Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

Highspots Crockett Documentary


JerryvonKramer

Recommended Posts

Haven't heard much talk about this. I got this from the KM boards:

 

Here is the content list

 

DISC 1 MAIN FEATURE

Documentary Chapters Run Time- 2 hours

 

Chapters

 

Big Jim Crockett, Sr.

Tag Teams

John Ringley

George Scott

Valentine and Wahoo

Plane Crash

Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling

Rotating Bookers

Dusty Gets the Job

TBS

Four Horsemen

Magnum TA

National Expansion

Starrcade '87

What Happened

Legacy of Jim Crockett Promotions

 

BONUS FEATURES

 

Mid-Atlantic Memories

David Crockett Stories

 

 

 

DISC 2 SPECIAL FEATURES and BOUNS MATERIAL

 

George Pantas Match Footage

George Pantas

The Dusty Finish

Clash of Champions

Crockett Cup

Great American Bash

US Title

JJ Dillon's Crib

Jim Cornette's Crib

Fanfest Promo

Kickstarter Promo 1

Kickstarter Promo 2

 

BONUS INTERVIEW MATERIAL FROM:

 

Ole Anderson

Paul Jones

Jackie Crockett

JJ Dillon

Magnum TA

Tommy Young

Masked Superstar

 

 

 

DISC 3 BONUS MATERIAL

 

INTERVIEW BONUS MATERIAL FROM:

 

Baby Doll

Tully Blanchard

Jimmy Valiant

Ronnie Garvin

Rock-n-Roll Express

Ivan Koloff

Jim Cornette

Don Kernodle

The Entire Jim Crockett Interview

 

I think I will have to get this when it comes out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Meltzer seemed real impressed with the Flair/Steamboat clips, along with Johnny Valentine. He said Jim Crockett came across as the star of the doc. Even though he lost some cred when he said after JCP sold he had nothing to do with wrestling. He also points out the doc destroys the myth of the bookkeeper was over his head and didn't give them enough notice of the money problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know about "destroys the myth", plenty of guys point to him except for the Crocketts themselves. I'll need to listen to that Meltzer show now, which means having to endure at least 5 minutes of Alvarez.

 

Some of the unearthed footage looked pretty exciting, and Valentine is put over pretty strong as an important guy. I'm going to try to put together some spoiler-free semi-reviewish thoughts and maybe we can talk more after you've seen it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, Highspots are currently charging UK customers over $60 in shipping just for single items, so I had to go via their UK-based proxy and they are selling everything for over-the-odds prices.

 

I was a bit annoyed because HS were doing a great deal on Meltzer's books where you could pick up both Tributes books plus Top 100 Wrestlers for $4!! But then they wanted $80+ for shipping.

 

I will say though -- to answer jdw's question from before -- that Mid-Atlantic Gateway get "before the title" thanks on the doc so I'm guessing that's why the stuff is not on the site anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Where is the book offered and do you think it's worth buying (if you've read it)?

It's offered at Highspots. I ordered it. It kinda sounds like a scrapbook with results, posters, etc in it. Theirs also one that Mooneyham just did over at crowbar press which I hear are reprints of old articles he's done along with interviews.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Good

 

- They don't skip over the Crockett Sr years. It didn't feel tremendously substantive and I'm not sure it reveals anything we didn't already know, but we get a decent picture of the man and his promotion.

 

- Things really pick up in the last 30 minutes. You can actually pinpoint it: the moment Ron Garvin makes his first contribution. The last 30 minutes -- a dissection of "what went wrong" -- are really fantastic. What makes this section really compelling is that all the interviewees are not on the same page, as they go through each of the factors. Kinda reminded me a little bit of our big debate over the decline of Mid-South. Speaking of which, the handling of the UWF takeover and the booking of Starrcade 87 in Chicago are treated in some depth.

 

- Of all the guys interviewed, George South was surprisingly lucid, he added a hell of a lot more than, say, Jimmy Valiant.

 

- Every time Ivan Koloff talks and isn't Russian.

 

- When he had to go to old shoots from Flair and Dusty, it tended to be super-relevant and generally seamless.

 

- Jim Crockett Jr in general. He's very candid, unromantic in his assessment and I have a feeling that the full interview is likely going to be better than the doc itself.

 

- David Crockett seemed a little more opinionated and obviously hasn't left the business behind in his mind the same as his brother has. Good contributions though, his take isn't always the same as everyone else's.

 

- Jackie Crockett's contributions were also pretty good.

 

- The footage. But it did seem sparse, because they kept going back to the same Dusty vs. Piper match again and again, but some of the Wahoo vs. Andersons 70s stuff looked insanely good.

 

- They covered the period of George Scott's time in charge in good detail and this was the section during which I felt I learned the most that I didn't know before, especially the stuff about John Ringley.

 

- Jim Cornette's office wall and JJ Dillon's office wall. You'll see what I mean.

 

The Bad

 

- Feels harsh to knock him, since he did a tremendous job in securing the interviews and even getting a documentary like this out which is of great value to me the wrestling fan. However, this does have quite an amateurish feel in the production, editing and general direction. Some of the directorial decisions made me scratch my head a bit: there's a bed of soft country or cheesy keyboards under the whole thing, completely unnecessary and distracting. The talking heads are shot with a "soft focus" frame, which couldn't look tackier. Some of the sections consist of 8 or 9 different people saying exactly the same thing, which is an editing technique used in docs I'm not fond of. This sounds like a burial, but I do think the material could have been weaved together more deftly. I also think there is a tonal inconsistency, where the film can't quite decide what it wants to be -- Ole Anderson doesn't help here, naturally.

 

- The post-Scott period during which Dory Funk Jr was booking is kinda skipped over, as are the NWA politics and Flair becoming world champ. We skip from Steamboat vs. Flair in the 70s to Final Conflict. This could be because this stuff is dealt with by the National Wrestling Alliance documentary (which you can get for download at HS for $10), but I was a bit disappointed because I recall having some interesting exchanges with Dylan about Flair's transition to World Champ and its significance for the promotion and was keen to get some perspectives. It wasn't really discussed.

 

- There are also moments where different guys talk about business being up or down or recovering when it hasn't actually been established in the narrative thread that business did go down, or when exactly it did. We're told that business was down in 84, but it seems like it was also down some time in the late 70s. This was fuzzy and I would have liked greater clarity on it.

 

The Ugly

 

- Plenty of Robert Gibson

 

------------

 

Don't get me wrong, this is really good, but I do think it could have been better. I haven't watched any of the bonus interviews or extras yet, but I can imagine it's going to really fun to go through. The DVD packaging is also really nice. There's basically NO reason not to get this if you have an interest in JCP or just wrestling history in general.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

JVK echos a lot of my thoughts on this. Haven't listened to what Dave said yet.

 

It would be a MUCH different documentary without the Crockett brothers being interviewed. It was interesting how different they were: Jim put most of it past him (but it was very weird he pretended his '93-'95 run didn't exist) and felt like the definitive authority, David was still bitter (similar to how he was in WWE's WCW doc) but provided good insight as well, and Jackie was not only not bitter, but had the most well rounded viewpoint since he's clearly the biggest wrestling fan and stuck with WCW through the end.

 

The post-production is far inferior to say, Barbed Wire City, even though so much of BWC was shot old older equipment. I absolutely hated the artificial blur/faux soft focus that was on all of the talking heads (except Valiant for some reason), the blown up low res photos, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...