For the past few weeks you guys and girls have been voting in the first ever WrestlingDVDNews.com March Mania Tournament in an attempt to crown the greatest WWE DVD.
We began with almost 400 WWE DVDs from WrestleMania XV right up to the recent Shawn Michaels: Mr WrestleMania and we have ended with just one.
The initial stages of nominations whittled the field down from the nearly 400 to your 128 favorite DVDs. These 128 WWE DVDs were then randomly paired and placed in one of the four brackets and we began the process of eliminating DVDs until we were left with just two: Bret “Hitman” Hart – Best There Is, Best There Was and The Best There Ever Will Be and The Rise and Fall of ECW.
These two DVDs seen off stiff competition from the likes of: WrestleMania X-Seven, Greatest Rivalries: Bret vs. Shawn, The Rise & Fall of WCW, Raw 20th Anniversary Collection, Stone Cold Steve Austin’s Bottom Line and the Definitive Ric Flair Collection. Checkout Bret Hart’s and Rise and Fall of ECW’s full route to the finals in our previous post by clicking here.
Bret Hart vs. Rise & Fall of ECW
These DVDs were released exactly 1 year and 1 day apart from each other (Bret Hart on 11/15/2005 and Rise & Fall of ECW on 11/16/2004). While Bret Hart had the longer DVD (given it benefited from an additional disc) the ECW documentary is 43 minutes longer than Bret Hart’s.
Historically both of these DVDs will be fondly remembered for very different reasons. Bret Hart’s DVD marked the first time in which Bret Hart had been involved with any WWE project following his departure from the company after the 1997 Survivor Series and the tragic death of his brother Owen. Initially without Bret Hart’s involvement his DVD was set to be titled: “Screwed: The Bret Hart Story” and was to follow the format of the Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior. Bret Hart even revealed during his recent UK tour that he was very upset by some of the comments made by talent in the set; in particular Hulk Hogan and Jerry Lawler.
The Rise and Fall of ECW is regarded as one of the very best selling WWE DVDs in the history of the company, in fact the DVD sold so well, it sparked a renewed interest in Extreme Championship Wrestling. So much so that WWE held an “ECW PPV” less than 7 months following its release and then even went on to adopt ECW as WWE’s third brand which provided a breeding ground for many of today’s top stars. ECW can even be linked with the current NXT developmental system.
The Rise and Fall of ECW went on to defeat Bret Hart with 57% of the final vote.
On behalf of everyone here at WrestlingDVDNews.com I would like to give a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to vote in any (or every) round of the tournament. We really hope that you have enjoyed the tournament, same time next year???
Not surprised ECW won… it has been talked about as the best dvd ever put out (Wrestling Wise) for years now. So, yeah I knew it would win. I just can’t believe Bret’s dvd got to the final round. Honestly the Bret dvd like himself is OVERRATED. 🙂
I am pulling for Bret Harts first dvd to win that was really great.
The March Mania title belt looks need, did you use some kind of generator/customizer or do you know websites where you can create customized pictures of fantasy wrestling belts?
I don’t know any websites to make “fantasy” wrestling belts, sorry. I created this one from scratch.
Totally disagree with some votes.
Edge was talented and chariamatic, yet a B main eventer and far behind such greats like Taker, HBK and many more (hence he earned way less money, he’s not in their league, neither his cowardy gimmick, nor his weak spear). The Tombstone and My Journey sets are awesome. Now look how some of you voted for these sets and Edge’s sets. Dud.
maybe if limit to 1 vote per person, the result may be different
Agreed, Bret wouldn’t have gotten out of the first round. His set making it this far is a clear indication that his small but loud group of fans either flooded the ballots with multiple votes trying to make him seem important, or the WWE Network has killed the DVD market and Americans are no longer visiting this site in what would be a proportionally equal way anymore. The poor domestic sales for Hart’s sets would support this theory and I’ve heard the only reason they’ve put out more then one set on him is to gain more access to his Stampede matches (he’s implied it himself). I’m inclined to think it’s more that Hart’s fans took the Chicago voting motto to heart: Vote early and vote often as the WWE Network is so seriously flawed (freezing, lagging, device incompatibility, film-like quality, shows seemingly can’t finish without some malfunction, login problem, etc, etc, etc,) that it’s impossible to get excited about if you’re honest with yourself.
Seriously get off it the Network works just fine with the right browser I use Google Chrome on a Mac, if I use Firefox it skips a lot I will say that. As far as getting bent out of shape because a Bret Hart DVD made it to the finals of a fan voted tournament that means absolutely nothing other than a virtual belt pictured on an ECW DVD cover you need to get over it. Who cares how it was voted it was a silly for fun time waster to entertain wrestling fans, try to not take it so literal and STFU.
“Seriously get off it the Network” “and STFU”? This is only the second time I’ve commented on the Network and I don’t visit any other wrestling sites as I’m mostly interested in pre-2006 wrestling. You make it sound like I’m harping on it. I’ve seen it and when it works it still sucks on laptops, PCs, Rokus and AppleTV. I’ll never be able to watch anything with film-like quality and what irks me most is that I know it should look better but they’re probably cheaping out/cutting corners. As far as Hart goes, his DVD sales (or lack thereof) speak for themselves.
I really don’t understand your attitude against me. I haven’t even posted here that often recently mainly because the Network’s film-like quality has killed some of my passion for wrestling at the moment. I guess I just have to get used to the idea that there’s many shows we’ll never be able to see in better than VHS master quality. It’s a sad thought that’s unfortunately a reality thanks to the film-like quality on the Network. Hopefully that changes, but I’ve seen MLB online and their games are also in film-like quality so I doubt it’ll happen anytime soon.
it could be the other way round though. ecw could have exit the 1st round if limited to 1 vote per person. you can never under estimate these ecw fans
Would be awesome to see the ECW set rereleased with a third disc and on blu ray as a collectors edition like they did with the Brock set. Though it would probably be heavily edited and censored.
The Horsemen??
That one blew(documentary wise).
Total kayfabe.
I liked that one along with Lita’s DVD.
I have no problem with the ECW set winning. It’s always been a favorite of mine. Truly one of the most in depth docs they ever made.
This is still one of the best (also like the Horsemen documentary) sets from WWE ever. And I firmly believe stumbled upon a gold mine with this release as they did not know it would be so successful. The format is literally fantastic as you have the actual inception of ECW to the day it closed its doors all with a three hour documentary. This set stands alone and truly deserves to be #1. I honestly was never a huge ECW fan, but this documentary did the company justice and exposed tons of great archived footage. I wish more documentaries were made like this, which is why it’s #1.
ECW.. ECW.. ECW!
Hopefully, this result can spawn of an Unreleased vol. 3 blu-ray. Nice to see that there are still alot of Ex’streamers out there.. but, Bret Hart is still an excellent of execution set.. ( punt intented 🙂 )
And hell yeaaah.. I’m on next year.. thanks for a fun brilliant and some times hard-to decide feature, WDN fellows..