prowrestling

Yesterday was a big day for WWE product releases.

First off was a 3-disc boxed set featuring a series of roundtable discussions from long-time wrestling personalities and Hall of Famers in their own right, talking about other legends and important moments in wrestling history. The format features a moderator and four long-time wrestling personalities sitting roundtable style giving their uncensored thoughts on the subjects at hand. The discussion is truly unscripted and unfiltered, as these panelists have known and worked with these discussion subjects for a long time, and all have their own unique thoughts, whether good or bad. It’s a good thing there is a moderator to keep the subject on task or else the charismatic panel would take the discussion somewhere completely off subject.

The first disc features a panel discussion on former World Heavyweight Champions Sgt. Slaughter and “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair. In addition to the discussion a series of matches from both men’s careers are included as extras on the disc. The second disc follows the same format with a roundtable discussion on and match extras of Jerry “The King” Lawler and Junkyard Dog. The third disc is the most interesting of the boxed set, as the roundtable discusses “Heatseekers” in wrestling, which essentially was a talk about controversial or unpopular people and characters in wrestling history. The extras features matches from a variety of people, including the Fabulous Freebirds, Scott Hall, Vince Russo, Buff Bagwell and others.

Also yesterday the company released their ninth music album full of original theme music, called “Voices: WWE The Music, Vol. 9.” The disc contains thirteen original tracks penned and composed by WWE music guru Jim Johnston. The title track, “Voices,” features Rev Theory front man Rich Luzzi on vocals, and is easily the highlight of the album.

Both the DVD and CD have special sets offered exclusively through Best Buy. The retail chain is also selling three separate DVDs with more roundtable discussions and match extras. One highlights former WWE Champions Andre the Giant & the Iron Sheik, a second is about another pair of former WWE Champions in Hulk Hogan & Bob Backlund and the third and final disc discusses the always wild and controversial characters of Rowdy Roddy Piper and Terry Funk.

Best Buy is also selling a two-disc edition of “Voices” that includes a bonus disc called “Legends of WWE” and features tracks from legendary stars like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Ultimate Warrior and Jake “The Snake” Roberts, among others.

Stone Cold Steve Austin was the first person announced to go in WWE’s Hall of Fame Class of 2009. The Hall of Fame has become an integral part of the WrestleMania week. This year’s WrestleMania and Hall of Fame ceremony will be held the weekend of April 4 – 5 in Houston, Texas.

Stone Cold Steve Austin is the biggest moneymaker in World Wrestling Entertainment. He spent his time working his way through the independent circuit across the United States in the early ‘90s, and then became a big star in World Championship Wrestling.

He arrived in the WWF in late 1995 and by early ’96 Austin was allowed to mold his own character and became the foul-mouthed, anti-authority hell-raiser named “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. The crowds took to Austin and he became the fans’ choice. Austin was responsible for leading WWE into their most profitable time period ever, the “Atittude” era, which ran roughly from the beginning of 1997 until WrestleMania XVII in March 2001.

Austin presence during that time changed the company’s mentality of the “good guy versus bad guy” and brought in the concept of “shades of grey.” His feud with WWE owner “Mr. McMahon” brought the company to its highest points in history. By the time Austin had retired from active competition after WrestleMania XIX, he had won six World Championships, two Intercontinental Championships, two United States Titles, and a total of five World Tag Team Championships.

Austin is “the” wrestling superstar of the 1990s and in regards to money made in the industry he can only legitimately be compared to Hulk Hogan.

While filming his new motion picture “The Wrestler,” Darren Aronofsky gained a newfound respect for the pro wrestling industry. In an interview he recently did with Alfonso Castillo, who writes as part of “The Steel Cage” on Newsday.com, he calls for wrestlers to be able to join the Screen Actors Guild, which is the union that serves actors in Hollywood. Aronofsky was quoted as saying:

“You make choices in life to do certain things. I just believe you’ve got to be responsible for your choices. I don’t think it’s worth blaming anyone. But I think the problem starts with the fact that they’re not organized and they’re not unionized. That’s the main problem. I mean, there’s really no reason why these guys are not in SAG. They’re as much screen actors as stuntmen. If not more. They’re in front of a camera performing and doing stunts, and they should have that protection. That’s the only thing that for me came out of it. Why doesn’t SAG help get these guys organized? They’re on TV performing. Or, if they’re not even on TV, the ring is a theater. So they’re not just screen actors, they’re theater actors. They’re performers. They should have insurance and they should have health insurance and they should be protected.”

On today, January 6, WWE Studios released their latest feature film property, a direct-to-video release titled “Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia.”

“Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia” is considered a sequel to the 2001 major motion picture “Behind Enemy Lines”, starring Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman and the follow-up to the 2006 direct-to-video sequel “Behind Enemy Lines: Axis of Evil,” yet no characters a recurring from the previous films and essentially only share the title as a link.

“Columbia” stars professional wrestler Ken Anderson, who works for World Wrestling Entertainment under to moniker Mr. Ken Kennedy, as the leader of a group of Navy SEALS who attack Colombian special forces as they look to rescue a hostage.

The DVD has received a lot of hype on World Wrestling Entertainment television, including making-of video packages, interviews with cast and crew and on-screen hype from Anderson while in his Mr. Kennedy persona.