TOTAL NON STOP ACTION?? DVD REVIEW

TNA Wrestling - Jeff Jarrett King Of The Mountain

Madman
Region 4 – PAL
4 dvd set – 714 minutes

With TNA Wrestling about to enter a new era with Hulk Hogan and his cronies taking over the steering and aiming straight for the rocks this four dvd set is a handy reminder of TNA’s beginnings and early vision. But that said I must also point out the obvious…
A four disc set of Jeff Jarrett??!!!! What sort of egotistical maniac thinks we need four discs of one wrassler? I mean, nobody gets four discs! Not Eddie Guerrero, not Macho Man Randy Savage, not even Edge so why did Jarrett warrant four? Oh yeah, because he started TNA, that’s why. And he doesn’t let us forget it either. Actually this near 12 hour collection (that’s right 12 hours of Jarrett!) should have been called the history of TNA because along with Jarrett’s own history we also get the history of TNA from its first PPV right through to the modern Kurt Angle era. And say what you want about Jeff, he does know talent when he sees it – I mean AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Abyss, James Storm… these are the guys that are setting the wrasslin’ world alight right now. (or being copied by big brother WWE). And Jarrett himself bleeds for the company.

Now onto the serious stuff – the collection starts off with possibly the most egotistical and funniest intro I’ve heard in a long time before getting into Jeff’s early life and sporting history, offering us a glimpse at a teenager who could have gone to basketball or wrestling but whose family ties were so strong he chose the grapple. Matches from the early days of TNA are interspersed with Jarrett’s interview so we get the very first TNA PPV – a royal rumble with Buff Bagwell and Scott Hall amongst other has-beens and up and comers plus country singer Toby Keith getting involved before having to tolerate Vince Russo’s gimmicks as well as a young AJ Styles and a truly bloody and vicious match with Raven when he still could move freely. By this stage despite the gimmicks, the interference in every match, the ref bumps I was beginning to respect JJ who let’s face it was never really superstar material – not b-grade mind you but not a-plus either. Here though his mini-me Ric Flair strut and constant juicing fit in and come across well. The singles matches do start to drag though – I mean how many times can we see the same gimmicks over and over – ref gets knocked out, outside interference… blah blah blah, thankfully there are matches with the likes of Raven, Rhino and Jeff Hardy to break the “seen it, heard it, know what’s coming” feeling but really it was the interviews that were keeping my interest by disc 2. When we start getting into the tag team matches on disc 3 it picks up again – 6 man suplex!, Team 3D, Scott Steiner, Sting, watching AJ Styles come off a ladder on top of a cage and put James Storm (or was it Chris Harris?) through a table!!! This is what TNA is all about – they do things you don’t expect, they have wrestlers who really put themselves on the line and Jarrett for awhile was doing it too. The second half of the collection is more about TNA itself than just Jarrett’s story and for wrasslin’ fans it’s worth the look. Styles, Angel., Sting and all the background guys get a word or two in as well. Of course it is biased and one sided but it is an interesting peek at how things got going, even if a little whitewashed. When we get to 2007’s Slammiversary and Jarrett addresses the crowd about his wife Jill’s battle and death from breast cancer I dare you to have a dry eye. I’ll admit I cried watching it live that day and I cried again watching it on dvd. One of the most honest few minutes you will ever see from a sportsman, hell any man. It’s this willingness to let you in to his personal life that makes you forget just how much of wrestling is pre-ordained and planned. You get a glimpse of the man himself as well as the image he’s trying to create.

I still think 12 hours of any wrestler is too much, this would have been a great two disc set – one disc for the interviews, one disc with all the good matches and you would have had a damn near perfect distillation of what makes TNA so good. But then that’s what the chapter select is for. And for real fans, there’s a couple of bonus matches at the end – early footage of Jarrett taking on Jerry The King Lawler (back when he was a wrestler not a schlepp for WWE), Cactus Jack (ditto) and Hector Guerrero! Say what you like about Jeff Jarrett but he loves his wrestling. That above all shines through.