For those who may be unaware, Wrestlemania is THE event for professional wrestling. Much like the World Series to baseball or the Super Bowl to the NFL, each year every fan waits with anticipation for Vince McMahons big one. With the WWE continually improving their DVD product, this years event gets the presentation it deserves with the usual array of picture problems that bog down all of their discs.
This years event was a mixed bag of good and bad, though certainly not the "greatest ever" as their marketing department would lead you to believe. Brock Lesnar vs. Bill Goldberg will undoubtedly end up being one of the worst matches in the history of the event. Still, the crowd was on fire for the majority of the event and the final triple threat match was an outstanding piece of athletism all around. A dozen matches span 2 discs with a running time of over 4 hours and a 3rd disc packs in some great features.
Video quality, simply put, is dissapointing. The compression problems are far too noticeable and distracting to be ignored. Every one of the WWE pay-per-view event DVD's suffer from this issue and it really needs to be taken care of soon. It is better than some of their earlier discs, but there is no excuse for so many little flickering blocks making their way into the picture. The colors are bright and it does look better than the original broadcast, but the issues are impossible to ignore.
The sound gets a full blown true 5.1 presentation this year unlike the faux 5.1 used in previous years. Pre-match graphics swirl all around the sound field in spectacular fashion. The immersion of thousands of fans packed into Madison Square Garden has never been better either. All of the commentary is front loaded (of course), but there are some great echo effects from the ring and stadium speakers. Kudos to the WWE for a great live event presentation.
Extras begin on disc 2 and continue on the way to a packed disc 3. Things start with 2 WWE Confidential featurettes (which sadly has been cancelled as of this week) looking at the Rock & Sock Connection and the Press Confrence for the event. There are a bunch of pre and post match comments from various superstars and a "Byte This" segment with Eddie Gurrero. There are various TV promos that bombarded viewers during the weeks leading up to the event and an extra match featuring the Dudley Boyz taking on Lance Storm with Val Venis from Sunday Night Heat.
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