Take up thy wrestling boots and walk - Comparing new WWE dvds, the new look McMahons
Submitted by Pt2 on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 at 9:54 PM EST





Welcome once again to the column that is responsible for 0% of all WWE music releases dating right back to the dubious Rock n’ Wrestling album of the eighties, Take up thy wrestling boots and walk. I’m the man who uses the word brother more often than Shawn Michaels in a Hulk Hogan parody, Pt2, back once again to talk about anything and everything connected to the mecca of the entertainment industry, Professional wrestling.

Sorry for the delay with this one. Just gone back to University. I’m settled in now, so everything should run to schedule again.

The people who know me – either at lopforums.com or at any of the other locations on the net that I happen to frequent – know that I have a bias towards a small group of wrestlers. They don’t always have something in common – at times they downright despise each other. But these wrestlers have always felt in a way like they are my wrestlers, the few men who can consistently time and time again, go into the ring and make me feel exactly what they want me to feel. It’s a rare skill, and even rarer again in someone who’s seen as much wrestling as I (and probably most of the people reading this column) have. When you’ve watched wrestling for over a decade and seen wrestling from several countries around the world, when you find someone who can make, or made, it seem new and exciting every time they went out there, you tend to take a special interest: And I follow the group that can do that for me pretty closely.

That said, I’m psyched to see the Bret Hart DVD will be released soon. Seriously, Bret is a legend, and I think it’s great that he’s finally going to be recognised as one. It would have been most unproper for Bret’s DVD to have come across in the way that the Ultimate Warrior’s DVD will be put together – Not only would it have been an insult to Bret Hart personally, but to the Hart family and to an older school mentality of wrestling, one which I think the current school owes a hell of a lot to and could still do with learning a lot from. But that’s another issue for another column.

But fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Bret: Finally, the Hitman and the WWE have managed to do that ever elusive post Montreal deal and although it isn’t the in ring return that the optimists (and in this case, considering Bret’s physical condition, Optimist = idiot) have been hoping for or the fabled goodbye speech that has been talked about since…. Well, since Montreal, it is a major step in the right direction because ultimately, it does all boil down to one thing:

Even though Bret Hart started and ended his career in other wrestling companies, he is ultimately a WWF star. He made his name in the WWF, is really the WWF face of the 90’s (Austin, although a much bigger draw, emerged too far into the 90’s, while Hart was a star by the end of 91 through to the end of 97) and it is only proper that his contributions in keeping the WWF afloat in a time when the WWF had literally only, himself, the clique, and the Undertaker to do business with deserve to be recognised.

Whether it was top of the card like his cage match with Owen Hart at the 1994 Summerslam, or matches further down the card like his battles with Hakushi at a 1995 In Your House event (the actual month escapes me), he was undoubtedly the main man – the top good guy in the country. And if wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and the Undertaker have their DVD collections, then for my money, it stands to reason that Bret Hart is one of the few workers out there who truly belongs in that group.

I’m sure there are a few people out there holding onto the idea that Bret was never going to work with Vince McMahon again – lets be realists here. Bret hasn’t “sold out” or “sold his soul” or whatever trendy new bullshit term is going around to describe it. Eventually, time heals all wounds, and Montreal must be no different. Hart must know that ultimately, his career and his legacy is in the hands of Vince McMahon. The McMahon family owns all of the WWF and WCW footage where Bret Hart spent the glory years of his career, and I wouldn’t mind betting that they acquired the footage of the early years of Bret Hart when they purchased Stampede wrestling back in the eighties.

Everyone who has followed Bret Hart will know that he’s a very proud man – he’s rightly very proud of the achievements that he made in the ring, and he wants them to live on. At the end of the day, who actually wants their achievements, their legacy, to die with them, or the end of their career? Surely the whole point of a legacy is that it is something to leave behind? Well, without working with Vince McMahon Bret Hart doesn’t get that.

He’s a smart man, and unlike the Ultimate Warrior, who will look like even more of an idiot in his DVD than the Internet makes him look on a daily basis, Bret Hart has a strong position, playing a major role in picking out the very best moments from his career to show the audience.

While the Ultimate Warrior, the body builder who got lead through matches by Hulk Hogan and Rick Rude and allegedly never cared for the craft of pro wrestling has a DVD where more talented stars, wrestlers who’ve headlined more PPV’s and probably sold more tickets make fun of his mannerisms and point out how little he actually deserved his position, Bret Hart will have a DVD that gives him the chance to tell the story from his side. While I don’t expect Montreal to be covered in quite the same way it is covered in Wrestling with shadows, it certainly won’t be a WWE puff piece painting Vince McMahon in the right and justifying the Bret screwed Bret argument. Whether Bret should have been more mature than Shawn had been and agreed to lose or not, is really immaterial now – what is important is that Bret Hart along with Mark Calloway, Scott Hall et al, was one of the biggest stars of the WWE in the early and mid nineties and has a story worth telling. And hopefully, a three disc DVD that chronicles his days in the Hart foundation (wrestling teams like the Killer Bees and the infamous British Bulldogs), along with his famous matches with “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig, his brother Owen, and Stone Cold Steve Austin, will do his story justice.

I don’t know if you can tell from this, but I’ll definitely be buying this DVD. And I’m just glad that we don’t get a “Bret Hart mistakes” section and images of Orlando Jordan, Christy Hemme and Paul London giving fake Bret Hart glasses to kids.


I just want to talk briefly about this past week on RAW to finish. Because something happened that I’ve been dreading in wrestling for as long as I can remember now…. The infamous, the dastardly, the dreaded… Linda McMahon heel turn.

I mean seriously. What’s the point? Who ACTUALLY cares?

I can see the point of the other three McMahon’s having heel turns, or being on screen in any way shape or form, because even though they aren’t going to the Oscars, they can all act reasonably well and play the characters that they actually have to.

But Linda McMahon can’t even come out and upset the rest of her family without sounding so monotone that a thunderbird puppet would think she was dull. More Linda McMahon on our screens is not a good thing, and a heel turn for her can only mean more Linda McMahon…. Ugh.

I always had a feeling it was coming…. It was just like a Phil Collins song, even though you know it’s awful, you always know it’s eventually going to happen. All the same, I can pray that they actually have some sense and leave most of the on screen duties to Vince and Steph.

Of course, with a strong McMahon presence on RAW…. Where does this leave Eric Bischoff? Smart booking would actually make this a stronger time for Bischoff by having him involved more…. But these days, I don’t expect as much smart booking as I did in the long, dark, distant days when wrestling writers knew what wrestling was.

Anyway, that’ll do it for this week. If you have any feedback on this, I’m at takeupthywrestlingboots@gmail.com and I’ll reply to you just as soon as I can.

I’ve also been taking part in the X-Change with Xan recently. Look out for that, it’ll be coming to the main page shortly, should be a good read.

Also, don’t forget to check out www.wrestlingfanshof.co.uk, recently updated, and now as we close in towards the end of the nomination schedule, you are fast running out of time to nominate the people you want to see on the ballot.

OK, that’s it.
Take care people.

Pt2









*NEW GALLERY* Photos of HULK HOGAN and His Hot New, MUCH YOUNGER Girlfriend!

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