DVD Review: The Attitude Era Volume 1 & 2
December 12, 2014
By: Darragh O’Connor of Wrestleview.com
If you have the WWE Network, then you will be well aware of the mandate that appears to be in place in the WWE i.e. “The Attitude Era was the greatest thing ever, so sayeth the High and Mighty lord of all things.” Almost every show focused on the angles, characters and “matches” of this epoch and a little beyond.
So, have WWE Home Video followed suit? No, and yes. The material on the two volumes of the “The Attitude Era” still has a lot of the hallmarks that plague the Network shows but everything is better presented. It is not as heavily rewritten or edited thus it fair more enjoyable.
Volume 1 was a mixed bag: a great documentary along with a neat collection of stories, skits and matches spanning the biggest moments of the WWE’s most profitable time period. A huge plus is that all of the content here is shown with the original WWF logo, there are no random blurs in the video and the word “WWF” is no longer removed in the audio. For those who recall that this wasn’t the case for a few years now. And, that was a trying few years.
There are a lot of great of interesting TV matches on home video for the first time. So, unless you’re willing to trawl through the hours of “Russoific” booking that was Raw in the late 90’s to find the good stuff. You can do a lot worse than Volume 1 for the documentary alone. But it felt lacking like something was missing; the “great” matches of the time period were absent from this one.
Well, WWE Home Video have delivered on that front with WWE “The Attitude Era: Vol. 2” that was released this month. This release is all matches with few skits and promos in res media. There are some nice early Attitude Era matches here like the New Age Outlaws vs. Cactus Jack & Chainsaw Charlie from RAW in 1998.
Then a large wealth of amazing 2000 matches like the awesome Triple Threat Match for the European Championship between Kurt Angle vs. Chris Jericho vs. Tazz in 2000. I love the WWE midcard of 2000.
I also appreciate the inclusion of matches from Sunday Night Heat and Shotgun Saturday Night. That touches on a nostalgic soft spot for this writer. The Hardy Boyz vs. Edge & Christian match is very good. Nothing on their later series but it’s like a pre-modern “indie” indie match. Check it out.
Why buy this DDV set? For two of my favourite matches ever. The WWE Championship Match between Triple H vs. Mr. McMahon from SmackDown in 1999 where Triple H kills Vince and sets up the return of Stone Cold. I love this angle and you will too.
Finally, there is also the best Last Man Standing Match in WWE history: Triple H vs. Chris Jericho from Fully Loaded 2000. This is the match that made Jericho a main event player and would be the start of a series between The Game and Y2J that I always enjoy seeing.
Pick these two up together and you’ll get a nice overview of the Attitude Era. I recommend the Blu Ray discs for the bonus content and the overall presentation is better. They’re a must for fans of this time period or newer fans that are wondering what all the hype is but can’t stomach the revisionism of the WWE Network.
Both “The Attitude Era” Volume 1 and Volume 2 are both available now from WWEDVD.co.uk.
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