Heroes of World Class Championship Wrestling


Director: Brian Harrison
Distributor: Big Vision Entertainment
Released: 12/06

Featured Talent
Chris Adams, Skandor Akbar, Baby Doll (Nikla Roberts), Mickey Grant, Gary Hart, Marc Lowrance, David Manning, Johnny Mantell, Bill Mercer, Kevin Von Erich

The Good
This is regarded by many the definitive pro-wrestling documentary. While others have some great qualities, this one was a revelation. It told the story of World Class in a way that was open, honest and highly detailed. Brian Harrison dug deeply here and found some great stories to include in the larger story of World Class. This company grew quickly and it was not because of any one reason, but a combination of factors that are accurately tackled here. The booking was great, the talent was young and capable and often overlooked is the genius of Mickey Grant. WCCW went from a standard rasslin' show to something cool with the look and sound that Grant directed. This documentary also goes into a lot of depth with the various characters and angles that made the Sportatorium rock-n-roll in the early 1980s. Gary Hart is the star of the interviewees, but Kevin Von Erich's honesty cannot be overlooked. To top it off, they venture through the Sportatorium before it was destroyed. This is just tremendous documentary-making.

The Bad
The people featured in this documentary are fine, but it makes you wonder who could have been interviewed that was not? Obviously, there are many who are long dead, some who are recluses and others under contract to the WWE. While that may hurt the credibility of this documentary for some and they point to the WWE's World Class piece as being superior in that area, the quality of this should hush those judgements. The WWE had seventeen people, four are in both, but only really eight in the WWE's were World Class wrestlers that were good inclusions. Heroes does not have the video quality or editing of the WWE deal, which makes this look run-of-the-mill.

The Extras
This has some great stuff from deleted scenes to a number of interviews, including one with Jim Cornette. It can be difficult to include a few gems when your product is so good and while they could not do matches, they could do this and it is a nice addition.
The Rating: *****