When the WWE decided to release another Eddie Guerrero DVD set, I knew straight away I’d want to watch it, so I was delighted when my copy arrived in the post and couldn’t wait to get started.

I’ll be reviewing this DVD over the next three days in the run up to Christmas, so on with Part One.

The DVD gets underway with an “In Memory” graphic for the late wrestler, then an opening video package of Eddie highlight clips and up to date comments from the interviews recorded specifically for this DVD set. The format of this DVD eschewed the documentary format in favour of comments from somebody on a particular stage of Eddie’s career/life followed by a match.

We start with Eddie’s widow, Vickie Guerrero, talking about how when they first met she didn’t watch wrestling, but the rest of her family did and they all marked out over her dating a Guerrero. She then talks about Art Barr and the bond those two had together. I don’t know if it’s a footage rights issue, but a Los Gringos Locos match really would’ve been perfect here, but instead we get Vickie talking about how Eddie started using the frogsplash as a tribute to Art once Art died.

That leads us into Eddie’s debut match in ECW against 2 Cold Scorpio from ECW Hardcore TV on April 8th 1995. ECW was really the market for great wrestling matches with athletic guys like Scorpio, and Eddie fit right in. Interestingly even though Eddie is Mexican and the lighter weight guys had started coming over to the States, Joey Styles is still referring to the huracanrana as a frankensteiner. Actually, to me, because early 90s WCW is the wrestling I grew up on, to this day I still think it’s weird when I hear the move referred to as a huracanrana, even though it’s been the commonplace name for the move in US wrestling for more than a decade now.

Scorpio was brilliant here, probably at his peak as a worker, but Eddie is quicker, smoother, with better punches, plays to the crowd more (which is a complaint that you heard about him back then, but right at the start he responds to people chanting his name), and is just the more “professional” of the two. Eddie gets the win with a rollup, becoming ECW TV Champion with the victory.

Dean Malenko talks about his family’s close history with the Guerrero family, which lasted right through to Eddie’s death, where Dean was one of only a few people to go into Eddie’s hotel room after he died to “say final goodbyes” and I’m putting that in quotation marks because it’s wrestling and you know what that really means. Dean talks about ECW being about the hardcore guys and how it was down to him and Eddie to show them a different style of wrestling.

The match used to illustrate this point is Eddie Guerrero v. Dean Malenko from ECW Hostile City Showdown 1995. To be honest the GREAT wrestling was in short supply in the big two in mid-1995, what with WWF headlining with Diesel v. Sid while Bret Hart was stuck feuding with a pirate who stole his leather jacket, and WCW concentrating on Hogan v. the Dungeon of Doom while Steve Austin was about to get fired.

This is definitely a match that meant more in the time period than it would now, but that’s a lot less to do with Eddie and Dean as it is every indy – and some major league I’m looking at you Kurt Angle and Jerry Lynn – geek trying to have this same match for the last 13 years. It’s Eddie and Dean going out there with no real storyline other than two guys having a match, trading holds, doing the counter-move, avoid the same move, stalemate for a standing ovation spot, work a bodypart for the majority of the match, then hit the finishing sequence with multiple finishers and kickouts of big moves that became synonymous with wankfest indy wrestling.

But Eddie and Dean are so crisp, so smooth, Eddie doesn’t forget to sell the ankle work for no reason when hitting the nearfalls, that it’s still a great match. Maybe it doesn’t stand up like it did in 1995 but you can still enjoy it. And having the result be a 30-minute draw – and to be honest the 30 minutes flew by – just helped add to the feeling that these were two competitive and evenly matched guys.

If you’re in the UK you can pick up a copy of this DVD today via Silver Vision.

Click here to read Part Two of this review.

Mark Bright
mark@ifight365.com