Last month, we saw the releases of the two Superstar Collection DVD’s I was most looking forward to in the Sheamus & Daniel Bryan releases, and for the most part, they lived up to my expectations. Unfortunately, the four Superstar Collection DVD’s released afterwards had me a lot less excited, and if the Orton & Kingston DVD’s are any indication, they are also going to (pretty much) live up to expectations.
Orton was never my favorite in-ring worker, and his work since around 2008 in particular has been pretty stale. Kingston is a great in-ring talent, but his career has been pretty stagnant since he debuted, and this becomes clear while watching his DVD. While not complete failures, it’s hard to justify much of a reason to purchase either of these DVD’s, particularly the Orton one. The Randy Orton Superstar Collection runs about 90 minutes, while the Kofi Kingston Superstar Collection runs about 80 minutes. They are both rated TV-PG.
“Voices in My Head”: The Format
Many of you have read my thoughts on the overall format of the Superstar Collection DVD’s from one of my previous reviews, but in case you are new to these reviews, here is what I said about the format in my Bryan/Sheamus review: “To review the key points, though, the biggest problem with the Superstar Collection DVD’s are the packaging, the menus, and the short introductions. In these areas, you really notice that these DVD’s are budget DVD’s, and they come across as pretty cheap. The only advantage is that the boxes at least have the same overall artwork, and when they are all released, they will look good together on a shelf. The brief introductions to the DVD are pretty generic; they give a decent idea of who the overall character is, but don’t really give us any details of the superstar’s history.” Orton’s intro represents the cold, calculating nature of the “apex predator”, while Kingston’s intro shows him as the fun-loving, high-flying superstar he is. Both are quite generic; probably the most generic intros we’ve seen yet.
I think the WWE had a pretty big challenge ahead of them in picking matches for the Orton collection. He had a DVD released just last year with most of this best matches, and since they were only focusing on recent matches, I don’t think they were left with the best selection. Overall, I think the match listing was OK, but became troublesome the more I thought about it. The first two matches focus on Orton’s heel run with the title in 2009 while he was the leader of Legacy, and the third match on the set looks at the breaking up of Legacy and the start of Orton’s babyface turn. Naturally, it would have made sense for the final match on the set to be the conclusion of his feud with Rhodes & DiBiase, but instead we get a match against Christian from over a year later. I don’t want to totally complain because the match with Christian is the best match on the DVD, but it doesn’t make for great cohesion to the set. Also, Orton does not win a single match on this set cleanly (including the match against Christian as a babyface). This isn’t a big deal, but is still a puzzling choice.
I think the WWE did about as good of a job as possible in choosing the matches for the Kingston DVD, but the DVD shows just how uninteresting Kingston’s career has been. He won the Intercontinental Title very soon after moving to Raw from ECW, and he has not moved above this level in the 4-5 years since. His feud with Randy Orton is represented on this DVD, but he hasn’t been in any other big feuds, so the rest of the DVD is filled with mostly mid-card title wins. Fortunately, all of the matches are pretty good, so it wasn’t painful to get through. Unlike the Sheamus and Daniel Bryan DVD’s, though, there wasn’t a clear character arc they could build over the course of the DVD because Kingston hasn’t had a clear upward trajectory.
“RKO Out Of Nowhere!”: The Randy Orton Matches
WWE Championship 3 Stages of Hell Match: Randy Orton Vs. Triple H (The Bash, 6/28/09) – * 3/4
This match was a major disappointment to me. The first two falls (standard wrestling match and falls count anywhere match) are way too short to really get going. The third fall is a stretcher match, which I’ve always thought was a terrible gimmick match. Too much of the match is spent watching one superstar try to wheel the other superstar up the ramp, and it ends up feeling a bit like you are watching a wheelbarrow race.
WWE Championship Match: Randy Orton Vs. Triple H Vs. John Cena (Night of Champions, 7/26/09) – ***
A fun triple threat match, but unfortunately for this DVD, it slows down the most when Orton is the primary superstar being focused on. I also hated the ending; it makes Orton look like a very undeserving champion, even for a heel.
Randy Orton Vs. Ted DiBiase (Raw, 3/1/10) – 3/4 *
This match never gets out of first gear, and quickly ends in a non-finish. A bizarre choice for this DVD without showing the fallout to the feud from Wrestlemania XXVI.
World Heavyweight Championship Match: Randy Orton Vs. Christian (Capital Punishment, 6/19/11) – *** 3/4
Christian and Orton had great chemistry throughout their entire Summer 2011 series, and this match is no different. This match has a bit of a screwy finish that allowed the feud to continue, but up until then the match is great.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”: The Kofi Kingston Matches
Intercontinental Championship Match: Kofi Kingston Vs. Chris Jericho (Night of Champions, 6/19/08) – *** 3/4
A great match from early in Kofi Kingston’s career. This was during Jericho’s feud with Shawn Michaels, which plays a small role in the match, but fortunately doesn’t take away too much from the in-ring action. Not a totally clean finish, but still a great match.
World Tag Team Championship Match: Kofi Kingston & CM Punk Vs. Cody Rhodes & Ted DiBiase (Raw, 10/27/08) – ** 1/4
Your average TV tag team match. Four good workers here, but nothing special.
Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Kofi Kingston Vs. CM Punk Vs. Mark Henry Vs. MVP Vs. Finlay Vs. Shelton Benjamin Vs. Christian Vs. Kane (Wrestlemania 25, 4/5/09) – **** 1/4
One of my favorite Money in the Bank matches. Everyone gets their time to shine and has an individual story to tell. The match also makes sense for the Kingston DVD because (along with maybe Shelton Benjamin) he steals the show.
Kofi Kingston Vs. Randy Orton (TLC, 12/13/09) – ** 3/4
A solid close to one of the only real feuds in Kingston’s career. Orton and Kingston don’t totally gel together because of Kingston’s fast-paced style and Orton’s slow style, but the match is decent.
Intercontinental Championship Match: Kofi Kingston Vs. Dolph Ziggler (SmackDown, 1/7/11) – ** 1/4
An average TV match that wasn’t given nearly enough time. Kingston and Ziggler would have countless TV matches throughout 2011 and even into 2012, and I think some others were better, but they always had great chemistry.
“Apex”: Closing Thoughts
As I mentioned, I didn’t have particularly high hopes for these DVD’s, and while they certainly could have been a lot worse, they didn’t do much to exceed these low expectations.
In the case of the Orton DVD, the match choices were a bit questionable, but you get at least one great match in Orton Vs. Christian. The triple threat isn’t bad either (even though the ending does make Orton look terrible). Last year, I thought the Evolution of a Predator DVD made Orton look great, and this DVD doesn’t follow that up. The Kingston DVD definitely has better matches, but shows how stagnant Kingston’s career has been. Also, a lot of the matches on that DVD have already been featured on compilation DVD’s, which is something these Superstar Collection DVD’s have generally been good at avoiding. If you are a completest, I’m sure you’ll be picking these up, but otherwise, I think you are better off saving your money.
Click here to get WWE Superstar Collection DVDs from just $6.99…
The UK will not be getting the Superstar Collection DVD series, but they are also available in Australia. Fans down under can get hold of them at WWEDVD.com.au first.
don’t forget about dvd sets on christian and del rio that they should had made.
AHLIE del rio should be world champ by now
instead of choosing orton, cena, micheals and mysterio who all have 3 discs sets they should made ziggler barret rhodes even miz cuz tht arent gonna get a 3 discs set any time soon
I totally agree with you and would prefer those DVD’s, but keep in mind that with the exception of Bryan, everyone who got a superstar collection is a babyface. This definitely isn’t a coincidence.
thts tru but Bryan might be heel but people still luv him
Picked up the Randy Orton DVD at my Wal-Mart yesterday. They only had one copy along with 20 copies each of Sheamus and Daniel Bryan. They must’ve made a mistake
Same here, got the Orton DVD from Walmart too, they had couple copies.They didn’t have Kofi Kingston though. Surprisingly they had the placeholders for Daniel Bryan, Sheamus, and Cena but all were gone. They had TONS of Ryder DVDs though.
I’m guessing the Ryder DVD is selling the worst, which is no surprise.
@Hamish, stop your whining and complaining will you please, I like the WWEHD on the home video release, also I like it in anamorphic widescreen as well, so stop your complaining OK
@Thomas , holy shit! “whining and complaining” ? calm down man, your acting like I was tarnishing the legacy of WWE or something lol
Why does WWE insist on keeping the ‘WWEHD’ logo in the top left corner, on a DVD? It’s bad enough they keep it there on the Blu-Rays (causing image retention), but on DVD? come on.
dose anyone now the song they play during Raw not the new theme song but the heavy rock song they play when they show the NOC matches
CM Punk as heel is just pure GOLD!!! Poor Jerry Lawler though, lol.
Off topic here, but, watching RAW and I just realized CM Punk is one of the best heels in pro wrestling in a looong time. This slow turn of his is awesome. He’s believable. A true performer.
Anyway, good review. I plan on picking these up anyway. I probably won’t ever watch them, but just to add to the collection.
Totally agree with you there Vin Man. Besides being the great technical wrestlers that the internet fans love, Punk and Bryan have become so bloody entertaining its great. Its been that way for a while, but generally all I hear is people complaining about PG. I was watching Raw thinking the same as you, best characters to come along for a long time. Some wrestlers like the MIz got pushed hard but have been nowhere near as enjoyable to sit back and watch, which is what its all about. Punk will go down as one of the all time greats if he either keeps it up or dies. I’d consider Kingston and Orton both to be good wrestlers that were missing a good enough character to make them entertaining enough to be on top. I did think that Randy Orton and Punk had the best match on Wrestlemania 27, but this year his match with Kane was a bit of a let down. I can’t see Orton knocking Punk or Cena off to be the main guy anytime soon. Great wrestler, but dull personality.
I have no interest in getting these dvds, but they aren’t being sold by Silver Vision in the UK anyway, so that’s kind of settled that.
@Harry Faversham I buy the events so there, you don’t have to make a song and dance about it
Are you from the Internet Wrestling Police? If so, I’d like to see some credentials.
I don’t sing or dance Thomas. Actually I don’t think you understood what I was saying at all. I’m not saying I hate events and I don’t buy them. I was saying I consider Punk to be more entertaining. What’s the point of having a comments section if commenting is frowned upon? If my comments are too long then don’t read them / cause a scene. So there! Sing and dance to that clever clogs. And don’t forget to write down in your Internet Wrestling Fuzz File-o-Fax that I don’t like the cut of your jib and that I’ve asked you to put that in your pipe and smoke it, ‘Thomas’.
lol