Gold. Usually I wait until the last paragraph of a review to summarize, but I choose to do it right now instead with just that word. WWE Unreleased is a DVD treasure trove of matches and segments that wrestling fans have been asking for for years.
It's well-documented that the WWE vault is massive and contains footage from the classic yet common to the ultra-rare and unseen. It's the latter that is contained in WWE Unreleased. Mainly consisting of dark matches from television tapings with a house show match or two thrown in, truly everything on here is never-before-seen to my knowledge. It's stuff that we've heard of, yet always had to visualize in our heads.
The set is hosted by Charly Caruso and, one of my all-time favorites, Sean Mooney. The interstitial segments display that Mooney still very much gets the company and its humor, as it's jokingly implied that the former WWF announcer actually lives in the film archive below the "Event Center." There are a few nods to Mooney's frequent broadcast partner, the late Lord Alfred Hayes, and be sure to stick around after the WWE Home Video logo pops up at the end. There's also a great gag in the last hour or so of the set that is sure to make frequent WWE DVD watchers smile.
The set is labeled "1986-1995," which in a way doesn't please me. I know that there is loads more unseen footage from that era that didn't make the cut. Missy's Manor? Jimmy Garvin's 1992 tryout? The last encounter between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant (a tag match pitting Hogan and Big Boss Man against the Colossal Connection at a 1990 tv taping)? Pay-per-view dark matches? Griping aside, what we do get is honestly unheard of.
If you're a fan of Andre, The Ultimate Warrior, or Randy Savage, this is the set for you. All three seem to show up very frequently early on. There is also a big dose of The Hulkster, with The Undertaker and Bret Hart generously peppered in as well. The real gems here, for me, are the tryout matches. We see the Warrior, Owen Hart, Crush, Earthquake, Tatanka, The Smoking Gunns, and Taz all in some of their initial appearances. We also get the never aired 1992 return of Piper's Pit featuring the Brooklyn Brawler and an absolutely shocking line for the time from "Hot Rod" regarding what the company was facing in the real world.
We are reminded that Mike McGuirk, in addition to being an extremely sweet individual, was criminally underrated as a ring announcer. We see some obvious "run thru" matches to prepare for the "real deal" down the line. We also see the infamous (thanks to WWE.com) Toxic Turtles match which clearly was never intended to go beyond the venue in which it was held.
Picture quality changes from match to match, as obviously some of the master footage has deteriorated. There are some odd frame rate issues in a couple of matches, and some wavy sound problems in others. Nonetheless, we aren't seeing this stuff any other way. I'll take it any day. As far as music changes, I only noticed two: the horrible Rick Rude music edit that crept up earlier this year, and a change for the Smoking Gunns tryout entrance theme. Speaking of tryout entrances, be sure to check out those for both "Earthquake Evans" and "War Eagle."
A few of the matches are seen only from the hard camera view, and it should be pointed out that there is no commentary here at all. Some would probably argue that commentary could have been added, but I would be against it. These are dark and house show matches. View them as originally intended with the natural audio of the event as your soundtrack. Nothing more is needed.
Buy this thing. Why? One reason is because it's one of the most interesting and unique WWE DVD releases of all-time. Another reason is that if sales are great, we may see more content like this down the line. While matches from after the time frame covered in this set wouldn't interest me quite as much, we have no idea what WWE has stored away. In the meantime, let's enjoy what has been unleashed with "Unreleased."
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