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While the quality of World Wrestling Entertainment's programming can be seen as inconsistent (at least in my opinion), one area where they have consistently delivered to a high standard in recent years has been in the DVD market.
Rey Mysterio gets his second WWE DVD release with the three disc Biggest Little Man, which is already in stores in the United States and is currently shipping in the UK via Silver Vision. Just like the Rey Mysterio: 619 DVD and many other non-PPV titles released by WWE over the past few years, this fails to disappoint. The 619 DVD which was released back in 2003 was a good DVD. However, it came less than a year into his WWE career, and if you were picking it up hoping for a look at Rey Mysterio's entire career, you may well have been left feeling disappointed. Now, in 2007, Biggest Little Man is the career retrospective Mysterio deserves, and leaves you asking the question, "Has Rey ever had a bad match?"
We start off way back in 1994; with the first match (from the When Worlds Collide show in Los Angeles, CA, promoted by AAA with a little guidance from Eric Bischoff and WCW) giving Mysterio's younger fans a nice look at his Mexican roots. This was the first time that a Mexican promotion had appeared in the United States on PPV, and is seen by many as the show that first introduced Mexico's high-flying, lucha libre style of wrestling to American fans. This match takes us nicely into Mysterio's time in ECW, which wasn't even mentioned in the 619 DVD if memory serves me right. His excellent debut match with Psicosis is next up on the DVD; a match which led to Mysterio, Psicosis and other Mexican wrestlers who were unknown to the vast majority of American fans playing an important role in the success of ECW over the next couple of years.
We fast forward to Mysterio's spell in WCW, which spans over the second half of disc one and continues well into disc two of this three disc set. Prior to joining WCW, Rey had wrestled with the surname Misterio. But after signing with WCW, the 'I' was replaced by a 'y', with the thinking being that the Mysterio name would work better and that under a mask, his identity would be more of a "mystery". Or something along those lines anyway.
As well as being treated to matches with Super Calo and Ultimo Dragon (from 1996's Fall Brawl and Hog Wild PPV's respectively), we also get three fantastic matches that see Mysterio facing Dean Malenko. The first is Malenko's successful title defense against Mysterio at the 1996 Great American Bash, while the second is from the July 8 edition of Monday Nitro that saw Mysterio capture the Cruiserweight title for the first time. The trio of Malenko matches is completed by the excellent Cruiserweight title match at Halloween Havoc.
While the Malenko matches are always great to watch, for me personally, Mysterio's matches with Eddie Guerrero rank as some of the best matches I've ever seen, the highlight being the excellent 'Mask vs. Title' match from 1997's Halloween Havoc. Although relatively short at under 14 minutes (and boy what I'd do for a Cruiserweight match to be given 14 minutes in WWE today), the match absolutely flies by, and was rightfully seen by many as 1997's Match of the Year.
Other matches from Rey's time in WCW featured on this three disc set include matches with Juventud Guerrera, Chris Jericho and Jushin 'Thunder' Liger, then from there, the remaining disc-and-a-half features on Mysterio's time in World Wrestling Entertainment as we jump from Mysterio's match with Blitzkreig on the February 8, 1999 edition of Monday Nitro and land in July 2002 as Mysterio appears in WWE. Leaving out Mysterio's final years in WCW has been done for obvious reasons. Mysterio lost his mask just a couple of weeks after the Blitzkreig match at Superbrawl IX in late February '99. WWE were never going to acknowledge this as happening, especially given the equation children+Mysterio masks=revenue, but in all honesty, I have no issue with them ignoring the latter years of Rey's time in WCW.
The third and final disc focuses entirely on Mysterio's WWE run through to the 'I Quit' match with Chavo Guerrero which took place around this time last year. Just about everybody reading this will know of Rey's accomplishments and high profile matches from the five years since he signed with the company, so it’s pointless writing too much about it. For some reason though, it did leave me asking myself why Rey has never been drafted over to Smackdown. Although Smackdown has a strong Hispanic fan base, there's no doubting that a run on RAW at some point since Mysterio joined the company would have given us some fresh and exciting new matches. Mysterio does appear on RAW during the DVD as his match with Shawn Michaels is on here. It's just a shame that a Mysterio-Michaels match came about for a tribute show after the death of Eddie Guerrero.
This may not be the best DVD release that WWE have put out in recent years, but if you're looking for a good look back at Rey Mysterio's career over the past twelve or so years, you could do a lot worse. The quality of wrestling on here is exceptional, and again, I ask the question, "Has Rey ever had a bad match?"
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You can contact Phil Lowe at phil@tnalt.com.
