Kat Reviews Wrestling Documentaries

Previously: Part One (The Rise), Part Two (Hulkamania), Part Three (Hulkamania)

And finally, we get to the good stuff.

Previously: Part One (The Rise), Part Two (Hulkamania)

Hulk Hogan talks with Vince McMahon on the Prime Time set about retirement. Jesse Ventura, Kevin Nash, and Bruce Prichard all laugh about the idea of Hulk retiring. Linda Hogan says Hulk would go crazy. Hulk comes back to battle Ric Flair and the Undertaker. Eric Bischoff says being Hulk Hogan is like being Master of the Universe and Natayla Neidhart calls the top spot a drug. Nick Hogan tells us that even days ago (when this was filmed), Hulk was talking about one more match.

Previously: Part One (The Rise)

1983. Linda Hogan tells us about being a year into dating Hulk Hogan and him wanting to make it serious. She didn’t want to move and him get tired of her, so he didn’t call her for two weeks. Hulk finally calls and asks her to fly up to Oakland. They go to a hotel and he tells her he doesn’t want to lose her. Hulk Hogan says he didn’t want to be without her. He proposes, Linda tells us how much she liked that mustache, and it was “like a wrestling match” from there on. We see home video of their wedding. There was no time for a honeymoon though, because they had to head towards Madison Square Garden, brother.

Whatcha gonna do when Netflix releases a four-part Hulk Hogan documentary, brother? Well, I seem to have accepted the role of reviewer of Netflix documentaries about people in wrestling history with questionable life decisions, so I’m here to take a look at them. Over the next few days, we’ll cover each episode.

As this is being heavily promoted by WWE (if you watched WrestleMania on Netflix, you’d say HEAVILY promoted), I’m not expecting it to be full truth. “Full truth” and “Hulk Hogan” are often not used together though.

We are in our fifth year of Peacock’s “Becoming” documentary series, which means our annual Peacock-exclusive WWE documentary is here. Sorry, international viewers, you’ll have to sail the seas for this one. You’ll have to sail the seas for all of them except this one now as they were removed from Peacock with the great purge of everything but old SmackDowns. The good news is that I have reviews of all of them except for “Wooooooo! Becoming Ric Flair.” Last year was WrestleMania IX: Becoming a Spectacle and before that, we had American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes and Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal.

Every year, we get a limited-edition WWE documentary that is exclusively for Peacock.  Sorry, international fans.  There was Whoooooo! Becoming Ric Flair, which I happily missed.  We had American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes.  Then we had Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal.

Now we add a fourth to the collection with this look at WrestleMania IX.  Wrestlemania IX is one of those Manias that gets a lot of hate and for fairly good reasons.  It isn’t good, for one.  There’s the big surprise ending.  For me, it’s a sentimental show.  It’s not good, but I’ll still give it a watch every year.

We’ve heard for years about behind the scenes video being shot, but the only bit that has seeped out was in the “True Story of WrestleMania” documentary/DVD set.  Now we’re here with a lot more.  Let’s see what we see and how they spin the story.

Previously on Mr. McMahon: episode one – two – three – four – five

Here we are, the final episode of Mr. McMahon.  What a ride it’s been!  And by ride, I mean it’s like watching the other 90 documentaries telling us about the rise and fall of WCW and the Montreal Screwjob.  There have been some cool photos and behind the scenes videos, but it’s mostly been a retread of everything we’ve heard before told by the same people who have told it before, but also Triple H is here.

After this, I’ll be back to the Vault programming and other fun stuff that isn’t… this.  This has not been fun.

For those of you looking for the Scott Keith recap of this series, they’ll be in the next print issue of “Inside the Ropes.”  Thanks – I think? – to Scott for recommending that I review this for the blog.  My therapy bill is headed to Canada as we speak. Thank you as well to those of you who have read, commented and been cool about my writing for this.  I really do appreciate you.  I’m now returning to appearing once a week to write about Vault stuff and to randomly appear in the comments, where I will continue to not argue with you all and never be able to keep up with the mania of the daily threads.

Previously on Mr. McMahon: episode one – two – three – four

We’re on the downswing of the Mr. McMahon discussion cycle already, so let’s start getting through the end of this series.  Our last episode ended with talk of the envelope continuing to be pushed, questioning when enough is enough.  Perhaps episode five will be when we hit enough!  Probably not though, since episode six exists.

Previously on Mr. McMahon: episode one – episode two – episode three

Sigh.  Here we are again.  I just want it to be over at this point.  Really this has been less interesting than expected at this point, though 2/3rds of it hasn’t been a HARD watch.  They’re hour-long episodes but they don’t drag on and seem like twice as long.  Three more to go!

Previously on Mr. McMahon: episode one and two

Sorry for the delay in this recap.  There’s been a little bit of real life excitement with a tropical storm passing by and knocking out power, internet and all the fun stuff. All good here!  I also needed a little breathing room after that second episode and knowing this one is probably just as bad.  I’m hoping to have the fourth up in a few days, depending on work and the other real life things that don’t involve watching Mr. McMahon sounding like an old frog.

Previously on Mr. McMahon: Episode 1

We start this episode with the Slammy footage of Vince McMahon coming out to sing “Stand Back” as the intro titles roll.  BABY WATCH ‘EM DROP.

Episode 2: Heat.

Vince McMahon is a piece of shit.

Well, that was easy.  Let me go back to writing about weird 2003 dark matches now.

I have to write more?  Alright.  Fine.

WWE 24 is a long-running show for WWE, dating back to 2015 and the early days of WWE Network.  It’s always been one of the better shows, giving backstage access we wouldn’t see otherwise. It has been iced a bit with only one episode appearing a year, but has made its triumphant 2024 return with its August 5th episode focused on Damian Priest.

WrestleMania XL: Behind the Curtains premiered on YouTube on July 2, 2024.  It was originally planned to release shortly after Mania but was delayed.

Tonight, it’s the series premiere of WWE Rivals on A&E!  Well, that’s what I would’ve said had I written this on July 10, 2022.  But I didn’t.

I noticed this series was up on Amazon Prime with the first season free with FreeVee, as well as Most Wanted Treasures and the Biographies.  Why not?

I don’t think we’ve ever discussed Bret vs Shawn before here, so this will get us a fresh topic! (That was sarcasm for the one person that will miss it.)

This covers a rivalry that I don’t feel like we can possibly dig up new information on, but we’ll see what the fine folks at A&E have for us.

I don’t know if I’m ready to watch this, but it is time.

“Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal” was released exclusively on Peacock on April 1, 2024.

The road to WrestleMania is almost finished and, perhaps, so is the story for Cody Rhodes.  As we prepare on this blog to celebrate Cody’s championship win or send Scott 80 emails saying he should go back to AEW, depending on what happens Sunday, there is no better time to review this.

“American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes” debuted as a Peacock exclusive on July 31, 2023.  It is still exclusively there, so sorry if you’re in a world without Peacock.  It is narrated by Stephen Amell.

The whole “Miss Peacockery” name was birthed when the WWE Network to Peacock change happened.  I was on Twitter, as one does, and I was annoyed that nobody was documenting what had made its move to Peacock.  They were slow and random with what moved, and I wanted to know and I saw others did too.  So I created the Peacockery account.  A few weeks later I added “Miss” to it because I was tired of being called “dude.”

Despite being named after the service, there are things exclusive to it I’ve never watched.  WWE Evil is one of those, and it’s time to start it.

Debuting in 2022, Evil was exclusive to Peacock.  Executive produced by John Cena (my third favorite Twitter follower), it profiled one person deemed EVIL by WWE for eight episodes.  No, it is not THE eight most evil people ever (go ahead and get your Benoit jokes in).  Remember these are WWE-branded shows, so don’t expect anything crazy.