Post by PdW2kX on May 19, 2008 17:19:11 GMT -5
Small Note: As always, I'll introduce myself since it's been a month since my last review and I know how fast things move here.
In short, I review for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy wrestling, I enjoy combining the two. I try not to take myself too seriously, but I do appreciate feedback. With the summer ahead of me I should have more free time to devote to this particular hobby. For any wondering, the "Heartbreak and Triumph" HBK DVD set will be my last WWE DVD review before heading back to the Other Feds board for some Puroresu. As always, feedback is appreciated, duly noted, and usually implemented. This is the sixth review following a massive rehauling of my reviewing style. Please enjoy.
Too Big of a Little Thing?
A Review of "Rey Mysterio: The Biggest Little Man" by PdW2kX
Posted May 19, 2008
Since his debut in a small Tijuana church at the age of fourteen, Rey Mysterio has made his career by breaking down barriers. With American fans tired of a heavyweight style that was grossly in need of improvement, Rey Mysterio helped kickstart a cruiserweight revolution that enthralled fans across the country. Ask any fan of the old WCW and they'll most likely tell you- nWo and all that did make for great television, but nothing got you up off your feet like seeing Rey Mysterio fly through the air, taking your breath away with his daredevil antics and fantastic matches. After a de-masking that was quietly ignored and some knee surgeries that (for the most part) grounded the master of high-flying, Rey would break in to the WWE sporting a redefined style that would win him Match of the Year and Match of the Year Candidate accolades. Although fans continue to be divided on just how good Rey is, and especially divided when it comes to Rey using the Guerrero name to achieve his greatest fame, one can not argue that Rey Mysterio has accomplished much in his nineteen-year career.
With that in mind, WWE Home Video produced "The Biggest Little Man", a chronicle of Rey Mysterio specifically focusing on how he broke down barriers and became a World Heavyweight Champion in a sport that is so closely tied to the "bigger is better" mentality. Twelve of Mysterio's nineteen years in the wrestling business are highlighted, with matches ranging from "When Worlds Collide" to his ECW days to his bench setting WCW encounters, with ample time given to his WWE career and accomplishments. With twenty-nine (29!) matches total, "The Biggest Little Man" is practically a steal at $20. With memories of Rey's insane stunts in ECW and WCW and his excellent Cruiserweight matches in WWE flooding the memory banks of my mind, I gleefully put this DVD into my faithful PS2 and got to watchin'.
The first thing I notice is that this is another "highlight" compilation, as opposed to the "documentary" style of compilation. The talking moments are usually sparse and interlaced with the matches: most of the time it's just a bit of backstory before going into the match. The compilation does benefit from being hosted by Rey Mysterio himself, and he does spend time throughout the compilation to specifically talk about important moments in his life. While Rey Mysterio has never really had a way with words, he does manage to stir up some pretty emotional feelings when talking about something serious, like his relationship with Eddie or his refusal to listen to "the haters" that constantly told him to quit. Although Rey Rey never comes off as deliberately bitter and doesn't directly take a shot at anyone, you do get the feeling throughout the compilation that he is more than happy to throw his success in the face of those that doubted him. He makes numerous references to overcoming the stigma being a "little man in a big man's world", and how he one-upped the supposedly "better" competition by putting on fantastic matches.
And make no mistake about it, Rey Mysterio has put on some fanDAMNtastic matches over the years. The "When Worlds Collide" match and the two ECW matches show off a young Rey Mysterio that wrestles an interesting style against other Luchadors, producing quality results. Then Rey Rey comes to WCW where he faces one of the deepest talent wells ever seen in a professional wrestling promotion. Rey's battles against incredible athletes like Dean Malenko and Chris Jericho produces a fantastic mish-mash of technical wrestling and high-flying. World-renown talent like Ultimo Dragon and Jushin Thunder Liger mix with Rey to bring about deep and involving stories centered on both Rey and his opponents trying to prove that they're the best in the world. Then there are the matches against fellow Luchador cruiserweights like Super Calo, Psicosis, and Juventud Guerrera that have a "blink and you'll miss it" aura of constant speed and daredevil acrobatics. And that's only the WCW portion of the compilation.
The biggest compliment I could give to Rey in WCW, or at least the Rey in WCW featured in this compilation, is that he was an incredibly versatile wrestler. His matches with Dean Malenko are early highlights, truly innovate and breathtaking mixes of technical prowess and nonstop quickness. Then there's matches like Rey Mysterio vs. Super Calo, where Rey helps build Calo from a relative unknown to a major threat, before executing a sick double jump Springboard Huracanrana. Although most of Rey's WCW matches focus on Rey taking a significant beating but pulling through in the end, he's versatile enough to continually pull it off and continually make it entertaining. While the matches get just a small bit stale towards the end of the WCW section- despite making the same story fun in different ways for different matches, it's still the same story and thus prone to some moments of "been there, seen that"- a very good match with Blitzkrieg closes out an era in Mysterio's career that saw him arise as one of the greatest performers walking the earth.
Then, of course, there's the famous "Halloween Havoc" match against Eddie Guerrero that has attained Holy Grail status in some circles. Although relatively tame in comparison to today's age of Suicide Somersault Double Flipping Corkscrew Asai Plancha Tornado's, "Halloween Havoc '97" was a revolutionary match that featured moves many of us had never even seen before. Although the "cruiserweight revolution" was hitting its high point in '97, Rey brings out his A-Game in this match and gives us such classics as the Springboard Backflip DDT and the Springboard Suicide Somersault Huracanrana. Eddie Guerrero, as you may well imagine, is no slouch either. The two, combined, lit a collective fire under each other's asses so hot that they created magic in that ring and stole the show from an atrocious Hogan/Piper Steel Cage match. Although the passage of time and the emergence of the spotfest do take some of the thrills out of this match, this is easily one of Rey's best and will continue to delight time and time again.
Following Mysterio's successful run in WCW are his early successes in WWE. His debut match against Chavo Guerrero is very high-paced but also very fun, proving that Rey's still got "it". Next up is a very interesting Kurt Angle vs. Rey Mysterio match. While at first this looks like a total clash of styles, Rey brings the skill and finesse he had in matches with people like Dean Malenko and applies it to a grand stage. There's great chain wrestling, smart psychology, and Angle really pushes Rey to up his game, creating a classic aura of Rey being all heart despite taking a big beating while waiting for one little slip-up to make his move. Although Rey ends up tapping, this match above all others proves that Rey really can hang with the top stars.
Even though Rey does make a name for himself by occasionally battling huge heavyweights like Brock Lesnar and A-Train and Big Show, the compilation focuses on Rey's Cruiserweight efforts, a series of good-to-great matches that breathe some life into the ailing division. First up is a match against Matt Hardy, with Rey bringing out his A-Game against new talent. With a renewed sense of purpose, Matt and Rey have a damn good match, especially for Smackdown, and Rey wins a title that would basically piggyback him for years to come: the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. Rey's battles with WWE's best cruisers like Tajiri and Chavo Guerrero light up the ring, and Rey finally manages to start selling legwork, something that he had been a bit shortsighted on for many of the matches on this compilation.
Although Rey's feud with Eddie Guerrero can be thought of as "disastrous" for multiple reasons (Dominick storyline, anyone?), it accomplished the one thing it was probably meant to do: Rey went from "being able to hang with a top-tier performer" to being a top-tier performer. Although the two Rey/Eddie matches highlighted on "The Biggest Little Man" only moderately recapture their past magic, Rey is put over hard and emerges as a somewhat-credible main-event star. Following Eddie's tragic death, Rey faces Shawn Michaels on the Raw Tribute Show and proceeds to have one of the best matches of his life. On such an important night, with an aura of raw emotion that could be felt right through the television screen, Shawn and Rey Rey proceed to give us a "dream match" that meets every last one of my expectations. It's a glowing tribute to Eddie; a fantastic match between two amazing performers. Rey rides the wave of momentum he's on and eventually wins the Royal Rumble, leading up to the WrestleMania 22 match against Kurt Angle and Randy Orton. The match itself may not have been as epic as another Angle/Rey or even a Rey/Orton match, but is still is a very interesting and entertaining showcase of diverse talents that ends with Rey winning the big one.
Even though the subject of Rey's use of Eddie Guerrero's name is still debated, sometimes hotly, there's no mistaking that Rey's win at 'Mania 22 was a great feel-good moment. What doesn't feel so good, however, is his rapidly counter-productive feud against John Bradshaw Layfield. Mysterio, despite being champion, is completely outclassed by hulking behemoths like Mark Henry and The Great Khali as a build-up to Rey/JBL. I understand that the goal of the feud was to portray Rey as a weakened champion going up against a large and dominating opponent, but the squashes he endured as part of that feud ruined just about all of Rey's credibility. What is even stranger is that Rey and JBL have a relatively good match at Judgment Day filled with drama and all kinds of heat. I'm not one to play "armchair booker"- I don't even fiddle with wrestling simulation games like EWR- but I staunchly believe that the Rey/JBL could've been handled about a hundred times better even though the match quality never suffered.
Two more matches against Chavo Guerrero helps to close out the compilation. One is a somewhat-anticlimactic Falls Count Anywhere match that does demonstrate some good brawling (Rey himself says it reminded him of his ECW days) but ends very abruptly. The other is the Smackdown "I Quit Match", which is actually quite good. It's super-brutal, at least for Smackdown standards, and features a crazy senton off the stage. Rey does end up saying "I Quit", but only after enduring what looks, feels, and sounds like Chavo trying to shatter Rey's knee in as many pieces as possible. Although we're not given a cool music video to end the compilation, Rey Mysterio sends us off with the words "the best of Rey Mysterio is still to come". It's an effective end to a mammoth compilation.
In a strange way, the best and worst thing about this compilation is its sheer size. As stated before, the total match count comes in at a whopping 29, as close to a wrestling omnibus as possible without buying bootlegged DVD's off of a tape trader. I applaud WWE for having Rey's fanbase in mind when releasing this set, as it focuses heavily on his great matches and his impressive accomplishments. Rey has a very broad fanbase, possibly one of the broadest going, and WWE Home Video has put together a compilation that will appease everyone from the jaded internet fan that wants Rey's classic WCW encounters to the young Hispanic kid that likes to see the crazy masked man jump from the top rope. Since buying this compilation is as easy as going down to a local Wal*Mart and rummaging through the WWE DVD section, it doesn't get much better than this for fans of the masked Luchador that helped redefine wrestling and overcome the odds.
But 29 matches is 29 matches. That's a whole hell of a lot of Rey Mysterio there. There's enough "bang for your buck" to cause a small explosion, and sometimes I just felt worn out. While Rey does try hard not to be repetitive, there's only so much he can do without either completely overhauling his style or seriously risking his health. His early WWE matches were definitely a breath of fresh air, showing off a newly-focused style, but even a new style begins to lose its luster after thirteen matches. In all honesty, this compilation can be thought of as "a marathon of Mysterio", and like any marathon, at times I felt tired, at times I felt bored, and at times I wanted to pack it all in and call it a day. But, like any good marathon, I held out until it was all over and felt pretty damn good afterwards.
In the end, "The Biggest Little Man" is a massive compilation that mostly manages to skirt past "too much of a good thing" status, or in its case "too big of a little thing". There's a lot of wrestling here, but it's good wrestling that keeps you entertained. While it may not appeal to everyone, it definitely appeals to anyone that's ever liked even one Rey Mysterio match. This is as close to a "definitive" collection as one can come, and it feels good to have it in my collection. For those that simply enjoy good wrestling no matter what shape or form it takes, pick this up for some classic WCW Cruiserweight action and some interesting WWE encounters. For fans of Rey Mysterio, "The Biggest Little Man" is an absolute must-have that has no equal, unless you decide to go the bootlegged route. While that will always be an option, "The Biggest Little Man" personally satisfies all my Mysterio needs and I'm pretty sure it'll satisfy all of yours too.
In short, I review for fun. I enjoy writing, I enjoy wrestling, I enjoy combining the two. I try not to take myself too seriously, but I do appreciate feedback. With the summer ahead of me I should have more free time to devote to this particular hobby. For any wondering, the "Heartbreak and Triumph" HBK DVD set will be my last WWE DVD review before heading back to the Other Feds board for some Puroresu. As always, feedback is appreciated, duly noted, and usually implemented. This is the sixth review following a massive rehauling of my reviewing style. Please enjoy.
Too Big of a Little Thing?
A Review of "Rey Mysterio: The Biggest Little Man" by PdW2kX
Posted May 19, 2008
Since his debut in a small Tijuana church at the age of fourteen, Rey Mysterio has made his career by breaking down barriers. With American fans tired of a heavyweight style that was grossly in need of improvement, Rey Mysterio helped kickstart a cruiserweight revolution that enthralled fans across the country. Ask any fan of the old WCW and they'll most likely tell you- nWo and all that did make for great television, but nothing got you up off your feet like seeing Rey Mysterio fly through the air, taking your breath away with his daredevil antics and fantastic matches. After a de-masking that was quietly ignored and some knee surgeries that (for the most part) grounded the master of high-flying, Rey would break in to the WWE sporting a redefined style that would win him Match of the Year and Match of the Year Candidate accolades. Although fans continue to be divided on just how good Rey is, and especially divided when it comes to Rey using the Guerrero name to achieve his greatest fame, one can not argue that Rey Mysterio has accomplished much in his nineteen-year career.
With that in mind, WWE Home Video produced "The Biggest Little Man", a chronicle of Rey Mysterio specifically focusing on how he broke down barriers and became a World Heavyweight Champion in a sport that is so closely tied to the "bigger is better" mentality. Twelve of Mysterio's nineteen years in the wrestling business are highlighted, with matches ranging from "When Worlds Collide" to his ECW days to his bench setting WCW encounters, with ample time given to his WWE career and accomplishments. With twenty-nine (29!) matches total, "The Biggest Little Man" is practically a steal at $20. With memories of Rey's insane stunts in ECW and WCW and his excellent Cruiserweight matches in WWE flooding the memory banks of my mind, I gleefully put this DVD into my faithful PS2 and got to watchin'.
The first thing I notice is that this is another "highlight" compilation, as opposed to the "documentary" style of compilation. The talking moments are usually sparse and interlaced with the matches: most of the time it's just a bit of backstory before going into the match. The compilation does benefit from being hosted by Rey Mysterio himself, and he does spend time throughout the compilation to specifically talk about important moments in his life. While Rey Mysterio has never really had a way with words, he does manage to stir up some pretty emotional feelings when talking about something serious, like his relationship with Eddie or his refusal to listen to "the haters" that constantly told him to quit. Although Rey Rey never comes off as deliberately bitter and doesn't directly take a shot at anyone, you do get the feeling throughout the compilation that he is more than happy to throw his success in the face of those that doubted him. He makes numerous references to overcoming the stigma being a "little man in a big man's world", and how he one-upped the supposedly "better" competition by putting on fantastic matches.
And make no mistake about it, Rey Mysterio has put on some fanDAMNtastic matches over the years. The "When Worlds Collide" match and the two ECW matches show off a young Rey Mysterio that wrestles an interesting style against other Luchadors, producing quality results. Then Rey Rey comes to WCW where he faces one of the deepest talent wells ever seen in a professional wrestling promotion. Rey's battles against incredible athletes like Dean Malenko and Chris Jericho produces a fantastic mish-mash of technical wrestling and high-flying. World-renown talent like Ultimo Dragon and Jushin Thunder Liger mix with Rey to bring about deep and involving stories centered on both Rey and his opponents trying to prove that they're the best in the world. Then there are the matches against fellow Luchador cruiserweights like Super Calo, Psicosis, and Juventud Guerrera that have a "blink and you'll miss it" aura of constant speed and daredevil acrobatics. And that's only the WCW portion of the compilation.
The biggest compliment I could give to Rey in WCW, or at least the Rey in WCW featured in this compilation, is that he was an incredibly versatile wrestler. His matches with Dean Malenko are early highlights, truly innovate and breathtaking mixes of technical prowess and nonstop quickness. Then there's matches like Rey Mysterio vs. Super Calo, where Rey helps build Calo from a relative unknown to a major threat, before executing a sick double jump Springboard Huracanrana. Although most of Rey's WCW matches focus on Rey taking a significant beating but pulling through in the end, he's versatile enough to continually pull it off and continually make it entertaining. While the matches get just a small bit stale towards the end of the WCW section- despite making the same story fun in different ways for different matches, it's still the same story and thus prone to some moments of "been there, seen that"- a very good match with Blitzkrieg closes out an era in Mysterio's career that saw him arise as one of the greatest performers walking the earth.
Then, of course, there's the famous "Halloween Havoc" match against Eddie Guerrero that has attained Holy Grail status in some circles. Although relatively tame in comparison to today's age of Suicide Somersault Double Flipping Corkscrew Asai Plancha Tornado's, "Halloween Havoc '97" was a revolutionary match that featured moves many of us had never even seen before. Although the "cruiserweight revolution" was hitting its high point in '97, Rey brings out his A-Game in this match and gives us such classics as the Springboard Backflip DDT and the Springboard Suicide Somersault Huracanrana. Eddie Guerrero, as you may well imagine, is no slouch either. The two, combined, lit a collective fire under each other's asses so hot that they created magic in that ring and stole the show from an atrocious Hogan/Piper Steel Cage match. Although the passage of time and the emergence of the spotfest do take some of the thrills out of this match, this is easily one of Rey's best and will continue to delight time and time again.
Following Mysterio's successful run in WCW are his early successes in WWE. His debut match against Chavo Guerrero is very high-paced but also very fun, proving that Rey's still got "it". Next up is a very interesting Kurt Angle vs. Rey Mysterio match. While at first this looks like a total clash of styles, Rey brings the skill and finesse he had in matches with people like Dean Malenko and applies it to a grand stage. There's great chain wrestling, smart psychology, and Angle really pushes Rey to up his game, creating a classic aura of Rey being all heart despite taking a big beating while waiting for one little slip-up to make his move. Although Rey ends up tapping, this match above all others proves that Rey really can hang with the top stars.
Even though Rey does make a name for himself by occasionally battling huge heavyweights like Brock Lesnar and A-Train and Big Show, the compilation focuses on Rey's Cruiserweight efforts, a series of good-to-great matches that breathe some life into the ailing division. First up is a match against Matt Hardy, with Rey bringing out his A-Game against new talent. With a renewed sense of purpose, Matt and Rey have a damn good match, especially for Smackdown, and Rey wins a title that would basically piggyback him for years to come: the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. Rey's battles with WWE's best cruisers like Tajiri and Chavo Guerrero light up the ring, and Rey finally manages to start selling legwork, something that he had been a bit shortsighted on for many of the matches on this compilation.
Although Rey's feud with Eddie Guerrero can be thought of as "disastrous" for multiple reasons (Dominick storyline, anyone?), it accomplished the one thing it was probably meant to do: Rey went from "being able to hang with a top-tier performer" to being a top-tier performer. Although the two Rey/Eddie matches highlighted on "The Biggest Little Man" only moderately recapture their past magic, Rey is put over hard and emerges as a somewhat-credible main-event star. Following Eddie's tragic death, Rey faces Shawn Michaels on the Raw Tribute Show and proceeds to have one of the best matches of his life. On such an important night, with an aura of raw emotion that could be felt right through the television screen, Shawn and Rey Rey proceed to give us a "dream match" that meets every last one of my expectations. It's a glowing tribute to Eddie; a fantastic match between two amazing performers. Rey rides the wave of momentum he's on and eventually wins the Royal Rumble, leading up to the WrestleMania 22 match against Kurt Angle and Randy Orton. The match itself may not have been as epic as another Angle/Rey or even a Rey/Orton match, but is still is a very interesting and entertaining showcase of diverse talents that ends with Rey winning the big one.
Even though the subject of Rey's use of Eddie Guerrero's name is still debated, sometimes hotly, there's no mistaking that Rey's win at 'Mania 22 was a great feel-good moment. What doesn't feel so good, however, is his rapidly counter-productive feud against John Bradshaw Layfield. Mysterio, despite being champion, is completely outclassed by hulking behemoths like Mark Henry and The Great Khali as a build-up to Rey/JBL. I understand that the goal of the feud was to portray Rey as a weakened champion going up against a large and dominating opponent, but the squashes he endured as part of that feud ruined just about all of Rey's credibility. What is even stranger is that Rey and JBL have a relatively good match at Judgment Day filled with drama and all kinds of heat. I'm not one to play "armchair booker"- I don't even fiddle with wrestling simulation games like EWR- but I staunchly believe that the Rey/JBL could've been handled about a hundred times better even though the match quality never suffered.
Two more matches against Chavo Guerrero helps to close out the compilation. One is a somewhat-anticlimactic Falls Count Anywhere match that does demonstrate some good brawling (Rey himself says it reminded him of his ECW days) but ends very abruptly. The other is the Smackdown "I Quit Match", which is actually quite good. It's super-brutal, at least for Smackdown standards, and features a crazy senton off the stage. Rey does end up saying "I Quit", but only after enduring what looks, feels, and sounds like Chavo trying to shatter Rey's knee in as many pieces as possible. Although we're not given a cool music video to end the compilation, Rey Mysterio sends us off with the words "the best of Rey Mysterio is still to come". It's an effective end to a mammoth compilation.
In a strange way, the best and worst thing about this compilation is its sheer size. As stated before, the total match count comes in at a whopping 29, as close to a wrestling omnibus as possible without buying bootlegged DVD's off of a tape trader. I applaud WWE for having Rey's fanbase in mind when releasing this set, as it focuses heavily on his great matches and his impressive accomplishments. Rey has a very broad fanbase, possibly one of the broadest going, and WWE Home Video has put together a compilation that will appease everyone from the jaded internet fan that wants Rey's classic WCW encounters to the young Hispanic kid that likes to see the crazy masked man jump from the top rope. Since buying this compilation is as easy as going down to a local Wal*Mart and rummaging through the WWE DVD section, it doesn't get much better than this for fans of the masked Luchador that helped redefine wrestling and overcome the odds.
But 29 matches is 29 matches. That's a whole hell of a lot of Rey Mysterio there. There's enough "bang for your buck" to cause a small explosion, and sometimes I just felt worn out. While Rey does try hard not to be repetitive, there's only so much he can do without either completely overhauling his style or seriously risking his health. His early WWE matches were definitely a breath of fresh air, showing off a newly-focused style, but even a new style begins to lose its luster after thirteen matches. In all honesty, this compilation can be thought of as "a marathon of Mysterio", and like any marathon, at times I felt tired, at times I felt bored, and at times I wanted to pack it all in and call it a day. But, like any good marathon, I held out until it was all over and felt pretty damn good afterwards.
In the end, "The Biggest Little Man" is a massive compilation that mostly manages to skirt past "too much of a good thing" status, or in its case "too big of a little thing". There's a lot of wrestling here, but it's good wrestling that keeps you entertained. While it may not appeal to everyone, it definitely appeals to anyone that's ever liked even one Rey Mysterio match. This is as close to a "definitive" collection as one can come, and it feels good to have it in my collection. For those that simply enjoy good wrestling no matter what shape or form it takes, pick this up for some classic WCW Cruiserweight action and some interesting WWE encounters. For fans of Rey Mysterio, "The Biggest Little Man" is an absolute must-have that has no equal, unless you decide to go the bootlegged route. While that will always be an option, "The Biggest Little Man" personally satisfies all my Mysterio needs and I'm pretty sure it'll satisfy all of yours too.
