Customer Reviews

WWE - Austin vs. McMahon - The Whole True Story

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Austin vs. McMahon: The Whole True Story" is an 80 minute feature that chronicles the legendary "Austin vs. McMahon" feud that jettisoned the World Wrestling Federation back to the top of American pop culture in the late 1990s. Through various interviews with WWF officials and "documentary" like coverage, it recounts the entire initial feud from the Fall of 1997 to its ending in the summer of 1999, highlighting MOST of the key events in the feud including classic promos, matches and backstage vignettes as well as their historical effect on the business and its place in American pop culture.

Among the key highlights:

1. His battles with The Rock, Mick Foley, Kane and the Undertaker, the Corporation and the Ministry

2. Classic segments such as the Monster Truck incident, the Beer Truck, the Zamboni, and McMahon's corvette, the "Hostage Taking" and the "Hospital Incident."

THE ANALYSIS:

The feature is good in that it tried its very best to include EVERYTHING. The downsides, in my opinion, were the pacing of the video. A lot of the key angles were not covered until the last 20 minutes of the video. The majority of the beginning seemed to be filled with a lot of useless filler, particularly the interviews with certain WWF officials. Also, the thing that I personally could have done without was the "Documentary Narrator voice" which just seemed to kill the "feel" of the video for me. It seems like it was over pushed as a big "formal" type of documentary that you'd see on A&E or The Discovery Channel or TLC or something like that.

THE DVD:

Honestly, the DVD itself has got to be one of the most crappiest DVDs WWF Home Video has ever put out!!! It contains NO special features which while a crime isn't that bad, because other DVDs have been released with no special features. The CAPITAL offense though is that the DVD does not even have anything as much as chapter or title breaks/selections!!! No navigation to speak of. It's basically the WWF burning the original VHS version (released in 1999) to DVD as is!!! Goodness, AT LEAST dress it up a little by breaking it into chapters!!! (A bonus match or two would have also been nice).

At the very least, the legendary feud is hereby preserved for "digital posterity" if nothing else.

THE VERDICT:

While the DVD sucks, the feature itself is worth the view and the purchase. This is after all, "THE GREATEST FEUD IN MODERN WRESTLING." If you tuned into wrestling after it was over, this is a great recap of it. If you lived through the Austin vs. McMahon feud (like me) then this is a great collection that recaps the feud in all (or most of it anyway) its glory.

Highly Recommended.

I've actually seen the entire Austin/McMahon feud from the beginning so when this video came out I knew that I would'nt be seeing anything new. But I was still interested to see all of the memorable events condensed into one tape. But that didn't happen here. Austin vs. McMahon is only a 1 hour tape which makes it virtually impossible to fill their nearly 3 year saga. Also the tape is filled with useless [stuff] like Michael Cole, Jim Ross and Terry Taylor interviews which added nothing good to the video. The video also featured a good match between Cactus Jack and Terry Funk. WHY? This is an Austin/McMahon tape! The WWF also left out a lot of great stuff that should have been on the tape ie, the first time Austin gave Vince a stunner(they were at Madison Square Garden which made it even cooler). All in all this video is good if you haven't seen the whole feud. But if you own the Best of Raw Vol.1, theirs no real point in getting this video because its basically all the same stuff.

This is an excellent look at the feud between Stone Cold and Vince McMahon, from the Raw after the D-Generation X PPV (Stone Cold beating the Rock to retain the IC belt), to the Fully Loaded End of an Era First Blood match. Most of the feud is looked at, like the hospital attack, and Stone Cold taking Vince hostage on the Raw after the Judgement Day PPV. The only thing that keeps it from getting a perfect 5 rating is that it doesn't take a look at all the feud (there's nothing about the parts of the feud between King of the Ring '98 and Breakdown '98, and the Greater Power plot isn't looked at much), but it is still a great buy.

This dvd is a great dvd, but for some reason it is not completely worth it. The parts of the dvd that make it suck are that there are no extras, no chapters, and somewhat poor quality audio. The story line based on Austin and Mcmahon is very good though. It shows how their feud begins in late 1997, and keeps continuing through 1999. This dvd has great matches, but they are EXTREMELY short. Some of the matches include: Austin vs. Dude Love at Over The Edge 1998, Austin and Mcmahon fighting at the WWE Royal Rumble 1999, Austin vs. Undertaker at Fully Loaded 1999, Austin vs. The Rock at Wrestlemania XV, Austin vs. Vince and Shance Mcmahon i a handicap ladder match at King of the Ring 1999, Austin vs. Vince McMahon in a STEEL CAGE MATCH (hell yeah) at St. Valentines Day Massacre 1999, Austin vs. Kane vs. Undertaker at Breakdown in your House 1998, and soooooooooooooo many other matches. The quality of this dvd sucks, but the story itself of Austin vs. McMahon is truly AWESOME. You should buy this dvd.

This vhs was way too short and only showed short clips of matches.The matches were not shown in its full content which really sucked.This tape is a definite waste of money and if you want the true Austin-McMahon rivalry you probably would of had to watch Raw from 1997-present to see their real whole true story.

If anyone is a fan of the WWF then this video is a must have. It chronicles the whole feud between the Rattlesnake and McMahon. Starts from the beginning of Austin's first championship reign to the "End of an ERA'First Blood Match with the Undertaker. Many funny excerpts include the infamous hospital attack, the concrete corvette, and many stunners!

I'll readily admit I'm a huge mark for Stone Cold Steve Austin, so "Austin vs. McMahon" was bound to show up on my video shelf.

The tape is comprised mostly of footage from past "Raws" and Pay-Per-Views with inteviews spliced throughout.

It's a great video, but I'll agree that at 60 minutes, it's too short. The feud lasted almost 2 years, and there's every reason to assume it will re-ingnite now that Austin is back from neck surgery. It's difficult to compress 2 years of promos, Stunners, swerves, and the like into a one hour videotape, but "Austin vs. McMahon" does a credible job.

Still another 30 to 60 minutes would have been nice. A one-on-one interview with McMahon and Stone Cold (a'la "Austin 3:16 Uncensored") could have been included.

I'll run the risk of being biased in giving "Austin vs. McMahon" 4 stars, but its short length is the only thing preventing it from getting 5 stars.

This was another tape I found in my archives & quite frankly was a tape that took a concept that I can't remember being done before & only seen done maybe once or twice since although I'm sure this is a concept that more people would like see more with the concept of DVD. This tape chronicles the on-screen feud between Stone Cold Steve Austin & Mr. McMahon from beginning to end (at that time) without actually hearing from Austin or McMahon but other staff such as Jim Ross, Earl Hebner, Terry Taylor, television director Kevin Silfies, and Michael Cole.

The documentary begins talking about the beginnings of both men in the wrestling business before getting into one of their earliest confrontations over how Vince forcing Austin to defend the Intercontinental Championship evolved into an confrontation off the air where Vince was ready to fight Austin with a chair. After Austin won the Royal Rumble & in the title match at WrestleMania against Shawn Michaels, we pick up with Vince making it clear he didn't want Austin as champion leading up to the confrontation the night after WrestleMania where Austin made it clear that he wasn't going to be a corporate champion. The following weeks were shown next with Austin going "corporate", his match on RAW against Vince when Dude Love appeared, Austin's chairshot to Vince at Unforgiven, Vince's "assault" on Austin & paying for it the next week, and the highlights of the Over The Edge match against Dude Love with Vince as the special referee. After seeing how Austin lost & regained the championship from Kane, we go into Vince's "master plan" to use Kane & Undertaker to take the title off Austin before reliving the famous incidents with the zamboni along with Vince paying for screwing Taker & Kane by getting his ankle broke, "Dr. Austin", Vince's car having concrete poured into it, Austin being fired by Vince & rehired by Shane, and being screwed at Survivor Series. The story picks up again at the Royal Rumble where Vince & Austin had their first official physical confrontation building up to their Steel Cage Match & Austin's title victory at WrestleMania XV. The story finishes off talking about the "Higher Power" story leading to Austin becoming the C.E.O. of the company, the King Of The Ring ladder match for control of the company, the "End Of An Era" first blood match against Undertaker & the final goodbye the next night on RAW.

In the end, I really loved the concept of this video in completely focusing on a feud & they did that well here as this completely focused on "Austin vs. McMahon" & not any of the other feuds that happened during this time period as well involving either man (Austin/Taker in 1998 for example). The only negative thing I can really say here is that they started the feud when Vince forced Austin to defend the Intercontinental Champion yet it started before that when Austin stunned Vince for the first time months earlier. Otherwise this was the storyline that really defined the early years of the "Attitude Era" & put Austin over the top as the biggest box office draw in WWE (according to them) so this is a tape that I would recommend going out of your way to get.

This is a retrospect of when the WWF (WWE) was at it's peak, and it features the most jacked-up storyline of that era, the long running and highly celebrated feud between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon. This was my source of learning about the feud as I wasn't a regular WWF viewer until the End of an Era (July 1999). Too bad things are bad with Steve right now, but if the internet rumors can be proven true, we just might see the return of Stone Cold. WWE's ratings have been poor as of late, but they're doing what they can, even though a recent angle was offensive. Stone Cold not being there to increase the entertianment factor will keep WWE under the situation that this video chronicles.

The Austin-McMahon saga is nothing short of excellent. From career ending matches(Fully Loaded '99) to steel cage matches(St Valentine's Day Massacre), Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon literally tear each other up! With interviews from officials such as Earl Hebner,Michael Cole and More, this is a must have video for any WWF fan, even if you don't know what wrestling is about.