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WWE: The Best of King of the Ring DVD Review

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By , About.com Guide

WWE: The Best of King of the Ring DVD Review

Best of King of the Ring DVD Cover

© 2011 WWE, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The King of the Ring is one of the most prestigious honors a wrestler can have bestowed upon them. While it is not a traditional championship, many wrestlers have used the crown to catapult themselves to main event status.

Review and Recommendation

Format of the DVD: The DVD set is hosted by Booker T who brought back his gimmick of King Booker for this DVD. The DVD features matches starting with the 1993 tournament, the first year it was on pay-per-view, and continues through the coronation of King Sheamus in 2010. The 3-disc DVD set features 22 matches while the 2-disc Blu-ray version of this set features five additional matches.

Packaging Note: The match listings for the DVD are printed on the inner sleeve of the package.

Rating and Editing Issue: Unlike current WWE programming which is rated TV PG, this set is rated TV 14 V. The good thing about the editing of this DVD is that the chapters don't always end as soon as the bell rings. Many of the important and entertaining coronation ceremonies are included on this set. One of the bad things is that the matches don't necessarily take place in the order they happened and that leads to watching a match with a broken announcers table and then seeing that table get broken in the next bout. I also have to note that there was an error in the beginning of King Booker's script and that the Macho Man's tournament victory in 1987 didn't lead to him becoming the Macho King. That happened when he beat King Duggan in 1989. Neither King Hacksaw or the man he won the crown from, King Haku, ever won the King of the Ring tournament. For further information about the transfer of the crown, here is a link to my history of the King of the Ring.

Length of the DVD: One of my pet peeves over the past year about WWE DVD sets has been their insistence of printing approximately 9 hours on the back and then delivering much less than that. Thankfully, that problem has been solved and the back of the box lists an approximate running time of 7.5 hours.

Match Selection: The biggest disappointment with the match selection is that none of the pre-PPV tournament matches are shown. While the original tournaments do not appear to have been recorded, the non-tournament crown changes that I previously mentioned were. As a huge fan of '80s wrestling, I would have loved to have seen some of that footage on DVD. Other than that, with the exception of the Ladder Match between Austin and the McMahon's, the most important and famous matches from this show are all on the DVD.

Overall Recommendation: I know this may seem strange to say, but I got very sad watching parts of this DVD. The first match on this set featured two commentators, a referee, a manager, and a competitor that are no longer with us. It took until match number four of this DVD for there to be a match that featured two wrestlers that are still alive. Things didn't start off any better with disc two as the first match on that disc featured a deceased commentator, special referee, and competitor that were not involved in the previously mentioned match.

As far as this DVD set goes, it just felt very unnecessary. As you will see by the match listing, all of the important matches have already been released on DVD. That is not to say that it is bad or that you won't be entertained because you will see some great and historic footage. I just recommend going through your DVD collection first to see whether you need to buy this one.

Matches on This DVD Set

For matches that are available on other non-PPV DVDs, I will note the DVD it is also available on in parenthesis and italics.

Disc One

Disc Two Disc Three
  • King of the Ring 1999: WWE Champion The Undertaker vs. The Rock (Tombstone: The History of the Undertaker)
  • King of the Ring 2000: 6-Man Tag Match for the WWE Championship - Champion Triple H, Mr. McMahon & Shane McMahon vs. The Rock, Undertaker & Kane
  • King of the Ring 2000: Tournament Final - Rikishi vs. Kurt Angle
  • King of the Ring 2001: Light Heavyweight Champion Jeff Hardy vs. X-Pac
  • King of the Ring 2001: Tournament Final - Edge vs. Kurt Angle
  • King of the Ring 2001: Street Fight - Shane McMahon vs. Kurt Angle (OMG! The Top 50 Incidents in WWE History)
  • King of the Ring 2002: Tournament Final - Rob Van Dam vs. Brock Lesnar
  • King of the Ring 2002: Hulk Hogan vs. Kurt Angle
  • Judgment Day 2006: Tournament Final - Bobby Lashley vs. Booker T
  • RAW 4/21/08: Tournament Final - CM Punk vs. William Regal
  • RAW 11/29/10: Tournament Final - John Morrison vs. Sheamus (The Best of RAW 2010)
Blu-Ray Exclusive Matches (source: Silvervision)
  • King of the Ring 1996: Tournament Semi-Final Match - Marc Mero vs. Steve Austin
  • King of the Ring 2002: WWE Champion Triple H vs. The Undertaker
  • SmackDown 4/14/06: Tournament Opening Round Match - Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton
  • RAW 4/21/08: Tournament Semi-Final Match - CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho
  • RAW 11/29/10: Tournament Quarter-Final Match - Daniel Bryan vs. Alberto Del Rio
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.

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