WWE: The Rise and Fall of WCW

The story of WCW, a compelling one for pro-wrestling fans, is a classic case of "second banana". Despite featuring a quality product and, for a short time, even surpassing Vince McMahon's empire, the WCW (for various reasons) never had the staying power to remain in the driver's seat of the wrestling business. This documentary provides an in-depth explanation of those reasons.

Three main areas of WCW history are examined:

1. The Early Years: The regional promotion from Jim Crockett is bought up by Ted Turner and allowed to thrive on cable television.

2. Monday Nitro: The WCW signs the top talent and eclipses WWE thanks in large part to the wild success of Monday Nitro on TNT.

3. The Demise: Poor management and bad fiscal decisions leads to the company's demise and ultimate buyout at the hands of McMahon.

For pro-wrestling fans, this documentary will bring back some fond memories and also provide some great history of the WCW. As with any doc, it is difficult to know to what degree the "truth" is being told, but while viewing this I never felt as if it was veering off course into speculation or other ludicrous ventures/notions.

Oh boy, where to begin with this WWE home video release.

I grew up watching WCW in the early 90s and when this title came out, I figured it would be just as good, if not better than the Rise and Fall of ECW .... It's not, not even freaking close.

A-lot of chapters should have just been merged into one, like the separate chapters for Georgia Championship Wrestling, Mid-Atlantic ... you could have had just one long chapter where you talked about the history of South East Pro Wrestling where you bring up each promotion. Then talk about Black Saturday then when Ole Anderson tried to bring back GCW as his own promotion while Vince had control of the actual Georgia territory

This documentary came off more as a "This is what you don't do to run a wrestling promotion" than an actual detailed history about WCW.

I would have liked to have seen more talked about the Bill Watts era and when Jim Herd was in charge. I would have liked to seen more talk about the great tag teams from the history of WCW like the Midnight Express, Rock N Roll Express, Road Warriors ... etc.

It's worth a watch definitely, specially for those who have no idea about WCW. It gives you a quick history lesson on the company that almost put the WWE out of business.