I was not the most hardcore WCW fan until the great Monday night wars started in 1995.I stumbled across a couple episodes throughout the years on television, but for the most part, all I knew WCW for was being the home for one of the greatest wrestlers of all time in the “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, and the man that had the bleach blond hair and all types of various face paint patterns, aka Sting. Then when WCW decided to start having its own Monday night telecast, Nitro to compete directly with WWE’s RAW show at the exact same timeslot, I could not help but flip to it during commercials in favor of watching the same Karate Fighters commercial for the umpteenth time. Slowly but surely over the months, I became a fan of the WCW, especially when a lot of my favorite WWE mainstays like Razor Ramon and Diesel defected over to form the phenomenon that bumped pro wrestling into the mainstream in the mid-to-late 90s, the nWo.

Now all the highs and lows of WCW are chronicled into a fantastic documentary (albeit with WWE’s version of history, needless to say they took a few liberties), titled “The Rise and Fall of WCW.” WWE has done a tremendous job putting together documentaries based on other promotions they have put out of business over the years like ECW, AWA and WCCW. For newer fans of wrestling this is a great cliff notes version of the southern promotion, though avid fans of the squared circle will be bummed that they only covered so much ground in the 100 minutes this documentary runs (compared to WWE’s ECW DVD, which was based on a company that was around for a far shorter time that lasted over three hours).

For fans like myself who were not into WCW before the 90s, there is a great summary of the roots of WCW when it was the major player of the NWA (a group of wrestling territories from around the country) and was going by names of Jim Crockett promotions and Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. It covers a lot of ground from how WCW was one of the first promotions to get featured on a coveted cable timeslot, to its tumultuous management problems throughout the 80s that led to the company getting sold to Time Warner which led to another rotating door of management problems until Eric Bishoff came in and getting the promotion on the right track.

The DVD dedicates a fair amount of material to recapping the Monday Night Wars and how ruthless Bishoff was competing with RAW by making Nitro live every week and taking advantage of that and giving away RAW’s results at the top of the show (back when RAW was mostly taped several days before hand). The whole Monday Night War portion of the documentary is the most interesting since I was the most familiar with it and it does a an outstanding job at covering what drove WCW to new highs in the 90s (namely the explosive Cruiserweight division, Goldberg and the mega-popular nWo). I would have liked more detail on the demise of WCW, especially since they paid barely any attention to a couple pivotal moments of the Monday Night Wars that helped propel the downward spiral of WCW – the mishandling of Bret Hart and complete mess of a payoff to the year and a half build up to Sting vs. Hulk Hogan at Starrcade ’97.

I can see some reasons to why Sting is not highlighted (other than briefly seeing him in montages throughout the feature), mostly because he is currently one of the main acts on WWE’s competition, TNA Wrestling. If that were the case however, than why does this DVD take the time to bury two other key TNA figures in Kevin Nash and Jeff Jarrett? Speaking of non-WWE employees, I was surprised that WWE tracked down several figures of WCW past to get comments from in the feature like former WCW executives Jim Crockett, JJ Dillon, Harvey Schiller and even the man, Bill Goldberg himself. Eric Bishoff oddly refused to be interviewed for this documentary, but WWE had enough archival footage of Eric’s past interviews from older WWE documentaries to make his comments relevant in this release.

Rounding out this package is the usual wealthy amount of bonus matches WWE includes with every DVD release. There are 20 bonus matches, most notable are the excellent Chi-Town Rumble bout between Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat, Hulk Hogan’s WCW debut against Ric Flair and Goldberg vs. DDP at Halloween Havoc ‘98. While this is not the most fully detailed history of WCW it could have been, it does cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. WWE also released a couple other DVDs that would be terrific supplemental viewing to The Rise and Fall of WCW, so if you want to know more about WCW after watching this than I highly recommend tracking down “Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen” for a detailed look at WCW in the 80s and 90s, and “The Monday Night Wars” for a extensive look at one of the most exciting times in wrestling.

Welcome to the Turbolog, an ongoing series intended to educate Robot Panic readers about the Turbografx-16 and Turbo Duo library. In each entry, I’ll be giving brief information about a game in the Turbo library as well as the game’s rarity and my personal rating, both on a scale of 1-5. We’ll be working backwards alphabetically by title. If you’d like to read all the entries in the Turbolog, simply click the “Turbolog” tag below each article.

The Turbografx had a healthy library of sports titles, most of which were non-licensed garbage. And while World Sports Competition wasn’t exactly garbage, it was basically a generic title for fans of the Olympics. The box promises that you can “create an athlete who runs, jumps, and throws” in eighteen “exciting” events, and yes, some of the events here are actually pretty fun. Developed by Hudson, WSC includes track events, swimming, rowing, and other standard Olympic events and up to five players can compete using the Turbo/Duo Tap accessory.

Beyond that, World Sports Competition is pretty standard fare for the 8/16-bit sports game era, not really excelling in any particular area. But if you’re into busting out classic consoles with your friends, this may not be a bad one to tinker with.

Rarity/Cost (1-5): *
As is the case with most classic sports game, copies of World Sports Competition are plentiful on eBay and most vintage gaming shops. If you look hard enough, you should be able to find a copy for under $10.

Rating (1-5): **
While the single-player won’t knock your socks off, a bit of fun can be had out of the multiplayer. That said, few sports games age well, and WSP is no exception, and what may have been fun back in the early 90s may not hold up so well today.

Jarrod brings us another entry in his Best EVARRR Hall of Fame!

Well, the NFL season kicked off when the Giants take on the Redskins (if only there was a way both teams could lose), and it got me thinking. I remember last year before the Giants pulled off the greatest upset in the NFL since Joe Namath’s guarantee almost forty years ago when everyone was talking smack about how the 2007 Patriots were the greatest team EVARRR assembled. Even today I hear how great that team was.

Guess what: They didn’t win shit, they think last year was a failure, and so should you. And if I had a crook of a coach who knew the plays the other team was gonna run, I’d probably be lighting up teams too. So what was the best team EVARRR? It’s not even close. Don’t talk to me about the 72 Dolphins, I don’t care. Because if that team went up against the monsters of the midway that were the 1985 Chicago Bears, they’d get a mud hole stomped into ‘em.
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Being a lifelong wrestling fan, one of the unfortunate things that come with the business is witnessing a lot of former ring veterans pass away at such a young age from drug abuse, health problems, and other sad circumstances as the Chris Benoit tragedy showcased last year. I feel a little redeemed when I see a wrestling great actually manage to live up to their life expectancy. Last week, wrestling legend and WWE Hall-of-Famer Walter “Killer” Kowalski died at the age of 81 after suffering a massive heart attack a few weeks prior.

Kowalski retired from the ring well before I became a wrestling fan; before I was even born actually. WWE does a commendable job at paying tribute to (most) of its former stars, and as I watched wrestling throughout the 90s I recall him being inducted into the 1996 (then) WWF Hall-of-Fame. When his induction was announced, I remember it being accompanied with a montage of clips from classic matches of his, along with interview snippets from his peers remembering his signature style in the ring known as “hooking,” where a wrestler would apply maximum force on his submissions until the point where it would cause serious, long lasting pain.

There are a couple other memories I have of the Killer. Speaking of the nickname, he earned it by legitimately severing the ear of one of his opponents, Yukon Eric, mid-match after a move didn’t go as planned. The fans took a hating for his lack of public remorse and they started calling him “Killer” and the name stuck. Killer had a lengthy career of nearly thirty years from his debut in the late 1940s until finally retiring in 1977. His career highlight had to be winning WWE’s tag team titles with the late Big John Studd as the masked Executioners tag team. In retirement he founded a wrestling school and was responsible as the trainer for arguably one of the most popular wrestlers of this decade, Triple H.

I remember always hearing Kowalski’s name brought up in numerous Triple H matches of being the man who trained “The Game.” I felt a little guilty he wasn’t around when I became a fan. However a couple months ago I finally was able to watch some of his matches off WWE’s superb video-on-demand service, WWE 24/7. Each week they produce a retrospective on one of many past wrestling legends and throw in a couple of his memorable matches and interviews from past friends and foes. Even though the matches that aired from his career were in black and white from the 50s and 60s and it was a completely different style as seen on television today, I made sure to get a glimpse of one of the most feared combatants to step in the squared circle.

It felt good to a get a chance to see some of his past work before he passed on, kind of like how you get to visit a family member during their final years. RIP, Killer. May you forever be ripping the ears off of your rivals.

Alright, I love football; can’t get enough of it, in fact. All year long I look forward to September as it brings the new season of NFL, which means that every Sunday I can sit on my ass with a beer and some snacks and watch amazing plays with big motherfuckers kicking the shit out of one another.

Despite my unabashed love for the sport, there are certain things I simply despise about how the NFL presents it and how that has caused seemingly normal, sane, intelligent folks to act like complete and utter idiots. The following list, in its entirety, was constructed in my mind on Saturday as I sat in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, watching the Vikings play the Steelers.

So without further ado, here are a handful of things I hate about NFL football. And keep in mind, these aren’t all limited to the NFL so feel free to apply them to your sport of choice where applicable.

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