Adventures in Netflix: The Rise and Fall of WCW 6/10

Who doesn't love professional wrestling? Okay, a lot of people, but I'm not one of them. I don't follow it anymore, but pro wrestling was pretty much more important than any current event for the first 15 years of my life. Just like many of my contemporary men, Hulk Hogan and G.I. Joe were heroes that shaped us into better, more patriotic Americans. I always loved it, but it never felt quite as big as it did in the mid-to-late Nineties, due to the Monday Night Wars between WWF and WCW. For the first time in my young life, all the kids in my middle school were talking about wrestling every Tuesday morning, comparing what had happened in on Monday Nitro and Monday Night Raw. It was bigger than life, and every Monday night was an event. The Rise and Fall of WCW covers the entire history of the organization, but the big focus and most important part of WCW's history has always been what happened between 1994 and 2001. Sure, the first half of the (self-produced) documentary is interesting, chronicling wrestling's 30 year transition between American folklore and cable sensation (WCW's story is not too unlike WWF's, in terms of promotion and growth). But the draw, as stated, is the second-half. Now that the WWE (I hate that it's not WWF anymore. The name change pretty much coincided with the time I stopped paying attention) owns WCW (and has for some time), they can analyze the competition between the two companies without relying on cheap jokes and low blows. And they do pretty well. The Rise and Fall of WCW manages to tell the story somewhat fairly. The documentary itself does get boring and self-congratulatory, though. By the end, your happy it's over, but you'll probably have question about the history. There are good interviews with some key figures, but not enough of a variety to keep from getting sick of Michael Hayes and Dusty Rhodes talking about WCW like it was the sports entertainment version of the Sex Pistols.

Recommendation: If you're of my generation, and you loved wrestling, I'd give a watch. This is a great story that deserves to be told that, while it doesn't fall flat on its face, the source material really needs to be handled by an outside party. I would love the see the Monday Night Wars covered by an unbiased documentary filmmaker. The backstabbing, under-handed deals, and dirty rivalry between the two companies, all played out weekly on cable, make the story a unique post-modern American tale. The Rise and Fall of WCW will interest you, but will likely leave you thirsty for another take on the subject. Through it halfway down your Instant Queue and get to it later.