WWE WrestleMania III Championship Edition - DVD Review

I am going to start getting some of my older stuff up on the site including some older DVD and book reviews. I also want to get some of the earlier Wrestling List stuff up here from 2000 and after that. So, here is a review that I typed up in March of 2007.

WWE released the WrestleMania III Championship Edition DVD last week. I have gotten it and have already watched it. Here are my thoughts on it. There are two versions of WrestleMania on this set. The first disc features the show itself. The second disc features a "pop up" version. Let's start with the event itself on disc one. The show looks amazing on DVD. Quality of it looks great. It is amazing to compare this full version to the Coliseum Video version released in 1987. The Coliseum version runs somewhere around 2:45 in length where as this version runs 3:05. There were a lot of things on this version that I have never seen as I've only seen the Coliseum version. The Coliseum version had most of the wrestler entrances cut out and a lot of the exits. I also noticed that some of the clips of the buildup to some of the matches had been cut short on the Coliseum Video version. Here are some of the things that I'll mention that are different between the two versions. The Coliseum version has the WrestleMania press conference in it but it isn't on the original version. It's a shame that they didn't use that as an extra on this set as it is very entertaining. This version shows the story that I've often heard about where a fan jumped in to celebrate with Roddy Piper after he won his farewell match. Piper celebrated with him too and then security took him down quick. That was edited off of the Coliseum version as I had never seen the thing with the fan. One thing that makes much more sense on this original version is why Jesse Ventura was carrying the Bulldogs' mascot, Matilda, back to the locker room on the cart. Jesse went to ringside and wanted to be introduced to the fans before that six man tag match. Then, he ended up being left with escorting Matilda to the back. It never made sense to me why the heel announcer just went down there to get Matilda to bring back. Well, that is why he was down there, to be introduced to the fans. Pretty funny. The original version ends different than the Coliseum version. On the Coliseum version, we go right from Hogan into a picture slideshow recapping the events with the music of Real American on a loop from the live arena. On the original version on this DVD, Gorilla and Jesse do a short recap and wrap it up. The picture slideshow is then shown but the music with it is a re-airing of Aretha Franklin singing America The Beautiful from the beginning of the night. On to the music changes. Not too many to report but there are some. The opening music for WrestleMania III is intact which was great to hear. Ricky Steamboat's music is gone which was Sirius by Alan Parsons Project. The music it was replaced with is at least similar in sounding. Hillbilly Jim's music is replaced and the ring intros for him and his team have been dubbed over with new audio. Hmm, that is bizarre especially when Junk Yard Dog's theme song is on there. Both JYD and Hillbilly's songs were on the Wrestling Album that was released in 1985 so it's bizarre that they can play one but not the other. Koko's music has been replaced to Piledriver which was what he used later that year. All other music is intact although there isn't a LOT of music being used in this era to begin with.

The pop ups include pop up facts reminiscent of the old VH-1 Pop Up Video show. Also part of the pop ups is interviews with people looking back on the event. Here is a list of everyone that is involved in the pop up interview segments: Vince McMahon, Hulk Hogan, Cowboy Bob Orton, Mean Gene Okerlund, Ron Simmons, Hillbilly Jim, Raymond Rougeau, Greg Valentine, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Edge, Gorilla Monsoon, Ricky Steamboat, Gerald Brisco, George The Animal Steele, Chris Jericho, Jake The Snake Roberts, Jimmy Hart, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Nikolai Volkoff, Iron Sheik, Jim Brunzell, Bobby Heenan, and Pat Patterson. Some of the highlights of the interview pop ups include Vince McMahon talking about standing in front of that huge crowd and thinking how proud his father would be of this show. Vince gets choked up when talking about it. Rowdy Roddy Piper talks about how he looked around at the fans as he stood in the ring before the match and how he never did that but wanted to take that moment in. Chris Jericho talks about the infamous story of how he and his friends would watch the Steamboat/Savage match over and over memorizing the multiple two count sequence in the match and they would do the match themselves. Several superstars have told of doing the same thing. Steamboat tells of how he and Savage knew of how many people were going to be watching this and they wanted to do their best to steal the show. Mean Gene talks about how nervous that Savage and Steamboat were before the match as both were pacing backstage. John Cena discusses how when Hogan won, he and his friends were jumping around throwing stuff and throwing food cause they were so excited that Hogan won it. He said that his dad and grandfather were also going crazy. Edge said that he listened to the radio all night cause there was a DJ that was giving out WrestleMania results as they happened. Edge says that this is how much he loved wrestling that he was listening to the radio just to hear the results as they couldn't afford to go to a closed circuit location to see it. He said that he was jumping all around the room happy when he heard that Hogan had beat the Giant and also bodyslammed him. Edge felt the Giant couldn't be beaten and was happily surprised. Bobby Heenan talks about how much pain that Andre was in after the match when they got backstage. Andre was in bad shape by that point in his career physically but Heenan said that Andre never would complain to anyone about how bad he was hurting all the time.

Extras on the set include several interviews from Hogan, Savage, and Steamboat in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania from various WWF shows. The battle royal from Saturday Night's Main Event is shown and also the Hogan/Andre contract signing. The Savage/Steele match from 1/3/87 Saturday Night's Main Event is on the DVD as well which was where Steamboat showed up when Savage tried was trying to bail out on the match.

I definitely recommend this DVD as it is very well produced. Plus, I love having a full version of the show instead of what I did have even though it does have a few music changes. I can deal with those though on this one. The "pop up" is a very cool idea and I hope they release some classic shows like this in the future. This was the 20 year anniversary of WrestleMania so how about a 20 year anniversary DVD of the first Survivor Series this winter.