to humanize the performers while still showing the grandeur of their art.  Extremely Crazy Wrestling Fans (advertised as the first of a series of fan documentaries on the website) aims to do the same thing for fans of the sport.

Does it succeed?  In a word…no.  There are times during the 79 minute run, where you can almost feel an interesting story dying to be told, but inevitably it’s cut short by one of the DVD’s many limitations.  Everything you need to know about ECWF you can learn from the cover, which is an absolute mess of photoshopped screen captures and “extreme” fonts (with the ECW specifically held apart in case you didn’t catch it earlier), that tries very hard to grab your attention, but just ends up looking messy and confusing.

The DVD itself is divided into two sections, the documentary itself and bonus matches.  I can’t say much for the menu screen itself, as the driving rock music is generic, but serviceable, as is the menu.

The Documentary

The meat and potatoes of the DVD is its documentary, filmed appropriately enough, seemingly on a hand held camera, outside the ECW arena in Philly.  The entirety of the DVD is filmed in the hours before and after Shane Douglas’ Hardcore Homecoming event last year, which may have leant to the rushed feel for the doc, as it briskly tries to get through interviews at a mile a minute.

All your favorite wrestling fan types are included in the cast of characters, you have your wannabe wrestlers, the two bickering Internet fans who distain everything about everyone else in the line, but are clearly thrilled to be there and meant to be with each other, the two guys who have been to every goddamn show ever, but still barely come off as fans at all, and the token moderately attractive women who LOVE wrestling even more than their boyfriends, isn’t that HOT?!

None of the characters are particularly well fleshed out, as seemingly the time constraints allowed only for a few short interviews to be filmed.  This leads to probably my biggest gripe about how the whole feature is put together, as the same snippets of interview footage are put together ad nauseam.  You’ll see the same clip of one of the smarks talking about Terry Funk or the ring girl talking about her wrestling background about a half dozen times each in order to fill time.  It’s not that the clips are wholly inappropriate where they are inserted, but it sorely feels like the film makers needed to spend at least a couple more hours with each of the subjects to get some more varied or interesting responses.  As it is, the shoddy editing makes the documentary itself feel meandering, even while the film makers try to wedge it in

That’s not to say that the Documentary is entirely without its moments.  Bill Alphonso provides a fairly interesting set of incites on the ECW phenomena, but the interview kind of breaks down after Fonzie asks if the camera is rolling after he’s started his story and then later takes some time to shout an acknowledgement to some fans.  Also of note is a group of wrestling students, who when prompted to cut a promo stare dead eyed into the camera and mumble (it seems kind of mean spirited to include, but is particularly funny after they declare their lofty expectations).  Additional highspots come in the form of a guy moved nearly to tears because he was tossed from the event and a when portly gentleman who is clearly on some kind of narcotic, tries to steal the scene from one of the women (and the editor clearly loves this scene, because it makes it into the feature a number of times). 

The layout of the documentary itself isn’t horrible either, it starts off innocently enough, giving a little discourse on the subject of barbed wire in wrestling, and letting fans talk about their history watching ECW.  In fact ECW is the only organization that really gets any play here, because it was shot at the Hardcore Homecoming show, but it’s still kind of amusing to see a ECW Fans DVD put out five years after the company shut down.  I guess that’s what makes them “extremely crazy.”  Some of the guys and girls talk about ECW like it’s still a living breathing organization, which is kind of strange insofar as it makes them out to be entirely delusional, but I guess it’s not entirely out of place in this context.

They pepper in a few match clips and things here and there to accentuate points or just to give you something else to look at for a few seconds.  It’s nice that they have them and all, but outside of the Hardcore Homecoming footage, everything is incredibly jerky and low quality.  It’s actually a bit of a plus in that respect that they don’t have WWE’s license over ECW and ECW footage, because really when it comes right down to it, ECW was a kind of low production organization to begin with, and I think this is the closest that ECWR comes to capturing that spirit, is showing how the “ECW Spirit” lives on in high school gyms and armories around the country.  Of course they kind of buy into the same idea that we’re all guilty of from time to time, that ECW was almost just some glorified backyard federation with better production values, but, again, that’s kind of the innate charm of the whole thing.  A lot of people were and still ARE nuts about just that very idea, but I don’t know that 15 minutes of guys gushing about how it’s “real fuckin’ barbed wire” helps convey any sort of idea about the organization you’re commemorating or the fans that still worship at its alter.  Other than reminding us that most of these guys are still having the same matches with the same other guys from five years ago in front of fewer and fewer people.

They do a segment where they talk about how their girlfriends/wives feel about wrestling which is kind of amusing, and could have done with a little more fleshing out.  Most of the guys give the stock answer that their girlfriend doesn’t give a crap what they watch, but one couple is actually spending their honeymoon at the show (she’s a valet for some bumfuck wrestling promotion).  It’s a cute story, and one that a bigger show with a broader focus might spend a little more time on, but it kind of gets glossed over (though the clip will be repeated a few more times later in case you forget who they are).

There is then a lengthy video interlude featuring the fans we’ve already seen, with music instead of talking.  The favorite wrestler segment is pretty standard, and I fully expected it.  Not surprisingly Sabu wins the popular vote by a landslide.  The big problem is there’s really not any reason for it to be where it is, or even there at all.  Like so many things on the DVD, it just seems to exist for the sake of existing, which is nice, but I’m not sure why I should care that this screaming guy loves Sabu and Sandman, or what it has to do with the rest of the DVD, other than to say that Extremely Crazy Wrestling fans love Sabu and Sandman.  A shocking revelation.

In a segment appropriately titled “Travel Time” the combined travel time for the first five people they interviewed is about five hours.  Finally they get to a guy who skipped an international flight and a guy who drove in from Ohio, which still isn’t particularly scintillating but it is a little more worthwhile.  Shortly thereafter, they do interview a cop handing out parking tickets about safe travel and parking at Viking Hall shows, so I guess everything else in these segments is gravy.

After a short foray into the wonderful world of drinking and ECW memories, the real reason for the existence of this DVD hits.  A full one minute ad for the Hardcore Homecoming Pay Per View.  Right in the middle of the documentary.  I understand that the two events are inextricably tied, but it’s a little ridiculous to be so intentionally and blatantly commercial about it.  Put it at the end or the beginning even, but people aren’t really watching this to see a commercial for another DVD right in the midst of something else.

The final segment of the documentary is the gushing post show report, featuring two drunk guys delivering weak chair shots with a chair they stole from the show floor.  Though one of the crew does save the segment entirely by deadpanning “That’s the gayest shit I’ve ever seen.”  Followed by the drunk guy declaring it to be “EC Fucking W“ and then another guy coming in and mocking them, and the drunk guy announcing his candidacy for president in 2008.  That segment right there may have made the whole experience worthwhile, followed only maybe by the next guy, a Philadelphia Eagles fan, declaring “T.O. Forever!”  After a brief interlude into the whining guy who got kicked out and his surprisingly eloquent friend, the DVD ends with the group of not yet ready for prime time wrestling wannabes chanting “Asshole,” which, I guess, seems oddly apropos.

Bonus Matches

There are two bonus matches on this DVD, they are as follows:

Raven v. Shane Douglas

If you’ve ever read the Satire, then you’ll probably know that I don’t care for reviewing matches.  Not that that’s my thing anyway, but I’ll try to give you a general vibe anyway.  This is apparently from some Indy’s TV show, IWC, I guess.  Douglas runs the fans down on the mic for not being from Pittsburg, he does, however, make an exception for a group of fans that clearly is from Pittsburg, which is nice.  He does have to go back and explain some of his promo to get some heel heat, which is minus points.  Raven calls him “The French Fries” which cracks my shit up.  There are about 100 people in the crowd.  Have you ever heard Indy announcers?  Yeah, well they’re here.  I was begging for Don West to show up and sell me some baseball cards or something.  This team has two color men so that neither has to try to make a salient point at any one time, and the play by play guy ends up trying to do color for most of the match anyway.  So in other words, these guys will probably be doing RAW in a couple years.   I’m dying to commentate on a match some day.  I’d be wicked on color.  The match itself is pretty standard Raven/Douglas match from this point in their career.  Douglas sells Raven’s drop toe hold into the chair even though he comes about two feet away from hitting the chair.  Douglas hits the loaded fist for the win.  It’s fairly decent for what it is, but it’s severely clipped in spots.  Yeah, that’s right.  They clipped an Indy TV match for the DVD.  I get it if maybe they were out of space (my computer says they weren’t), or if the match was clipped on TV (which it wasn’t because they announcers have complete conversations clipped out and then rejoined in progress), but could you at least give me a FULL match if you’re going to give me one?

New Jack v. Balls Mahoney

Another IWC match.  New Jack hits some mic work to start which is rendered even more unintelligible than usual because the house mic is not loud or clear enough for the TV camera.  So the promo ends up coming off kind of like this:

New Jack:  Efemin!  Gamuranasan!  Eko buddoo tonight!

Balls Mahoney:  Beer?

At least the high school gym looks jam packed for tonight’s hot action.  I think these announcers are kind of growing on me.  I’ve been watching too much wrestling.  Lots of blood on Balls to start, thanks to a fork and a sickle.  A few minutes into the match they shoot an angle for the promotion about the commissioner of the promotion being anti-hardcore, which is fine but it means nothing on this DVD.  The match itself, is exactly what you expect.  If you’ve seen one New Jack match, you’ve seen ‘em all.  You could count the wrestling moves on two fingers (Balls Mahoney hits a top rope splash, and a power slam).  Plenty of weapons and blood though.  The match ends after a guitar shot by Jack on Balls.  There’s an edit there, and then New Jack hits some more unintelligible gasping mic work, and then they go shake hands with the kids.

Final Thoughts

You probably know where I’m going with this one.  As a prancy little diversion, it has its moments.  The producer’s heart was in the right place, but there are just so many strikes against this DVD it’s hard to recommend it for…well…anybody.  It just seems so hastily put together, that I think with a little more time and polish, it might have made an interesting diversion for hardcore wrestling fans, as it stands now, it’s just a mash up of random talking heads with no soul stringing it together.  A documentary really can’t just be people standing in a line talking to be interesting, and a few hours before and after a show isn’t long enough to get me to care one way or the other about listening to them.

Where it REALLY wins is as a selling point for the Hardcore Homecoming DVD, which is exactly what it’s trying to do.  As a companion piece it’s not bad.  As a matter of fact, I’d say that it feels like it would be right at home as a second disk or a extra on the Hardcore Homecoming DVD itself.  But as a standalone product, it’s just too shoddily edited, too rapidly produced, and just plain not engrossing enough to be worth the purchase.  There’s a good story in there somewhere, waiting to be told, but the way this DVD is put together, it’s just not there.

RATING:  1.5 out of 5