Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11666 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-02-20
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 7
• Running time: 936 minutes

Customer Reviews

Where it all began
This box set takes in the first 5 years of the WWE's (then the WWF) biggest and first annual pay-per-view event. Its is a little slice of history and can be entertaining to watch the change in the production values throughout the years as the WWF moved more toward the bright spotlights, flashy entrances, and hardcore matches we see today.

Many of the matches at Wrestlemania I are actually fairly enjoyable in a very 1980s sort of way, most are short and to the point and very unlike the 25+ minute matches of later years. There are few really high spots on the card since the briefness of almost all the matches generally limits the chances of having a true classic in here. The main event (a tag match) is rubbish and the lack of a WWF Championship Match at the biggest event of its time is a little odd and jarring. Wrestlemania actually wears very well given its age and the fact that it came at the very beginning of the "Sports Entertainment" age. However it is defined as much by how it varies from its successors as by how it influenced them.

Wrestlemania 2 meanwhile is just plain awful. Done in a split venue format with different crowds, matches, and worst of all commentary teams in three loactions the whole event is very bitty and can't have done much for the crowds in each venue (might as well have stayed home and watched it on TV). Each commentary team is made up of a play by play man, a colour commentator and a female celebrity guest. The celebrities seem completely unfamiliar with wrestling and the third in particular (late night TV horror hostess Elvira) makes for painful listening. Several matches make unpleasant viewing, try and guess how many blown spots are possible in a 57-second match then watch the Women's Championship bout... Your guess will always be too low.

As the entertainment element of the WWF advanced it led to more storylines being introduced in matches instead of the good guy/bad guy brawls of previous years and WMIII is the first where this is apparent. The majority of the matches have some history going into them which helps the viewer invest in them. This event features Randy Savage versus Ricky Steamboat in easily one of the best `Mania matches of all time. The Hogan/Andre main event has iconic imagery going for it but is actually pretty terrible. Hogan never could wrestle and Andre was barely mobile by this point (he makes The Big Show look like Rey Mysterio).

Wrestlemania IV seems to divide opinion due to the WWF Championship tournament that makes up most of the matches. While the busy card is a positive for me it does mean that almost all the matches are short and a few have nonsensical endings (One Man Gang's use of a foreign object in full view of the ref when he was one match away from the World Title?). Mostly though the niggles are minor- it's a very good event.

Wrestlemania V is a different story. There are 14 matches on this card and none of them come close to being good let alone great. Almost none of the matches have any real story or reason to care about the outcome. Its always entertaining to see Bobby Heenan being beat up and the Mr Perfect match is passable. Poor Randy Savage is left with the unenviable task of dragging Hogan to a decent match and amazingly it may even be the best match of Hogan's career- although that's not saying much.

While the events in this box set are by no means consistently good there is plenty of wheat amongst the chaff. Watching this is like opening a time capsule and being delighted by the memories it brings. I totally recommend this set.

great i would recomend it
wrestlemania 1's main event ends in a crap way but altogether is good, wrestlemania 2 has 1 bad match but is good, wrestlemainia 3 is probably the best one out of all of them and has a great main event, wrestlemainia 4 is really good to with the wwe title tournament and the other matches are good, wrestlemainia 5 is good and also has a great main event and antoher two great championship matches and the other matches are good. i would recommend wrestlemainia 1-5.

Excellent WWF Nostalgia
Back in the 80's and early 90's the World Wrestling Federation was my favourite TV show. Every weekend I would look forward to Wrestling Challenge and Superstars Of Wrestling and the ocassional events like Summerslam and Survivor Series, where all the feuds that had built up during the weekly shows would come to a head. Of all these events the main one was WRESTLEMANIA, where we see 3-4 hours of non stop Wrestling action.
Later in the 90's I lost interest in the WWF as many of the stars left and the storylines became extremely far-fetched and weak. Now, after many year of not even thinking about the WWF I've been drawn back into those nostalgic days of my youth when American Wrestling ruled the world!

The best Wrestlmania's of this particular set are Wrestlemania 1, 3 and 5. WM 1 is where it all began. This is where the legend was born. It's historical value alone makes it a must for any WWE fan, past or present. The action in these early Wrestmamia's frequently leaves a lot to be desired, yet the point of Wrestlemania 1 especially, is that it defined what the WWF was and what it was to become. Wrestlemania 3 was a brilliant event. The drama of the Andre/Hogan match was at the time, like nothing I had ever seen. The atmosphere at the event, with more than 97,000 fans packed into the Silver Dome is bursting with electricity throughout, and even on the DVD, nearly 20 years later, you get a massive sense of what an awesome spectacle this event was.
The two poorer Wrestlemania's of the set, 2 and 4, still have their fair share of highlights but Wrestlemania 2 suffered from having three seperate events held at differant venue's, while 4 suffered by having an over-long and tedious knock out tournament to decide the Championship. WM 4 was held at Trump Towers and unfortunatly the atmosphere was completely flat - I think there is definatly a sense of let-down with WM 4, after the record-breaking brilliance of WM3. Even with Jesse "The Body" Ventura's commentery, Wrestlemania 4 remains a slog.
However, the set end on a high note with Wrestlemania 5. Again held at Trump Towers, the atmosphere at WM5 was much improved (though still strangely reserved for a wrestling event, LOL) and the storylines surrounding many of the matches was better. The Championship matches of Demolition Vs Powers of Pain, Ultimate Warrior Vs Ravishing Rick Rude and Hulk Hogan Vs Macho Man Randy Savage were all strong and in the case of the final match, very powerful. Savage and Hogan had been built up over the preceding year to be like brothers, so when Savage then went bad and attacked Hogan it was like the ultimate betrayal. It was literally brother Vs brother and Randy Savage was such an awesome wrestler that he always was always great value (his IC title match with Ricky Stemaboat at WM3 was and remains one of the most fantastic wrestling matches of all time)

Another highlight of these trips down memory lane is the inspired commentery's from Jesse Ventura. I was apprehensive when I brought the set, as to whether the original commentery from Jesse and the late, great Gorrila Monsoon would have been left in tact, so it was to my great pleasure to find they had been. Listen as the set goes on to how Jesse grows into his character. In the first Wrestlemania he is fairly average (but still good) but by WM 5 he is totally outrageous and very funny with many of his comments. His comments in the final match of WM 5 are priceless. I've long believed that the popularity explosion of the WWF in the mid 80's was down to Jesse's comments. It was something so fresh and original to have a commentator that was rooting for the bad guys to win! ;)

One minor complaint about this set is that some of the original entrance music has been removed for some odd reason. The music of tag team Demolition was one of my favourite's as a kid, so I was pretty underwhelemed by its removal. Another minor complaint is the absense of extra's. All you get with this set is the events themselves and thats it - Though I guess Wretlemania kinda stands up on its own terms and doesn't need extra's.

In closing, if you grew up in the "glory days" of WWF wrestling of the 80's and early 90's, this set is an absolute must. I'm sure anybody whose a fan of the modern day WWE will be very, very underwhelmed, because you really had to see the storylines unfold originally for the matches to mean much. These were strong storlines and very strong characters. Many of the storylines/feuds ran for 6-12 months at a time. The titles only changed rarely, so when they did it was always powerful and shocking. This set absolutely brought back all those feelings of nostalgia for my childhood and for a time when Wrestling Ruled My World! Excellent!