DaveyBoy’s Wrestling Menu – ‘Raw X: Tenth Anniversary’ DVD Review
Submitted by DaveyBoy on Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 12:06 AM EST






THE WRESTLING MENU #198

Welcome one and all to the 198th edition of The Wrestling Menu, the column that is sure to satisfy your taste buds when it comes to discussing all things wrestling.

Almost to the big #200. Although, I’m unsure it’s going to end up being all that big, but anyway. It’s actually been quite funny (for want of a better word) of late with a lot of readers not only congratulating me for my streak, but also the high quality of my last couple of columns. It’s almost as if people have expected me to cruise into column #200 with sub-par performances. Well, for those readers, I’m probably doing that today with this rather dated DVD Review. So apologies if it disappoints, but it was either this or nothing.

For those that have bothered to read this column, your reward is that I will explain what I will be doing for columns #199 & #200 at the very end of this edition.

On with the show…..


’RAW X: 10th ANNIVERSARY’ DVD REVIEW

This 1 disc set is simply titled ‘Raw X: Tenth Anniversary’. It has a 95 minute presentation ceremony divided into 20 chapters. The other half of the DVD contains many interviews, memorable moments, a couple of matches & some further extras.


APPETIZERS – Interviews

15 interviews are contained within this section of the DVD & they last for a grand total of 11 minutes! They are interviews conducted by Terri Runnels & Josh Matthews at the presentation ceremony. All the wrestlers are in character & speak for about 40 seconds each.

Victoria: The Women’s Champion of the time alleges that Trish Stratus is to blame for not being nominated for the diva of the decade award.

Fabulous Moolah: Talks about the clothing of the current divas… or more correctly, the lack of it.

Chris Benoit: Recounts his view when Kurt Angle missed the moonsault from the top of a cage.

The Big Show: TBS & Paul Heyman dismiss interviewer Josh Matthews.

Kane: Comically talks about going to fire-starters anonymous & how he hasn’t set anyone on fire for a long time.

Jeff Hardy: Being speared by Edge from off a ladder was apparently his most memorable moment ever.

Kurt Angle: Talks about why he wasn’t nominated for a specific award.

Chris Jericho: Claims he has the best fashion sense in the room.

William Regal: Tries to deflect conversation from being the first ever member of the Vince McMahon “Kiss My A$$” Club. Bubba Ray Dudley makes a cameo here.

Linda McMahon: Recounts Vince’s look when she told him she wanted a divorce (in the storylines) on screen.

Michael Cole & Tazz: These 2 pretty much joke around & say nothing. Although there was something about Jerry Lawler knocking Tazz out on an episode of Raw.

Shawn Michaels: Makes everyone feel a whole lot better by reminding them how much older he is than most of his colleagues. Of course, he can still wrestle rings around most, but that’s beside the point.

Bubba Ray Dudley: Discusses ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin being named the Raw Superstar of the Decade.

Scott Steiner: Recounts how he actually wrestled on the first ever episode of Raw.

Matt Hardy: Explains how difficult it is to compete in a Tables, Ladders & Chairs match.


ENTREE – Matches

THE UNDERTAKER vs DAMIAN DEMENTO (January-11, 1993): This was the main-event from the first ever episode of Raw & Demento was some strange looking half-bald guy who wore a weird looking costume to the ring that I’m not going to even begin to try & explain! Demento throws an occasional punch, but this is pretty much a squash for ‘Taker (in full dead man character), as he finishes his opponent off with the Tombstone Piledriver in just over 2 minutes. Disappointingly boring for the main-event of a brand new show! Match Rating…3.5

KANE vs JEFF HARDY/ROB VAN DAM vs BUBBA-RAY/SPIKE DUDLEY vs CHRIS JERICHO/CHRISTIAN (October-7, 2002): This was a 4 team ‘Tables, Ladders & Chairs’ match for the World Tag-Team Titles that were currently held by Kane & Hurricane Helms. Kane was wrestling by himself as Hurricane had been injured backstage by Triple H. A frenetic beginning predictably starts the match effectively & Kane holds his own for a few minutes despite being alone. It doesn’t take long for a ladder to get involved as Jericho & Christian try to steal the match early. Bubba-Ray then uses the ladder helicopter style to clear the ring, before Spike ends up being thrusted throat-first into the climbing contraption. Kane then gets rid of Bubba-Ray as well, before falling victim to a second ladder shot from Jericho. RVD then hits an innovative sling-shot ladder spot to clear the 2 Canadians out of the ring, before partner Jeff Hardy flies off the top of a huge ladder to leg-drop Kane through a table!

We come back from a commercial break to see Jericho bulldog Bubba off a ladder, and Christian hit a reverse DDT of sorts on RVD off of another ladder. Kane then dominates for a couple of minutes as he clears the ring of his competition. That is, until he is hit with a chair-shot by Jericho. This leads to RVD connecting with the always impressive Van Terminator on Kane & seemingly eliminating him from contention. Hardy then introduces the Canadian team to a ladder, before being superplexed off the top of a ladder by Bubba. Following an understandable lull in proceedings, Y2J climbs the ladder & touches the belts, but he is pushed over in dramatic fashion by Spike, resulting in one hell of an awkward landing at ringside! Unfortunately for the little Dudley, he then gets thrown through a ringside table by Christian.

Christian is next to touch the titles, but he gets a Bubba Bomb from off a ladder & a 5 Star Frog Splash for his troubles. Hardy misses a Swanton Bomb on Bubba & gets back-dropped through a ringside table, but RVD follows up with a Van Daminator on Bubba before starting to climb for the titles. But a chair-shot & subsequent Walls of Jericho type move on top of the ladder removes Van Dam. Kane is the man to save the day out of nowhere, as he chokeslams Jericho off the top of a ladder & subsequently removes the titles from their hook to retain them single-handedly after 22 minutes (excluding commercial time). Very entertaining match like most TLC (& Money In The Bank ladder) matches. I was glad it was given 20+ minutes despite being a television bout & it was all the better for that fact. Obviously, it was very spotty, but the mix of competitors involved in the bout helped it out tremendously. Good stuff. Match Rating…8.5


MAIN – Presentation Ceremony

We begin with a swiftly edited 2 minute montage introduction, before crossing over to ‘The World’ restaurant in Times Square where the presentation ceremony takes place. It’s basically structured like any awards ceremony with many wrestlers seated next to a stage & a few raucously annoying fans at the back of the room.

Raw Diva Of The Decade: Shawn Michaels presents this award, which Trish Stratus wins over Sable, Sunny, Lita & Chyna. All 5 women have very good little career recaps shown & then Trish accepts the award & speaks very graciously for a minute or so.

Raw Retro Moment #10 – This Is Your Life, Rock (September-27, 1999): Jonathan Coachman & Stacy Keibler present the first of 10 moments & all of one minute of this segment is shown. It never did much for me to be honest.

Don’t Try This At Home!: Shane McMahon presents this award, which Kurt Angle wins with his amazing missed moonsault off the top of a steel cage. Other nominees were The Bog Show, Jeff Hardy & The Dudley Boyz. Angle, with Haas & Benjamin by his side, gets wound up on his speech as he begins to tell the story of his life rather humorously.

Looked Good On Paper: Entertaining 2 minutes worth of footage of some of the more memorably horrible characters that had graced Raw between 1993 & 2002.

Raw Retro Moment #9 – ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin Runs Over The Rock’s Car With A Monster Truck (April-19, 1999): Pretty much what it says. Hasn’t exactly aged well.

Tell Me I Did Not Just See That: Booker T presents this award, which Mick Foley (not present) wins for his 3 faces of Foley. Goldust makes a cameo here & Eric Bischoff as a fellow nominee is interviewed briefly.

Gone But Not Forgotten: ‘The Nature Boy’ Ric Flair introduces this nice 3 minute highlights package of some of the past WWF Superstars who have passed away. It is all set to the tune of ‘Tell Me A Lie’.

Gimme The Mic: Chris Jericho energetically presents this award, which The Rock wins over ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, D-Generation X, Kurt Angle, Mick Foley & Vince McMahon. The Rock isn’t present & Jericho attempts to steal the award. But Rocky interrupts on a large screen via satellite & goes through some of his routine before picking on Kurt Angle & Stephanie McMahon in typical fashion.

Raw Retro Moment #8 – The Last WCW Nitro (March-26, 2001): Brief one minute segment showing Shane McMahon as the surprise new owner (in storylines) of WCW. Too brief a package for the infamous simultaneous broadcast of Raw & Nitro.

Shut Up & Kiss me: Michael Cole & Tazz present this award, which Triple H & Stephanie win. The real-life couple accepts the award rather coldly due to their storyline hate for each other at the time. Steph humorously goes through all of the over-the-top things that have happened to her, before we unfortunately have to see her spank Triple H on his bare a$$.

Raw Retro Moment #7 – Bedpan McMahon (October-5, 1998): Edited down footage of the classic & memorable segment where Mick Foley entertains Vince McMahon in his hospital bed, before Dr Stone Cold pays an unwelcome visit to his boss.

Network Difficulties: ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund & Pat Patterson present this award, which Mae Young wins for giving birth to a hand! Other nominees include Brian Pillman with his gun, hot lesbian action & Stone Cold stunning Santa Claus.

Raw Retro Moment #6 – D-Generation X Imitates The Nation Of Domination (July-6, 1998): We disappointingly only get to see 20 seconds of this memorable & hilarious in-ring segment. This definitely deserved more time than it received.

Raw Superstar Of The Decade: Brock Lesnar presents this award, which ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin wins over Mick Foley, The Rock, Bret Hart, Triple H & The Undertaker. His entrance music gets the crowd on their feet, but it is Vince McMahon that comes out to a “We Want Austin” chant & tells everyone that he simply didn’t invite Stone Cold.

Raw Retro Moment #5 – Austin Confrontation (January-19, 1998): The infamous, memorable & very effective confrontation between ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin & Mike Tyson in the ring on Raw. Quality stuff, even if only parts of it are shown here.

Raw’s Greatest Match: The 7 man TLC Match from 2002 won by Kane controversially wins this award over Triple H vs Cactus Jack (1997), The Undertaker vs Jeff Hardy (2002) & Stone Cold vs Kane (1998). Christian & Jericho try to enthusiastically hijack the award before Kane interrupts & states how significant the award is. Bubba Ray Dudley also speaks very well, while Spike Dudley & Jeff Hardy stand silently in the background. The final man involved in the bout Rob Van Dam, finishes things off with a few words & his patented thumb-pointing.

Raw Retro Moment #4 – DX Invades WCW (April-27, 1998): One minute of footage is shown of this memorable segment where Triple H & the gang attempt to gate-crash a WCW Nitro episode.

Raw Retro Moment #3 – Hollywood Hulk Hogan & The Rock’s Confrontation (February-18, 2002): Brief footage of the in-ring segment where The Rock challenges Hogan to a match at WrestleMania & The Hulkster accepts to the cheers of the fans in attendance.

Raw Retro Moment #2 – Owen Hart Tribute (May-24, 1999): Just over 2 minutes of footage is shown from this groundbreaking tribute show held just 24 hours after the death of Owen at a pay-per-view. 5 or 6 wrestlers (including Foley, Edge & Triple H) are shown sharing their emotional thoughts.

#1 Greatest Moment In Raw History – Stone Cold Beer Truck (March-22, 1999): Edge presents this award (which apparently over 400,000 people voted the greatest moment ever on Raw), where ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin literally drives a Coors beer truck down the entrance-way to the ring & proceeds to drench The Rock, Vince & Shane McMahon (as well as many in the crowd I gather) with a beer bath! Classic stuff & a couple of minutes are shown.


DESSERT – Moments

18 moments are contained within this section of the DVD & they last for a total of about 20 minutes. They mainly last for about 45 seconds each, although there are some that are a fair bit longer, which I have noted.

Monday Night Raw Debut: Clips from the first ever episode on January-11, 1993.

1-2-3 Kid Beats Razor Ramon: Highlights from the big upset that took place on May-17, 1993.

Vince – “Bret Screwed Bret”: Part of the November-17 1997 sit-down interview conducted by Jim Ross.

Sable Undressed: From the December-8 1997 episode of Raw, Sable comes out to the ring by order of Marc Mero in a potato sack, but disrobes to unveil a very revealing bikini.

Zamboni 3:16: ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin drives down to the ring in a Zamboni on September-16 1998 & disrupts a presentation ceremony being conducted by Vince McMahon. Austin ends up leaving the ring handcuffed by police.

Stone Cold Pours Concrete Into Mr McMahon’s Corvette From the October-12 1998 episode of Raw, this is pretty much what it says it is. Great facials from Vince here.

Mick Foley Wins The WWE Championship: The last 10 seconds & some of the after-match celebrations are shown of Foley defeating The Rock for the title on January-4 1999.

The Black Wedding: Footage from April-26 1999 where the in-ring satanic wedding between The Undertaker & Stephanie McMahon is interrupted by ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin.

Y2J Arrives: Thankfully, we see about 3 minutes of footage from the memorable August-9 1999 episode when Jericho made his entertaining debut. For those that don’t recall, this heavily involved The Rock as well. Would have loved to have seen it in full!

Unholy Matrimony: From November-29 1999, Triple H interrupts the in-ring wedding of Test & Stephanie McMahon, before showing their own drive-through wedding that he & (an unconscious) Steph had.

”It Never Happened”: An often forgotten big moment from April-17 2000, where we see the last few seconds of the infamous title match where Chris Jericho apparently pinned Triple H for the WWE Title. But H forces the referee to reverse the decision & the title reign becomes erased from the record books.

Mae Young Gets Wood: Bubba Ray hits a huge power-bomb on Mae Young from the stage through a table on the March-13 2000 episode of Raw.

Angle Moonsaults Off Cage: That amazing moment that occurred on June-11 2001 is shown from about 3 different camera angles.

The Milkman Cometh: Kurt Angle drives a milk-truck to ringside & showers Stephanie, Stone Cold & the rest of the WCW/ECW Alliance in milk. From the August-20 2001 episode of Raw.

J.R Joins Mr McMahon’s “Kiss My A$$” Club: From November-26 2001, this is exactly what it says it is. And we even catch a glimpse of a deranged Vince trotting around the ring like a horse!

Never Say Never: The surreal moment that occurred on July-15 2002 when Vince McMahon announces longtime rival Eric Bischoff as a WWE employee & the new General Manager of Raw.

TLC 2002: Two minutes worth of highlights from the Raw match of the decade held on October-7 2002. Well edited to fit into that narrow timeframe & still include all of the major spots.

Raw Divas: 2 minutes worth of miscellaneous highlights of a large array of divas that have graced our screens from over the years.


CAKE – Extras

The Making Of ‘Raw On The Roof’ (September-7, 1995): This is a 5 minute ‘WWE Confidential’ segment where the Director of On-Air Promotions David Sahadi, recounts the September ’95 episode of Raw that was filmed on top of an 8 storey building. He discusses some of the plans for the night, what went wrong & what went right. We also hear from many of the wrestlers involved & how they thought that episode set a new standard in sports entertainment. Good little extra here.

Behind The Scenes At Raw’s 10th Anniversary Spectacular: Miscellaneous hotch-potch that starts as backstage interviews & ends up as some wrestlers discussing 10 years of Raw in sit-down interviews. 5 minutes in length.

Award Not Seen On TV – “Now That’s An Entrance”: The Undertaker wins this award over Goldust, Chris Jericho, The Brood & D-Generation X. He says a few words on receipt of his award as well.

Award Not Seen On TV – “Lasting Impression”: This award is for the best imitation ever on Raw & D-Generation X wins it for their Nation Of Domination skit. Fellow nominees are The Rock, Shawn Michaels & Vince McMahon. Afterwards, a Triple H interview is cut short when the award basically falls apart.

Raw’s 10th Anniversary Recap on SmackDown (January-16, 2003): 3 minute recap of the presentation ceremony including some of the award winners & many swiftly edited highlights.


COFFEE – Conclusion

The first thing that I should state before I go on is that I actually purchased this DVD for all of $8 Australian dollars. That’s about $6 US & even less English pounds. So it was dirt cheap & was paid for with spare change. I bought it thinking that even if it was really badly put together, it would still include a classic moment or 5. And that’s pretty much what it is, to be honest.

I recall many fans not being happy with the quality of such a hyped episode of Raw when it first aired in January of 2003. And I can definitely see why, even if it’s not a total disaster. The presentation ceremony is entertaining enough I suppose, but it seemed to have its priorities a little wrong with what to show on the screen & what not to.

A DVD was the perfect avenue to expand on the ceremony & fill it with extras that would really make it a worthy purchase. I’m not so sure that they even did that right though. The interviews section is a total waste of time, while the matches, moments & extras sections only just receive a passing grade for mine. I think I would have preferred both the extras & moments section to be cut down & some of the better moments be simply played in full. As it was, the swift editing, while giving a good overall picture, made it very difficult to totally enjoy some of the more memorable moments in Raw history.

In conclusion, I can only recommend this DVD as a very cheap purchase or to be hired. And this is more directed at people like myself who didn’t get to see the original presentation ceremony episode. If you did view the ceremony back in 2003, then I wouldn’t bother with wasting your time & money here. A disappointing effort.


That’s another DVD review served up for you. If anyone would like to contribute any feedback or ask any questions, you are more than welcome to. My e-mail address is DaveyBoy123@bigpond.com. But if you are an LOP Forums member, it would be much appreciated if you could leave feedback on my thread at http://www.lopforums.com/showthread.php?t=217&page=2

Ok, next week’s column begins what will most probably be the busiest month in the history of ‘The Wrestling Menu’. Column #199 next Wednesday will be derived from one of the ideas that I got from a reader. He actually suggested that I list 10-20 things that I want to see occur in the professional wrestling industry as of right now. I considered doing that but felt I wouldn’t do justice to some of the points by trying to squeeze them all into one column. So what I have decided to do is choose the top 3 things I want to see & write about them in some detail. I was close to doing this in the milestone column #200, but have decided to go with it for column #199 instead.

Then, in Column #200 on Wednesday November-1, I have decided to go with my annual Rookie Rankings column, but do it in a bit more detail by commenting a little more on each & every wrestler that has been ranked as a rookie from 2002 all the way through to & including 2006. You will be surprised by how much of the current WWE rosters are taken up by all these wrestlers. I ended up choosing to go with this as my milestone column as it’s one of the annual occurrences that has been a stable of my column & I still don’t think many readers realize how difficult that it is to write.

As per usual, my ‘3 Things I Want To See’ column will be posted at the same Wednesday time on the same LOP channel. Until then, this is DaveyBoy signing off & asking you to remember that dinner is best served in 3 courses.


DaveyBoy’s Wrestling Menu. 2002-2006

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