DVD Review - "Ric Flair & The Four Horsemen"

So I woke up sick today and stayed home from work, yet I found the strength to make it downstairs to the record store and buy this DVD. Does that make me a bad person?

Anyways, I watched through the documentary portion today (which probably clocked in at about 2 hours) and it's outstanding. I always wonder how they can make documentaries that are non-WWE-centric (eg The Road Warriors DVD) and still manage to paint a somewhat-accurate account of the group?

Well, they've done it again, re-telling the classic story of how Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard and Ole and Arn Anderson began teaming up in the mid-1980's, and take us straight though to the group's final days more than a decade later. Although there are some parts I would have liked to see more of (eg Barry Windham dressed up as Sting), it manages to paint a pretty complete picture of the gang and their feuds with Magnum T.A., Dusty Rhodes, Sting, etc.

One really interesting thing is that they start discussing Paul Roma's run as a Horseman, which Arn Anderson dismisses as something the office wanted to do. Even Triple H comments that it didn't make sense to give the spot to a WWE "job guy". But then... you have interview footage from PAUL ROMA himself saying that although he probably shouldn't have been in the group... he was MUCH BETTER than Flair and company. Classic!

They do manage to diss Jeff Jarrett, Lex Luger, Debra and Sid Vicious at various stages, but at least it's not because WWE is made to look like the saviors). If anything, the WWE stints of the Brainbusters, Flair, Windham and Dillon are glossed over.

The voices range from the usual WWE suspects (Eric Bischoff, Mean Gene, Michael Hayes, Rick Steamboat, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Shawn Michaels, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, Triple H) to people you wouldn't necessarily expect to hear on here, such as the aforementioned Roma, Tully Blanchard, Barry Windham and James J. Dillon, whom I thought was in TNA).

Overall, it's a really interesting story that shows how SIMPLE good storytelling can be if features some intelligent guys that are given a decent ball to run with. As for the features, I've just started out with them, but one match (Ricky Morton vs. Flair in a cage) is just amazing so far....