DVD Review: WWE Raw 10th Anniversary

Written by Stevie J

 

For those who don't remember seeing this on TV in 2003, don't be too shocked. This show aired on January 14, 2003 - a Tuesday night. To the WWE's credit this was almost ten years to the exact date Raw first aired on Jan. 11, 1993. On the other hand, does anybody watch wrestling on Tuesday night, let alone a 10th Anniversary show on the new TNN? In a way it's Vince's own fault - he created the tradition of wrestling being Monday nights on that fateful day, just as he created the tradition of wrestling PPV's being on Sunday nights. If you missed the live broadcast of this 10th anniversary special that Saturday night, Smackdown aired an abbreviated version of it two days later - in fact it's included as one of the extra features on a DVD disc. I'm sure that's some kind of bizarre precedent that even Mel Brooks could be proud of in a Spaceballs-esque way - the DVD of the show includes a recap of the show! Still it would have made much more sense for Vince to wait a couple more days and do this show on an actual night his own programming conditioned people to watch pro wrestling, instead of being a stickler for being ten years to the day he launched Raw. And since there were a couple of leap years in there, is it technically 10 years to the day anyway? Maybe ten years later was ACTUALLY Monday night, mathematically speaking.

I digress. Perhaps in some way Vince thought he could make up for this loss of viewership by releasing the anniversary special to DVD, although it's much more likely his usual "they'll buy any crap I put out" philosophy was in full effect (and admittedly it worked on me, albiet a year after the fact). We open with a montage of the various openings over the year with their different versions of the former WWF and current WWE logo, a small package of clips set to the old Raw music, and finally the ten Raw anniversary "red X" logo with the current Union Underground music playing. Then we move to a outside shot of "The World" in Times Square, which they could no longer call WWF World for legal reasons and which not too long after this they would sell off as it turned out to be a colossal money loser. Maybe you can get people to pay $20 for an overpriced burger in a million dollar Hard Rock Cafe, but most of WWE's fans save that kind of money for tickets to a live event or a PPV - and this tenth anniversary show was about as close as "The World" ever got to a live event. As the camera inside pans the crowd our very first shot is a fan holding up an ECW replica world title belt. Que lastima. We move to shots of the wrestlers at the dining tables, including a very smug Brock Lesnar giving the kind of half-hearted applause you do to a performer you don't like. Seriously - freeze frame the scene when he glares and tell me you can't see he was going to leave WWE even then. Good ol' J.R. is providing commentary along with Jerry 'The King' Lawler, who is holding one of the Raw 10th Anniversary trophies they will give out tonight. Seems like a bad imitation of those MTV awards. Actually the whole concept is a bad imitation of an MTV awards show, but we'll get to that in a minute. King promises us we'll get a countdown of the 10 best Raw moments, along with awards categories by "the academy of wrestling arts and sciences." Fu-knee, a real knee slapper there King.

Our first presented is HBK Shawn Michaels, who gets a nice pop from the in-house crowd, and he goes on to remind everybody that he's the official #1 entrant in the upcoming Royal Rumble (gotta get those plugs in). He's there to hand out "Diva of the Decade" and I have to agree with him on one thing - "we've come a long way since the days of Bertha Faye and Bull Nakano." On the other hand, they could actually wrestle - how many of today's bimbos can? The nominees are Sable (eww), Sunny (oh HELL yeah), Trish (makes sense), Lita (back then she was cool) and Chyna (expected). I would have put Stacy Kiebler on this list, but I wasn't in charge. The winner is Trish, which isn't surprising since it's a miracle Sunny was on the list at all considering the bad graces she was in with WWE. Still if the fans of Raw were voting, Sunny would have been the winner in a landslide. Trish gives a tolerable promo, most noteworthy for the fact she gives Fit Finlay the credit for training her as a wrestler - something he's rarely ever received the credit he deserves for. The camera pans up to Coach and Stacy Kiebler in the crowd (again why wasn't SHE a nominee) as Coach shills the fact the only thing the fans COULD vote for was the 10 best moments of Raw, from a list of handpicked selections on WWE.com (no write-ins for "I choppy choppy your pee pee" no matter how bad you wanted it). #10 turns out to be the night Mick Foley did "This is Your Life" for the Rock, and unfortunately the footage of it features a lot of censored "WWE Attitude" logos. Say it with me folks - SCREW THE PANDA BEAR PEOPLE. It's still worth it to hear Rocky say this classic line to his ex-girlfriend: "Poontang your ass on outta here!" Ahh Rock, we miss you.

The upside of this DVD release is the commercials breaks are edited out - the downside is we come back to see Scott Steiner in a tux. Uhh, no thanks. Back to Kiebler, who claims that ten years ago when she was in the 7th grade there were no dot coms. I'm glad she didn't say there was no internet, proving she's not a total airhead, but I'm thinking there were at least a few dot coms accessible via telnet and Mosiac even before Netscape hit it big (I strongly remember one called cdconnection.com existing around that time). Our next presenter is Shane-O-Mac, who is here to present the "Don't Try This at Home" award. Nominees are Big Show chokeslamming Undertaker through the ring, Jeff Hardy in a TLC match, Dudley Boyz powerbombing Mae Young through a table, and Kurt Angle doing a moonsault off the top of a steel cage (way to fuck up that neck). The crowd starts an RVD chant, obviously pissed he wasn't even nominated (I agree). Big Show starts to go up to accept the award before Shane even announces the winner, but the winner turns out to be Kurt Angle. Team Angle gives him a hug and then holds up an American flag behind him as he makes a funny acceptance speech where he thanks the "academy of wrestling arts and sciences" and promises that anybody he doesn't thank he'll get to later when he wins "wrestler of the decade." The crowd gives him a big WHAT every time he pauses during his prepared statement. The funniest part is that they play his "you suck" music before he's even finished, just to rush him off the stage. We cut back to Stacy Kiebler for a segment called "Looked Good on Paper" which RD Reynolds must have loved, as it features pretty much every bad gimmick ever featured in the WWF - yes "Men on a Mission" and Salvatore Sincere are in here, although I take exception to the fact they included Earthquake and Hakushi in this segment.

The next moment in the Raw top ten after the commercial break is Stone Cold crushing The Rock's car with his very own "3:16" monster truck a la Bigfoot. Booker T comes out to present the next award to a big pop, which appropriately enough is called "Tell Me I Did Not Just See That." Nominees are the 3 Faces of Foley, Vince hugging Eric Bischoff (although the caption of "The Hug" made me think of The Kliq instead), the Brawl for All (which turned out to be a big joke when winner Bart Gunn got his clock cleaned), Kane setting someone on fire, and Stone Cold driving a zamboni into the ring. Golddust comes up on stage for a little comedy as Booker T announces the winner as being 3 Faces of Foley. Booker gets a boo when he says Mick couldn't be here to accept the award - gee, if they can present awards to people who aren't there, why didn't Sunny get one? In a very contrived segment Coach interviews Bischoff to ask if he's mad he didn't win the award, giving him a chance to cut a promo about the angle on TV where he had 30 days to "shake things up on Raw" before Vince McMahon would fire him. After an edited commercial break the next man on stage is Ric Flair, who presents a video of wrestlers and personalities that have passed on since the 1990's - everyone from Andre the Giant to Brian Pillman to Owen Hart. There were a lot more they could have paid tribute to, but it was still classy. Chris Jericho comes up after an interlude to present "Gimme the Mic," an award for most entertaining verbal performances. Stone Cold Steve Austin, D-Generation X, Kurt Angle, Mick Foley, Mr. McMahon and The Rock are the nominees. Not surprisingly The Rock wins, which is met with some cheers and a lot of boos (you have to keep in mind Rock was a heel in the eyes of the fans at this time, for acting like a Hollywood bigshot). Jericho takes the "Rawkus" award (I know a certain record label who could sue over that) and proclaims himself the winner, since The Rock isn't even here, and he does have a point considering he should have at least been a nominee. This of course leads to a "live from Hollywood" clip of The Rock arguing with Jericho, except by the pregnant awkward pauses and poor interplay with Jericho is clearly a taped segment. This causes an even bigger round of boos from the crowd and considering they cut Angle short it's not surprising that by the end of this overly long video footage The World crowd is chanting "BOR-ING!"

The #8 Raw Retro moment come as something of a relief as a result - March 26th, 2001 - the day that Nitro died when Vince bought his competition, although for storyline purposes they claimed Shane McMahon had bought it. After a welcome back from The Fink, Tazz and Michael Cole come out to present the "Shut Up and Kiss Me" award for best onscreen romances. We start with Mae Young and Mark Henry (I'm going to be sick), Eddie Guerrero and Mamacita (Chyna), Lita and Matt Hardy (oh that's ironic), Mr. McMahon making William Regal kiss his ass, and last but not least Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. Anybody notice besides that McMahon family members keep coming up as nominees? Since they finally had to win one sooner or later, it goes to Stephie Bear and Trips. The segment ends with Trips pulling down his pants in an attempt to make Steph kiss his ass, but she slaps it instead and walks off laughing as does Trips, pretty much blowing the kayfabe that they weren't supposed to be a couple at this point. The next Raw top ten moment is Mick Foley trying to cheer up Vince in the hospital, followed by Stone Cold kicking his ass every way from sideways. After edited commercial break, Coach and Kiebler throw to Pat Patterson and Gene Okerlund coming on stage to present the next award - Gene even gets a pop from the crowd. They present the "Network Difficulties" award, which includes Mae Young giving birth to a hand (why are all the most disgusting moments here), Stone Cold giving Santa a stunner (I loved it), 3 Minute Warning (God did they suck), and Brian Pillman has a gun (how they got that on TV I'll never know). Mae Young is the unfortunate winner. Thankfully her acceptance speech can be fast-forwarded to for Raw Retro moment #6, where Triple H puts on a wig and imitates The Rock - whether you like Hunter or not you have to admit it was funny.

Speeding things along, Lesnar comes out to present the next award and gets a pop from the crowd (getting screwed by the Big Show helped him be face for a time). Lesnar attempts to run down Paul Heyman, but instead generates an "E-C-DUBYA" chant from the crowd as a result - they're in New York so they should have known that would happen. The next award is "Superstar of the Decade": nominees are Mick Foley (showing the footage of him visiting Vince in the hospital yet AGAIN), The Rock, Bret Hart (damn straight), Triple H (no way in hell), Stone Cold, and the Undertaker. I wasn't sure why Mr. McMahon wasn't nominated yet again, until the winner was announced to be Stone Cold. This gives Vince a chance to come out on stage to the breaking glass music, just so he can cut a heel promo as the crowd chants "we want Austin." Vince tells everybody Stone Cold couldn't be here tonight, and there's a damn good reason why he's not - he wasn't invited, and that's the bottom line because "Mr. McMahon says so." Yet another award given to somebody who's not even there, and all in the futherance of a kayfabe angle in a sports entertainment world where kayfabe no longer exists. To make matters even worse Coach goes to interview Triple H about it, who throws a hissy fit he didn't win and leaves. Some awards show. Maybe if they had just stuck with the "10th Anniversary" theme and showed the greatest moments of Raw and paid more tribute to the history, it wouldn't have been nearly so lame or half-ass. Next is Raw Retro moment #5, where Stone Cold confronted Mike Tyson. Since things were running behind, they cut right to the "Greatest Matches" award after the commercial break, without even having a presenter go up first. TLC 2002, Triple H v. Cactus Jack 1997, Undertaker v. Jeff Hardy 2002, Stone Cold v. Kane 1998 (ending Kane's one day title reign) and then they go back to King and Lawler announcing the winner is TLC 2002. Christian and Jericho run up to accept it before any of the other teams come up on the stage. Kane cuts the best promo ironically, noting that out of ten years and thousands of matches theirs was picked #1, which is quite a tribute. Sadly that just raises more questions - why are there no matches before 1997, no matches that feature Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels, and no Intercontinental title matches among the nominees? Something's rotten in Denmark.

Raw Retro moment #4 is D-Generation X invading the Norfolk Scope during a WCW taping. It's immediately back-to-backed with The Rock challenging Hulk Hogan to a match for #3. After commercial they return showing Classy Blassie, and throw to Coach and Kiebler introducing moment #2: May 24, 1999 - the night after Owen Hart died, when everybody was allowed to have their moment to say whatever they wanted about him or pay tribute to him in any way they wanted. Everybody from Jeff Jarrett to Triple H to Mick Foley is left in tears. It's hard to imagine any moment on Raw was voted #1 over this, but after a commercial break Kiebler and Coach throw to Edge on stage, who is going to present the the #1 moment. He runs back and forth across the stage like he's doing his entrance for Raw. After taking way too long to get to the point, we cut to the #1 moment of all time - Austin driving a beer truck straight into the arena just to shower The Rock, Vince McMahon and Shane with a bath of beer. Okay - I have to admit - that's an all-time great moment. After the clip Edge invites everybody in WWE to come up on stage to be recognized, at which point all of them thank the fans for watching their show by giving a round of applause to the WWE viewers. And that's our show. The end result was little better than the on-again off-again "Slammy" awards, which ironically came across as a lot less fake than these "Rawkus" awards, especially when the late great Owen Hart constantly touted himself as "the Slammy Award winning Owen Hart" in his promos. Wrestling fans still miss him even to this day.

Extra features on the disc include a selection of "Raw Retro Moments" that weren't among the top 10, but they're some damn good ones. Vince cuts his infamous "Bret screwed Bret" promo, Stone Cold fills Mr. McMahon's Corvette with cement, the arrival of Y2J, Kurt Angle's "milk bath" a la Stone Cold, and the "It Never Happened" match where Jericho pinned Triple H and by all rights should have won the title but Trips got Earl Hebner to reverse the decision (damnit). On some of these sections, if you hit the left or the right arrow on your DVD remote, you'll see a hidden entrance video for Raw - there are seven in total strewn throughout the disc. The two bonus matches include the TLC 2002 that won "best match ever" and the main event from the first Raw ever - Undertaker v. Damien Demento. Ye Gods it's shitty, but what can you say - it's history. At least the Dead Man was in it. There's a section of interviews, and last but not least the official "Extras" page which shows the making of the Raw episode that took place on top of Titan Towers, clips of which ended up becoming one of the entrance videos of Raw for years and years. The event even riled up the people of Stamford, who demanded the shoot be shut down because it was too noisy. What's most interesting about this footage is that David Sahadi is personally explaining how he put it together and how they made it work, especially knowing that he has since left WWE to work for TNA (whose production values improved greatly over the last year as a direct result). The extras also include two awards not shown on TV: "Now That's an Entrance" and "Lasting Impression." The winners are Undertaker and Triple H for his imitation of The Rock, just in case you were wondering. As much as I appreciate these extra features, it seems like they're a little short on what made Raw the most memorable of all - the great matches. In fact with so much of the focus of the 10th Anniversay being on the awards presented and the angles being worked to push the TV shows and the PPV's, it wasn't much of a 10th Anniversary at all. It was a letdown on TV and only marginally better on DVD minus the commercials. Rent or borrow this one - it's only worth owning at half the price or less than I paid.

--- Stevie J.