WWE tries to market their DVD releases to the broadest market as possible, but every once in awhile they take a risk. Once a year or so they release something geared towards the old crowd like the Mid-South and WCCW sets, they will toss a bone to the internet fans ocassionally, and sometimes they jsut throw stuff against the wall to see if it sticks. With the WWE Network on the horizon WWE needs more fresh content and what better way then to release a few single disc DVDs and see what sells. I think all of these ideas could show up on the WWE network and honestly this survey might have been geared towards that, but disguised as a DVD survey. Let’s take a look at these rumored releases, which would be single disc with a suggested price of $9.99.
WWE is considering a few different collections based around their B-shows.
Best of Shotgun Saturday Night
Best of Velocity
Best of Superstars 2009-2011
Best of Saturday Morning Slam
Saturday Morning Slam only ran one season and was part of a saturday morning cartoon line up geared towards kids. Velocity was Smackdown’s bshow during the brand split and had quite a few really good matches if you prefer work rate over storyline, William Regal was often a personal highlight of this show. Unfortunately Superstars speciifies just the new version of the show not the classic Saturday morning program alot of us grew up with. This show mainly featured lower mid-carders or wrestlers with no current storyline or coming back from injury. Shotgun had a lot of big names on it at first and was an attempt to be edgy at the dawn of attitude area and mostl likely a response to ECW. There were some pretty solid matches on Shotgun featuring HHH, Golddust, Terry Funk and many others. I don’t think I’d buy any of these on DVD but if episodes or best of shows were on WWE network I’d check them out. I think the biggest thing missing here is Sunday Night Heat. Heat started as a featured show with big matches before becoming a B show and eventually a highlight show, but even as a b-show it had a lot of great matches from the cruiserweights and undercard. Similiar to best of TV Shows they are considering best of TV specials as well.
Best of the Slammys
Best of Tribute to the Troops
Thanksgiving Moments
Best Christmas moments
Again most of these fall under the I would watch them again but not buy them again catagory. The Slammys were never a big deal to me and the matches soemtimes feel like filler to the awards which are mostly hokey. The tribute to the troops usually has some good matches and some have been on DVD before. I could see the Tribute to the Troops collection doing well especially if they donate a portion of the proceeds to charity. I included the best of holidays here to, while some of the segments are kind of funny I don’t see a lot of replay value. Again I would just leave these as something to put up on the Network during the appropriate holiday.
Top 25 entrances
I think this has been melded with the upcoming Behind the Music release. I don’t know if I’d buy a DVD of just 25 entrances, again I might watch a special on the Network. On the other hand if this was a 3 disc set that included the matches with the entrances I’d consider it.
Santino Comedy Hour
I like a comedy segment here and there, but don’t want it to overshadow the wrestling or the rest of the show. If this is just Santino comedy bits it would be amusing, but I’d prefer him hosting a variety of comedy segments from the past. Again at the sound of being repetitive this would probably be better as a series once every few months on the WWE Network
Brothers of Destruction: Kane and Undertaker are two huge fan favorites and I think this would be a concept that would be a waste on a single disc budget release. Their matches as a team and as opponents could easily fill 3 discs and It would definitely be a buy for me. These two have ove a decade of awesome and highly convulated storyline. Even if this was just a single disc of tag matches I’m sure this would be a best seller. Speaking of top sellers, let’s talk about the ladies
Top Divas
Best of Bra and Panties
Two possible releases focus on femal wrestlers, one I expect to see the other I don’t. In a PG era of WWE I don’t expect them to put a best of Bra and Panties matches DVD set out. Although I could see a top Divas DVD selling well. You do have younger female fans who might get this as a christmas or birthday present, but really the same people who would buy the Bra and Panties DVD will buy the Diva DVD for almost the same reason. The only difference is the Bra and Panties DVD would get a spike in sales from non-wrestling fans as well. I think WWE is testing the market with adding the Bra and Panties dvd to the survey again for the WWE Network. The Network will include a parental lock for anything rated MA which means we might see specials liek this included. Though I think down the road WWE might offer an ala cart option. Specials only available to WWE Network subscribers but still cost a small fee.
The above are just rumors, but since I wrote my last article another DVD release has been confirmed, the yet untitled Paul Heyman DVD has been announced unofficially. While WWE hasn’t officially announced the release Jim Ross mentioned last week on his blog that he had done some interviews for the upcoming release, then two days later Paul Heyman announced on various social media that the project is in the works for an August release. No word on what exactly will be included yet.
With all these rumored possabilites for DVD releases there is still even more, and I my next article will look at the remaining rumors.
