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| Thanks to Paul E., ECW were the first to announce the release of wrestling titles on DVD, even though the WWF beat them to the stores a few months later. (CJ Marsicano) |
It's been three weeks since the last Breaking Kayfabe, and let me tell you, a lot seems to have gone on during my absence. Not that I noticed too much during my stay in Calgary -- suffice to say that Shelly was not very interested in watching too much wrestling (or Star Trek) while we were in the hotel. I will say this though -- I'm not going to dispute Lance Storm anymore when he big-ups his hometown on ECW Television -- the place was great. I didn't want to leave. No shit, folks, I almost became CJ Marsicano, American expatriate! The shitty weather in Toronto on my return flight almost ensured that -- suffice to say that when Air Canada wants to cover their asses and appease their disgruntled customers, they do it in style. The hotel they put me and some of the other delayed commuters up in, the Delta Chelsea, was, to overwork a clichéd slang term, phat. And I mean 24-hour room service, personal fax, personal fridge, personal coffeemaker with coffee and tea, and free bathrobes in the closet phat.
Anyway, one development that came up in the wrestling world while I was in vacation involved ECW and pleased me to no end -- and it was not the news of disappearing Dudleys. Instead, it's a development that brings Paul Heyman's brainchild where no professional wresting product has gone before -- Digital Video Disc. Extreme Championship Wrestling's retail distribution deal with Pioneer Entertainment not only means that ECW videocassettes will be more accessible to the general public, but that they will also break new ground in the wrestling home video business by being the first of the Big Three to release their product on Digital Video Disc.
When I got a DVD player for Xmas last year (and started hitting up DVD Express and every other DVD shopping site I could find for Star Trek, Monty Python, classical, Beatles and TLC titles), I figured it was only a matter of time until Warner Home Video, Time-Warner's video arm which has taken over WCW product from Turner Home Entertainment since the Turner/Warner merger was finalized, would rush out shitty home video compilations onto DVD. Surprisingly, they haven't. Vince McMahon pioneered wrestling home video when Coliseum Video released Wrestlemania I on videocassette (at $65 a pop) in 1984 -- surprisingly, even though DVD is well established, we have yet to see any Wrestlemania DVD box sets either. Shame on you, Vince!
You're probably asking yourself, "OK, CJ, what's the big deal? We know you're an ECW mark (and proud of it), and considering that you're enthused about DVD in general you're no doubt a technojunkie as well. So what?"
Here's "so what": How much can a single videotape hold at normal, "SP" speed? About two and a half hours. How many of ECW's titles have had to be released as double-sets because the matches were so long? I could mention A Matter Of Respect, Barely Legal, and November To Remember 1996 right off the bat, to name three titles out of my own collection.
Now come the comparisons: When the bulky 12" laserdiscs were available, the maximum capacity of ONE disc was two hours exact. If your favorite movie was longer than that, you were talking two disc set, even if only one side of the disc was used -- with a price tag of close to fifty dollars. The average capacity of an audio compact disc is 74 minutes. They can hold 80 minutes of music, as Rykodisc proved in 1987 when they issued a compilation disc for the Boston post-punk band Mission Of Burma, but some of the early, older compact disc players could not read them.
A digital video disc, on the other hand, while being the exact same size as an audio CD, can hold between seven and nine times the information of an audio CD. And that's not just the movie itself, but on many titles, a wealth of information about the movie, it's actors, producer, director, and so forth, plus alternate audio tracks (often in different languages), subtitles (also all in different languages), alternate angles (if the producers are so inclined), outtakes, trailers, bloopers, promo reels (The DVD of Lethal Weapon 4 is one prime example of a loaded DVD title, as is the release of This Is Spinal Tap by Criterion.) And, unlike CDs, DVDs can be double-sided if need be.
I didn't even bring up track selection. Well, actually, that's an audio CD term -- DVDs, like laserdiscs before them, call the individual sections on themselves "chapters" -- but the principle is the same. Imagine popping a DVD of Hardcore Heaven '96 into your player and being able to select the Rob Van Dam vs. Sabu match (the one where they continued to perform despite the fact that the ring broke 10 minutes into the match) without having to abuse the fast-forward button. And any good DVD player -- I have a Panasonic DVD-A110 -- also has slow motion capability -- will be able to let you analyze any portion of a disc in any way you see fit -- frame by frame, if you like!
I honestly don't know exactly how ECW and Pioneer Entertainment will go about incorporating the vast ECW Home Video back catalog onto DVD form -- just having an entire ECW card on one disc without having to flip the disc over or change videotapes is good enough -- but if they want to do it great, here's what they can do. We'll use the home video version of Barely Legal for our "test" DVD:
The entire PPV card itself, from pre-show to Terry Funk's victory celebration in the audience, banded chapter by chapter. That was obvious :)
In addition to Joey Styles' commentary, alternate audio tracks in Spanish, Japanese, and featuring the wrestlers and bookers commentating on the match and giving anecdotes how they went about booking it.
Cast histories with bios and title histories of all the participants in the program.
The promo commercials for the PPV.
Clips of all the major matches leading to the angles being played out on the PPV card itself. These would be perfect for the second side of the DVD!
Makes you want to go buy a DVD player (or at least stick a DVD-ROM drive into your computer), doesn't it? :)
At any rate, no matter what ECW and Pioneer do with the first wrestling DVDs ever, the end result will no doubt finally spur the WWF and WCW to catch up to what ECW is doing... AGAIN! It would definitely make for a more competitive marketplace in the long run.
END NOTES: A few random thoughts:
1. How did Vampiro go from using The Misfits' "Abdominable Dr. Phibes" for theme music to being saddled with the talentless Insane Clown Posse??
2. Honest to god, I idolize Kiss and have done so since around the time of Love Gun and Alive II, but how is their involvement in WCW going to compare with their 1978 movie Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park in the long run? (And when is that movie going to come out on DVD, by the way?)
3. I got a very good reaction to my Breaking Kayfabe Star Trek column. One reader, who calls himself Johnny Ace, put it best in his e-mail to me when he wrote: "That Star Trek column was great, pure gold. If there's one thing I mark out for more than professional wrestling, it's Star Trek." And another reader, Mike Shillace of Syracuse, NY (home of Paul Heyman), was even more encouraging: "I just wanted to thank you for that great Star Trek meets Pro Wrestling parody. As a huge Star Trek fan and also a fan of professional wrestling, I loved it. It was funny and entertaining. Thanks for taking the time to do it. Keep writing, you have a talent for it." Hey, Mike, do you think I should submit something to Simon & Schuster for the "Strange New Worlds III" contest? :)
4. I heard a lot of great music during my stay in Canada. Remember these names, you should be hearing from them here in the States in the weeks to come: Prozzak (Hot Show, Epic), The Tea Party (TRIPtych, EMI Canada [they're looking for a US deal), and Bif Naked (I Bificus, Aquarius (Canada)/Atlantic (US)).
5. As always, your comments are welcome :)