, Rob Zombie or Motorhead. If you do have the ability to download music from the internet, I would have to recommend making your own CD & including some of the themes used for wrestlers that were actually recorded by bands. Furthermore, Pay-Per-View themes (a few of which are on Anthology) also would make a great collection.

    In conclusion; Like I said earlier, this collection of themes is a flawed masterpiece. But at the end of the day, having the ability to listen to classic tracks such as Hulk Hogan's Real American, Ultimate Warrior's Unstable, Psycho Sid's Snapped, Triple H's My Time, Chris Jericho's Break The Walls Down, Kurt Angle's I Don't Suck, Kane's Burned & themes for Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Corporate Ministry, Christian & Brock Lesnar, just make this a 'must-have' in my opinion. My personal favourites are Naughty By Nature's Shane McMahon theme & Owen Hart's Enough Is Enough.


    MAIN - NWO Back In Black Review

    I'm not 100% sure why, but I was really looking forward to seeing this DVD. I think it was because I thought that a history of this infamous group would be a a very entertaining watch, if done correctly. So did the WWE succeed...??? Sort of. Read on to find out what I mean.

    The main portion of the DVD went for approximately 85 minutes & began with a very good introduction to Hall, Nash & Hogan in their pre-NWO days. Included amongst this was an introduction on the Monday Night Wars, plus some grainy footage & discussion on the infamous curtain call incident. The only thing missing from this excellent 10 minute opening was footage of Hall & Nash before they arrived in the WWF as Razor Ramon & Diesel.

    The obvious next point was May-27 1996, when Scott Hall interrupted Nitro. Over the next 20 minutes or so, we are shown this, Nash's subsequent appearance & jack-knifing of Eric Bischoff, and the build up to the infamous Bash At The Beach match. A fair bit of that match is shown, as is the full interview with Hulk Hogan after his heel turn. Following this, we get some classic footage of the NWO shenanigans that took place at the Disney MGM studios in Florida. Those backstage attacks were done just perfectly at the time. Who can ever forget Nash using Mysterio as a dart?

    Next up was a look at Hogan's title win over The Giant (aka The Big Show) at Hog Wild & Giant's subsequent heel turn to join the NWO as the first of their recruits in late August. A brief discussion is then held regarding the group being watered down by the addition of more members. This was ok, but sort of seemed out of place to me, as they seemed to be going too far into the future. I would soon realize why though, as the DVD then inexplicably jumped into a time machine & landed in late 2001.

    Up until this point, I would have rated the DVD a 10 out of 10, but what on earth happened to footage & discussion of some of the great things that happened with the group from late 1996 through to 1999...??? The NWO feuds against Lex Luger, Sting, Roddy Piper, Ric Flair & Bill Goldberg were all left off. As were storylines surrounding Eric Bischoff, Randy Savage & the NWO Wolfpac. These were all an important & entertaining part of the group's history, and could not afford to be ignored. Even the 'finger-poke of doom' was left off!!!

    Anyway, back to what was on the DVD; A short recap of the Vince McMahon vs Ric Flair feud was shown, resulting in McMahon's announcement that he wouldn't let Flair ruin Vince's creation (the WWE) & that he would bring in his own poison (the NWO) to ruin it. Some vignettes are shown, as is most of the debuting in-ring segment from No Way Out. This was followed by entertaining backstage segments involving Stone Cold Steve Austin & The Rock. The final 30-35 minutes of the main section of the DVD highlights Hogan's feud with The Rock, Hall's feud with Austin, and the resultant matches at WrestleMania X8. This does include the excellent Rock-Hogan in-ring segment from Raw and the subsequent over-the-top truck & ambulance incident afterwards. Oh, I should state that the conclusion sees a discussion of the NWO's future & X-Pac replacing Hogan in the group.

    On to the extras, and ignoring some superficial vignettes & commercials, there were 4 matches to enjoy. Obviously, the Bash At The Beach '96 match was shown in full (Hall, Nash & mystery partner vs Sting, Luger & Savage). 15 minutes of wrestling & the 13 minute interview was unedited & remains the cornerstone of the NWO formation. Following that was 30 minutes of nostalgic War Games action, as Hall, Nash, Hogan & Fake Sting took on Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger & the Real Sting. This was great to watch & only further reminded me what a crime it was to leave the Sting feud off the main part of the DVD. The aftermath of this match involving Randy Savage, Elizabeth & The Giant is also shown.

    Next up was the anti-climactic Starrcade '98 match between Kevin Nash & Bill Goldberg. This was the No DQ match where Goldberg's 173 win streak was ended with the help of Scott Hall's stun-gun/cattle prod. Finally, we had the above average Raw main event from March-11, 2002. This was the handicap match just before WrestleMania where The Rock & Austin fought Hall, Nash & Hogan. This was Hogan's first wrestling match in the WWF for 8 years & it saw him surprisingly pin The Rock cleanly.

    All in all, as badly put together as this collection was, it is still very much worth a watch. There is enough decent footage on there to save it. But at the end of the day, this so easily could have been the best wrestling DVD ever put together. It didn't need all of the WCW happenings shown in detail, all I would have asked for was at least a mention & some highlights from all the major feuds stated above. The fact that this DVD is practically split (time-wise) in half between WCW & WWE is a joke, especially considering how long the group lasted in the WWE.


    DESSERT - NWO's 2002 Failure

    Ok, I'm now going to talk more on the NWO as I answer a question that I know will be asked of me, following the last section; Why did the NWO fail in the WWE in 2002...??? Oh boy, where do I start!?!?!? I'm not going to rank the reasons in order (and yes, there are more than one), I'll just briefly go through them. Once more, please remember that I have never professed to being a successful writer. I'm not going to provide alternatives, because quite frankly, I don't really have any. I'm just going to give my opinion on the way the experts handled the group.

    Firstly, unlike some others, I didn't mind the 'Poison' gimmick given to the group before they debuted in the WWE. If the storylines were written well enough, it could have been an angle that worked. Remember that McMahon wanted to destroy Ric Flair's vision of the WWE. What better way than to bring in a stable & have them not allow him to carry out his plans. However, it started off badly with their in-ring segment at No Way Out. While it included some entertaining quotes for the so-called 'smart' fans, it did nothing for the long-term angle the group was supposed to take part in. The same can be said of the backstage segments involving The Rock & Stone Cold Steve Austin. Their run-in on the Austin vs Jericho main event was unfortunately too little, too late.

    Then the next problem of the NWO's debut quickly surfaced; the timing of it. Bringing in 3 impact players just 5 weeks before the centrepiece of the year, WrestleMania, meant that storylines, matches & angles had to be rushed. This once more did long-term harm to the group, as nothing was able to be set up properly. As amazing a reaction as Hogan got at WrestleMania X8, it was not totally unexpected by WWE management, and a face turn was already in the works for him.

    The question I ask is how can a group professing to be poison, be successful, if within 5 weeks they have lost one-third of their personnel? What I am trying to say is that it would have been beneficial if the NWO debuted in the WWE around September-November 2001, thus a more gradual progression toward Hogan's WrestleMania face turn. Just on a current note, I'm worried that the same long-term storyline problems will occur this year, with Austin, Kevin Nash & The Rock returning to the WWE, to join the recently signed talent of Steiner & Hogan, so close to WrestleMania X9.

    While discussing why the 2002 version of the NWO failed, it would be remiss of me to exclude the diminished in-ring talents of the group. All 3 of them were ageing, had a history of injuries & had spent the previous months not doing too much at all. They weren't as imposing as they had once been & just couldn't get it done in the ring like they could before. Often, Scott Hall would have to carry the workload in the ring, and even his skills had diminished. The WWE have always had a priority on their main eventers getting the job done in the ring, and it was always going to be a doubt with these three.

    I think that's the main 3 reasons why the 2002 (and hopefully last) version of the NWO failed. There are actually quite a few more reasons such as the negative reaction from colleagues due to past political games, the discipline factor of especially Scott Hall, and the argument that a reformed group from another organization has no place in the WWE. But I thought these either could have been overcome given time, or did not have a chance to exist due to the main reasons bringing down the group so swiftly.

    At the end of the day, the NWO reformation was a huge risk by the WWE. It is a risk that was probably worth it. But as with most risks in life, the likelihood of failing is severely reduced with proper long-term planning. I think the WWE failed in that area, and this is another lesson the WWE must learn from with regards to long-term booking over booking on the fly. I never mind the WWE taking a risk, but not learning from a mistake is foolish.


    That about does it for edition #37 of The Wrestling Menu. As per usual, please feel free to send me an e-mail letting me know what you thought of this column. I would be extremely interested in knowing what you thought of both the Anthology 3 CD collection & the NWO Back In Black DVD. Furthermore, if you think I have forgotten a reason why the 2002 version of the NWO failed, please let me know. Feedback is always appreciated. My e-mail address is DaveyBoy123@bigpond.com.

    Next week, I should have a controversial & discussion prompting column for you all. All 3 topics could very much be argued. I won't give away too much right now, but I will say that it is sure to be a must-read. Look out for that column same Wednesday time & same LOP channel next Wednesday. Until then, this is Davey Boy signing off & asking you to remember that dinner is best served in 3 courses.








    Huge Batista/Vince Spoilers, HHH's Future, HBK's WWE Title Run, MORE BACKSTAGE NEWS!

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