The wizard of id reviews: RF VIDEO’S “BAD NEWS ALLEN, SHOOT INTERVIEW”
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Id’s review, version one…The Reader’s Digest Condensed Version:
Awesome! Buy the fucking thing! You won’t be sorry. One of the BEST shoots of all time! Buy it at:
http://www.rfvideo.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2594
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Id’s review, version two…The LONG version.
The Bad News Allen Shoot Interview is the first ‘DVD’ I’ve ordered from RF Video. It’s been awhile since I bought anything from there. I used to get tapes, LOTS of tapes. Sometimes (rarely) the quality wasn’t that great and those stupid white boxes they came in almost always drove me nuts….but that’s only part of why my purchases dwindled and finally ceased all together. My interest in purchasing my usual quota of wrestling related products (from RF Video and elsewhere) started to wane round about the time that DVDs became the new popular format and WRESTLING started to suck. The thought of shelling out $25 US funds (which is like, $125 Canadian) for a second rate show that had ONE match supposedly “worth the price of the DVD alone!” or another 10 match “Best of So & So when he was a nobody” compilation was akin to knowing Triple H was “next up on RAW!” In other words: nothing to get excited about.
And shoot interviews? Christ! They’re everywhere! This concept has spread through tape and DVD providers faster than syphilis through an beverage promotional team at Spring Break. Unfortunately, it’s a concept that’s not always done well. Even RF Video, the undisputed leader and modern innovator of the genre, have released their share of stinkers. Which is why I hardly ever buy shoot interviews anymore.
The last one I purchased was: “Straight Shootin’ With The One Man Gang.” in a clearance sale from an HONORable company….Just as a side note: If you’ve never bought a shoot interview before, do not…I repeat, DO NOT start with that one! Watching it was like crawling for days across a scorching, arid desert, dying of thirst and finally falling face first into a warm stagnating puddle of camel piss. After an experience like that, I thought I’d never buy another shoot interview again.
Then I saw RF Video’s ad for THIS one: BAD NEWS ALLEN….and I didn’t hesitate for a second. I had to see it….And so do you!
Seriously,….BUY THIS FUCKING DVD!
I’ll get into the review in a bit but I’m blowing the finish now. If you’re a fan of New Japan, WWE(F), Stampede, Benoit, The Harts, Hogan, Andre,…hell, if you’re a fan of wrestling at all, you’ve gotta see this interview! Yea, I sat front row ringside during his wars with Dynamite & the Harts in Stampede. Yea, he had me BELIEVIN’ he was gonna rip my head off at an indy show in Vancouver and yea, I’m a mark for Bad News. You will be too after watching this shoot.
Anyway, I get the DVD a couple days after RF Video emails me that it’s on the way and both discs and their white case are in fine shape. (Always a relief considering the Canadian Postal Service squashes packages easier than Vader squashes bar stools.) I insert disc 1 and up pops an RF Video graphic and…What the fuck is that?…..Heavy Breathing????? This better not be….Oh, there we go. A head shot of Bad News fills the screen and Holy shit! He looks old. Not ancient, but definitely older. (Always a shock with these “old-timer” shoots.)
Unseen interviewers quickly introduce Bad News (but not themselves) and begin with the usual “were you a fan” type stuff. Almost immediately the standard shoot interview problem of hands-in-front-of-face occurs. It almost always happens that the person being interviewed waves their hands around or block part of their face and Bad News is no exception. It’s not a big issue and soon goes unnoticed. More lingering (and disturbing) are my wife’s repeated comments about how BIG his hands are.
Not a lot of childhood background here, although there is an interesting story about when he was 10 and his dad banned him from watching wrestling after he caught Allen body-slamming his sister. (He was Bad News right from the start!) Lots of stuff on his judo training and competitions. It’s apparent that Allen is a humble man as the interviewers have to practically pull info about his judo accomplishments from him. (A gold medallist at the Pan-Am games, bronze at the Montreal Olympics.) It was the suggestion of his coach at the cessation of his judo career that prompted him to enter pro-wrestling
WWF fans of the 80’s who just want to know if Bad News fucked Miss Elizabeth may find the early stages of the interview boring but Allen, through talking about his judo and how that led to his early training at Inoki’s dojo in Japan, paints a very vivid picture of how he developed the skills and mental discipline to excel in the ring and radiate a legitimate ‘don’t fuck with me’ persona. (Not too many people took liberties with Bad News in the ring and the ones that tried “were sorry that they did.”)
News starts dropping bombs almost immediately when discussing New Japan, laying out the political structure and dynamics between Inoki, Sakaguchi, and other New Japan officials, as well as discussing many of the top stars. There’s tons of good stuff here and fans of New Japan will eat it up. When asked to talk about some other “foreign” stars that worked in Japan, Bad News casually mentions that it was he who first suggested and then arranged, for a young Chris Benoit to appear in New Japan!
He did it because he saw the passion and raw talent Benoit had in Stampede and he “didn’t like the way the Harts were abusing him” so Allen spoke to Inoki and brought Benoit over. And THAT, my friends, is how Bad News Allen forever changed the face of modern wrestling! Think how different ECW, WCW & the WWE would have been had Benoit not followed the path he did. At this point, I’m reeling…and wondering why the interviewers aren’t all over this like a dog on a dead fish! (My wife’s still marveling over the size of Allen’s hands - I don’t think she noticed what he even said.)
Bad News has great material on Maeda, Inoki, Tiger Jeet Singh, Abby and a host of American stars who toured New Japan while he was there. Scattered throughout the interview his memories of working Japan are priceless! He gives the goods straight up concerning his altercation with Andre The Giant on a bus that had Hulk Hogan ducking for cover. Allen gives a detailed account of the incident (including a funny Hogan impression) and then the following days events between him and Andre. To his credit, News doesn’t make a big deal out of Andre punking out.
His tale of a night out on the town with Tom Pritchard and the Wild Samoans that culminated in Bad News corralling a drunken, naked Pritchard while local cops tried arresting the rampaging Samoans is priceless! So too, is his accounting of the incident where a drunken Bob Orton Jr kicked the local Yakuza Warlord in the nuts and New Japan officials had to sneak him out of the country for his own safety. Riveting also are Allen’s personal theories on the New Japan money scandal and what he thinks REALLY happened to the missing 10 million.
Allen discusses his first run in the WWF under Vince Sr. It was an arranged deal between New Japan and Vince Sr to give him more experience and seasoning. He is very generous in his assessment of Vince Sr, both as a businessman and as a person. He describes him as someone who “kept his word” and whose handshake meant something. When talking about shaking Vince JUNIOR’S hand, Bad News says: “Count your fingers!” Allen says a lot of good things about Chief Jay Strongbow and Peter Maivia.
It’s when Bad News relates his time in Calgary, working in Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling that the interview goes over the top. His respect for Dynamite Kid is evident, as is his belief that Dynamite was “nuts.” Great details here about the issues between him and Bret Hart and Allen opens up with stories about them inventing the Ladder Match, the issues that arose between them over ring psychology, (specifically, no-selling and storyline believability. ) He details an incident that saw Bret smack him in the head with a kendo stick after News had specifically said not to because of not one, but TWO concussions Hart had already given him. Allen’s graphic description of swinging the kendo stick “like a baseball bat” full force into Bret’s face and choking him silly are as real as it gets! Anyone who’s ever heard Bret say how proud he is about never injuring anyone during his career NEEDS to see this DVD! (So BUY the fucking thing!)
Allen’s two tours with Stampede brought him very close to the Hart family. A family he describes by saying: “look up the definition of the word dysfunctional in the dictionary and there’s a picture of the Harts.” How close was he? Bad News discusses how he and his wife considered adopting one of Stu’s grandchildren. And the shocking reason why they didn’t. He has nothing good to say about Smith Hart and rips into Bruce. He recalls telling Brian Pillman to stay away from Bruce or ruin his career and recounts a private Hart house front porch conversation between him and Stu where the patriarch of the Hart clan admitted to Allen that he wished someone would put his son Bruce in the opening match and “kick the crap out of him every night!” News says Bruce ruined the territory. He also says that EVERYTHING Dynamite said in his book is true. Even Bret and cocaine?… “It’s all true.”
Bad News seems genuinely proud that he is the only wrestler in Alberta ever legitimately suspended by the local athletic commission over an angle! Not once, but twice. He talks about working a feud with Dynamite and his thoughts on Dynamite asking News to run him over with his car. He also tells all about the infamous angle between him and Archie “The Stomper” Gouldie that caused Stampede announcer Ed Whalen to mark out completely and quit the company in protest!
His story of how he finally made it to the WWE after initially turning them down is another “must hear” and contains a great Vince impression. News lays out the false promises and shady business that Vince is now famous for and describes how he dealt with the racism, both subtle and overt he experienced from MacMahon and others. He gives a first hand account of he and Haku breaking up the fight between Dynamite and the Rougeaus. He confirms “knuckledusters” were used and that notorious ribbers, The Bulldogs, were innocent in the incident that set the French Canadians off. He also says why he thinks Pat Patterson was in on it. Incredible shit here and some of Bad News’ famous intensity shows through the retelling of this story.
Allen supplies lots of opinions on the 80’s WWF and gives all the details on what happened when he found Miss Elizabeth alone in a room backstage and how a Madison Square Garden main event match between him and Randy Savage turned into a shoot before the bell even rang…and Vince’s reaction after the match. He describes a young Owen Hart, wrestling as the Blue Blazer, as a “punk” and details an incident in Edmonton where he beat the shit out of Owen. The intensity level rises a notch when News talks about Piper and the half-black angle and admits he always thought “one of the brothers” would take care of Piper. Bad News describes how that led into his program with Jake the Snake, who he describes as awesome to work with. It’s great stuff,….and it doesn’t stop coming.
Have I mentioned yet that you should BUY THE FUCKING DVD? Now, you might be thinking I’m a little over the top myself about this shoot….there must be something wrong with it! Well, in the interest of fairness…yes. There ARE a couple of hard edits and at one point on disc 2 it looks like the audio track is just slightly out of sync. (But that might have been the hash.) In any case, it detracts not at all from the interview.
Allen gives his thoughts on just about everyone from the 80’s WWF, but it’s his statements about the Ultimate Warrior that get me reeling again. (My wife still seems enraptured by his hands and beyond hearing ANYTHING at this point!) I’ve heard (and read about) what a lot of people have said about Ultimate Warrior but I have NEVER heard him talked about the way Bad News does. I was shocked to hear News reveal how he influenced contract negotiations for Warrior’s biggest match. (Wrestlemania, against Hogan.)
Allen talks about his time working California for Mike LeBell and some of the people he had programs with there including the Guerrero’s. He describes an 8 year old Eddie as a “good kid” but thought little of Eddie’s brothers. (His thoughts on Eddie are a little more poignant in light of recent events.) You have to hear News describe how he earned his smallest ever payday ($5) working the Guerrero’s for LeBell. It’s funny stuff, but also illustrative of how some promoters will “work” the workers.
Bad News talks in detail about wrestling in Florida. His memories of Bruiser Brody are heartfelt and his description of Brody shooting on an arrogant young Lex Luger in a cage match - complete with News mimicking a panicked Luger, screaming to be let out of the cage, is hilarious!
The interviewers throw names at Bad News throughout the interview and he has an opinion or story about almost everyone. He talks in detail about his relationship with Benoit and returns to Bret Hart more than once. (He gives his thoughts on the Montreal Screw Job as well.) Funny stuff about Dick Murdock and more than one shot at Dusty Rhodes are recurring highlights. Allen reveals all about why he never went to WCW…and who was responsible!
Throughout the shoot Bad News takes listeners back and forth to Japan and from territory to territory alternately praising or slamming just about every major star of the 80’s. For Allen, people fall into three categories: good guys, nuts, and assholes! He names Dynamite Kid, Jake Roberts and Ricky Steamboat as his three favorite people to work with, and why.
Allen doesn’t shy away from, or avoid, ANY question or topic. Nothing is taboo and he holds nothing back. He even relates the story of Andre taking a shit on him during a match in Mexico city! He also details a shocking (but funny) in-ring incident, where he proved conclusively, without a shadow of doubt, to the Mexican fans, that Bad News Allen is NOT afraid of snakes!
There are somber moments of reflection during the shoot that reveal a deeper, more personal side of Bad News…The death of Brody, the arduous travel and horrific car accidents that claim so many wrestlers, racism, Stu Hart’s granddaughter, the drugs and other pitfalls wrestlers face. He credits his early Judo training for the strength of mind and body that kept him from falling in the same traps as so many of his peers.
Bad News ends by saying he misses “nothing” about wrestling, it was a way to make a living and support his family with the skills he had. I think maybe he might miss, just slightly, the camaraderie of being on the road with the boys. Although he’s clear that he wasn’t big on ribs and didn’t give or take them, there was ONE time where he, at the urging of Kerry Brown, participated in a three-day rib of epic proportions on Jason The Terrible (then a fresh faced rookie) The obvious joy Allen felt relating this story near the end of the interview reveals that the deep affection he felt for the business and the ‘good guys’ he knew, remains strong today. He is not impressed with modern wrestling.
I’ve just scratched the surface in this review. There’s so much more! Bad News Allen is as captivating here as he was in the ring. I couldn’t help but be impressed by this shoot. You will be too. BUY THE FUCKING DVD! Seriously, BUY IT. You can get it at:
http://www.rfvideo.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2594
Trust me on this one.
Sincerely,
The wizard of id
I love the DOI.
Fuck You, if you don’t.
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