R-V-D D-V-D

Picked this up yesterday and, honestly, I didn't think I would be overly impressed. RVD is not a wrestler I dislike or anything, he's just never been my favorite. Has some fantastic moves, but I'd always thought he couldn't really carry a match on that alone. I'd seen a handful of his ECW stuff, but obviously not the right stuff.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised. I've only watched the first disc so far, and three of the matches (one Vs. Sabu and two of the Jerry Lynn matches) were among the best things I've seen in ages. I mean, not as good as, say, the pair of Benoit-HHH-Michaels matches in 2004, but maybe only a notch or two below that. BY FAR the best ECW stuff I've ever seen.

Anyways, the "story" portion of this disc is barely existent (kind of like the Flair or Michaels DVD's; I prefer the Benoit or Mysterio-type DVD's, where they have the full story and THEN the matches. It's just random comments by RVD about various feuds and opponents. It would have been nice to hear from other people as well (and theoretically, its possible that some of that will end up on Disc 2). He does manage to verbally put over Sabu quite a bit.

In short, the DVD has so far exceeded my expectations. Those three matches alone (and there's some other decent stuff on here as well) are worth the purchase price alone.

Updated 2/12/05: Disc 2 wasn't too shabby, either. I remembered the InVasion match vs. Jeff Hardy as being a good one, but I didn't remember the King of the Ring vs. Chris Jericho being as decent as it was... The extras here are okay, though nothing outstanding. Mostly rejects from WWE Confidential or something. An interesting pairing for commentary: RVD and Paul Heyman for a loooong-ass match with Balls Mahoney. Again - this is definitely worth getting, although the first disc is far more interesting.