WWE: True Giants Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		3.5

WWE: True Giants Blu-ray Movie Review

Modern Day Goliaths.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 10, 2014

These are the top colossal beings in wrestling history.

Wrestlers are big. Most of them, anyway. And "big," in this case, doesn't mean "famous." If that were the case, Rey Mysterio would certainly be on the list. No, "big," in this instance, means "large," and in the professional wrestling landscape, "large" means both huge in stature and larger than life. Many wrestlers fit the category by mere mortal standards. The Rock is big. Hulk Hogan is big. John Cena is big. They're ripped and wide, human specimens and freaks of nature who defy common stature and use their size to their advantage in life and particularly in the square circle. But there are other wrestlers who are just massive sons-of-guns, the sort of folks who could stand tall next to Gheorghe Muresan or tip the scales at weights that would put William Howard Taft's bulk to shame. These are the true giants of professional wrestling, the men who are literally bigger than life, who tower over their opponents, whose sheer mass can dwarf even the most muscularly defined athlete. While many of them don't possess the grace and finesse of their smaller competitors and brothers-in-sports entertainment, their raw physical presence makes them both unstoppable forces and immovable objects in the ring. Take that, physics.

Big man.

True Giants is best thought of as a collection of 15 mini documentaries rolled into one larger themed collective. Rather than each of these titans featured in their own release (a shame André the Giant and a few others apparently weren't deemed large enough to carry their own Blu-ray doc), they're all jammed into a single release that runs a little under two hours, which translates to precious few minutes to relive the lives and careers of some of professional wrestling's most mammoth monsters. The film is of a basic construct, featuring either the wrestler himself or, in some cases, a surrogate spokesman recalling not simply their height or girth but who they were as men and what they accomplished during their wrestling careers. Most of the highlighted individuals (those must be some jumbo highlighters) hail from bygone eras, with only three, Mark Henry, Big Show, and Kevin Nash (who appeared in 2014's Royal Rumble) still active in the sport (The Great Khali's contract was not renewed as of writing). In many ways, then, the piece shows that, for now, the era of the big man seems to have at least taken a hiatus. The 1970s and 1980s were filled with incredible talent on the biggest scale, but not so much nowadays. That's no knock on Henry and Big Show, who are certainly huge (no pun intended this time) stars in their own rights and amazing talents (Henry being one of this reviewer's personal favorites), but more an observation that, for whatever reason -- a lack of talent amongst the true bigs or the company's unwillingness to run with them -- there's not an abundance of size in the current WWE landscape. Nevertheless, this is a solid, but far too quickly moving, retrospective that will probably be most appreciated by longtime fans who will enjoy what amounts to a dozen or so brief trips down memory lane with a couple of highlights focusing on today's largest talents.

The following giant wrestlers are profiled in this piece:

• Big Show
• Gorilla Monsoon
• One Man Gang
• Haystacks Calhoun
• Giant Gonzales
• Big John Studd
• Kevin Nash
• Ernie Ladd
• Mark Henry
• King Kong Bundy
• Sycho Kid
• Vader
• Yokozuna
• The Great Khali
• André the Giant

WWE: True Giants Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

True Giants arrives on Blu-ray with its main program presented at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Both new high definition interviews and older SD career highlights fill the HD frame, so purists may be a little upset (full-length matches do retain original ratios, however). That said, the older SD footage holds up about as well as can be expected, particularly considering the older material from the 70s and 80s where definition severely lacks, colors bleed into one another, and a myriad of technical bugaboos haunt the proceedings. Yet it's very watchable in its context. The HD footage is generally crisp and well defined, with little odds and ends such as hay and wood backgrounds delivering nicely detailed elements beyond the usual, and again here, complex facial features and clothing lines. Some of the new HD footage does suffer from some light banding, noise, and blockiness at times, and some of the clips -- Big Show interviews, for example -- are appreciably softer than the norm. Overall, however, this is a solid image that features little more than static interviews in HD and a whole lot of older SD footage upconverted and reformatted at 1.78:1, meaning there's simply not much here on which to judge the image.

WWE: True Giants Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

True Giants features a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack of which not much is required. Music is sufficiently clear and nicely spaced along the front three speakers while also producing a healthy and balanced surround support element. Yet it's a little underpowered, not quite as aggressive as a film about larger-than-life individuals should probably be. Even the dramatized footfall sound effects that open the film are a little underwhelming in terms of raw, rattling power, which simply doesn't help the illusion. Yet dialogue is the main ingredient here, and whether older interviews or newly recorded sound bytes, the spoken word comes through clearly and effortlessly from the center. This track offers little beyond the nuts-and-bolts, but that's all the material really needs. A little tightening up and it would have been just fine. As it is, it's a passable listen with a little room for improvement around the edges.

WWE: True Giants Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

True Giants contains all of its matches under the "special features" tab, leaving the main program as a standalone piece. Some of the extra matches and profiles on disc two are labeled as "Blu-ray Exclusives." Below is a breakdown of what's included with each disc.

Disc One:

• WWE Championship Match: Bruno Sammartino vs. Ernie Ladd. Madison Square Garden -- March 1976.
• WWE Championship Match: "Superstar" Billy Graham vs. Gorilla Monsoon. Madison Square Garden -- May 1977.
• Giants Match: Haystacks Calhoun vs. Nikolai Volkoff. Philadelphia, PA -- March 1978.
• American Heavyweight Championship Match: Ernie Ladd vs. Kerry Von Erich. WCCW Star Wars -- June 1981.
• Giants Match: André the Giant, Dusty Rhodes & Junkyard Dog vs. Ernie Ladd & Wild Samoans.
• Giants Match: King Kong Bundy vs. Dusty Rhodes. Mid-South Wrestling -- September 1983.
• WWE Championship Match: Big John Studd vs. Hulk Hogan. Madison Square Garden -- September 1984.
• Steel Cage Match: Kamala vs. André the Giant. Maple Leaf Wrestling -- October 1984.
• Giants Match: One Man Gang vs. Shawn Michaels. WCCW -- January 1985.
• Giants Match: King Kong Bundy & Big John Studd vs. British Bulldogs. All American Wrestling -- May 1986.
• UWF World Heavyweight Championship Match: One Man Gang vs. Ted DiBiase. Power Pro Wrestling -- November 1986.
• WWE Championship Match: André the Giant vs. "Macho Man" Randy Savage. Madison Square Garden -- September 1988.

Disc Two:

• Battle of the Giants: El Gigante vs. One Man Gang. Great American Bash -- July 14, 1991.
• Giants Match: Sid Justice & Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan & Rowdy Roddy Piper. West Palm Beach, FL -- February 18, 1992.
• Giants Match: Yokozuna vs. Earthquake. San Jose, CA -- January 25, 1993.
• WWE Championship Match: Yokozuna vs. Hulk Hogan. King of the Ring -- June 13, 1993.
• Rest in Peace Match: Giant Gonzales vs. Undertaker. SummerSlam -- August 30, 1993.
• WWE Intercontinental Championship Match: Razor Ramon vs. Diesel. Superstars -- April 30, 1994.
• 2-on-1 Handicap Match: Vader vs. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson. Clash of the Champions -- August 1, 1995.
• Giants Match: Diesel vs. Isaac Yankem, D.D.S. Superstars -- January 20, 1996.
• WWE Championship Match: Sycho Sid vs. Bret "Hit Man" Hart. RAW -- February 17, 1997.
• WWE Hardcore Championship Match: Big Show vs. Rhyno. RAW -- May 21, 2001.
• WWE United States Championship Match: Big Show vs. Eddie Guerrero. No Mercy -- October 19, 2003.
• #1 Contender Match for the World Heavyweight Championship: Mark Henry vs. Rey Mysterio. SmackDown -- January 20, 2006.
• No DQ #1 Contender Match for the WWE Championship: The Great Khali vs. Shawn Michaels. RAW -- May 7, 2007.
• Monster Mash Battle Royal: Mark Henry vs. Big Daddy vs. Kane vs. The Great Khali. ECW -- October 30, 2007.
• Body Slam Challenge: Mark Henry vs. Big Show. RAW -- September 7, 2009.

Disc Two Blu-ray Exclusive Superstar Profiles and Non-Match Extras:

• Earthquake
• Abdullah the Butcher
• Kamala
• Bam Bam Bigelow
• Giant Paintings by Rob Schamberger: The artist discusses and shares his wrestling-themed artwork.

Disc Two Blu-ray Exclusive Matches:

• AWA World Heavyweight Championship Match: Rick Martel vs. Kamala. ESPN Championship Wrestling -- October 1985.
• Giants Match: Abdullah the Butcher vs. Skip Young. WCCW -- June 1986.
• Giants Match: Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Big Boss Man. Royal Rumble -- January 1993.
• WWE Championship Match: Earthquake vs. Hulk Hogan. Madison Square Garden -- November 1990.
• WWE Tag Team Championship Match: Natural Disasters vs. Money Inc. Worcester, MA -- July 1992.

WWE: True Giants Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

True Giants is one of those cases where most of the program works in what boils down to a collection of profile snapshots. Frankly, not many of these guys could carry their own feature-length documentary, but fans will likely be clamoring for a more complete Blu-ray retrospective of some of the biggest names on the list, notably André the Giant and Kevin Nash, and possibly other big names of the "household" variety like Big John Studd, Yokozuna, and Big Show. Still, and for as compact and quickly moving as it may be, True Giants does a pretty fair job of highlighting sports entertainment's largest individuals whose big footprints left an indelible mark on the sport and whose shoes are certainly too big to ever fill again. This release is better suited for hardcore wrestling fans with at least passing familiarity with names like "Haystacks Calhoun" and "Gorilla Monsoon," though certainly casuals hoping to brush up on wrestling's past or simply enjoy a collection of big man matches will want to check it out as well. Indeed, most will likely buy for the fairly extensive collection of matches that include these men as well as a broader collection of talent siding with them or against them, making this a solid buy and a fun daylong watch from both ends of the spectrum. WWE Home Video's Blu-ray release of True Giants features fair video and audio. Supplements include all of those great matches and a few additional wrestler highlights. Recommended.