What shoot interviews are worth getting?

[Guest Zoltan]

I have a few but I'd like more but since there are a lot which should I get?

[Guest teke184]

The absolute best I've seen are (in no order):

 

Jim Cornette 8-hour shoot (BEST SHOOT EVER)

Vader 8-hour shoot

Honkytonk Man

Arn Anderson

Ricky Steamboat

Barry Windham

Bret Hart shoots 1+2 (warning- VQ of #1 sucks due to equipment difficulties)

Bill Watts

Smokey Mountain Wrestling Fan-week shoots (There are at least 2-3 of these.  I've got the ones from '94 and '95, I think)

Al Snow (Listen to his stories about his treatment in the WWF and tell me he doesn't deserve an 18-month title reign of some kind as compensation.)

 

Most of the others are either okay, with very few falling into the "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?" category.  (The only two shoots I've had in the WTFWT? category are Abdullah The Butcher's first shoot, taped at Abdullah's House Of Ribs, and the Jesse Ventura shoot from a WCW convention in about 1992-1993.)

 

As a separate category are comedy shoots, with Steve Corino's 1st shoot being #1, and Missy Hyatt's shoot with Highspots Video(?) being #2 (Hers was unintentionally funny, IMHO)

[Guest J*ingus]

The ones I'd recommend:

 

Arn Anderson

Ted Dibiase

Terry Funk

New Jack #1

Taz

Bill Watts

 

 

And you MUST get the Jim Cornette 2000 interview.  Agreed, BEST SHOOT EVER.

[Guest Sykotic2002]

To add to the list of shoots already posted:

 

Greg Valentine

Don Muraco

Tully Blanchard

Terry Taylor

Tod Gordon

Dutch Mantell

Konnan(surprisingly good)

Lance Storm

Terry Funk

 

Now the ones to stay away from:

Jimmy Snuka and the late Terry Gordy.  Everytime there were asked a question, the answer either was good or great all the way through.  Shawn Michaels is just full of shit about everything in his shoot.  Abdullah is just marking out for himself basically.  Other one full of BS that may be worth watching once is Dusty Rhodes if you will babee.  Did you know that Dusty created Starrcade because the country was in need to go forward?  You know what, I reconmend this shoot to everybody.  Everyone should get a chance to liten to a bunch of BS.

[Guest teke184]

In all fairness to Gordy, he was one of the Living Dead at that point.  A shitload of drugs and two near-death experiences will do that to you.

[Guest muzanisa]

Road Warriors Just for Hawk ragging on Vince rest is pretty weak.

Ricky Steamboat He's too nice to everyone though.

Cornette's is the one you must own.

[Guest Zack Malibu]

The Shawn Michaels one, IMO, was entertaining just because of all the crap he spewed.  But, the saving grace was the inclusion of AWA footage at the end of the tape.

 

Bret #1 was pretty good, and I plan on getting part 2 in the near future.

 

The Shane Douglas shoot, while it had it's audio problems, was pretty entertaining to me, and not just because I'm a fan of the guy.  It runs 8 hours (2 tapes) and is conducted with Shane and Francine in a pool.

 

Next ones on my list to get are Steamboat, Christopher Daniels and probably Arn Anderson.

 

Not only RF has shoot interviews, as I've seen both Highspots and Wrestlingsuperstore.com carrying shoots with Larry Zybysko, Ricky Morton, Norman Smiley, Daffney, and others.  Both of these sites are heavily reliable to order from.

[Guest J*ingus]

You could hear your copy of the Douglas shoot?  Mine was so garbled that I couldn't make out a single word that either of them said, even with the volume turned all the way up.  ("Hey guys, why don't we shoot you in the pool?  No, we don't have a microphone.  Accoustics, what're those?"  Smooth move, Feinstein.)  

 

Also, they're not exactly shoot interviews, but for serious fans of the art of wrestling, the Ricky Steamboat training tapes 1 & 2 are fascinating, as Steamboat holds a 10-hour lecture/seminar on how to wrestle.  You even get to see him come off the top turnbuckle with that chop one last time...  (sigh)

[Guest Anorak]

Anyone care to give a brief rundown of the Al Snow shoot? Was the bad treatment teke mentioned just all those crappy gimmicks he went through and how they misused him or something else?

[Guest teke184]

Basically, Al was jobbed out for 3 years straight, and they even flew him into the UK to job to Tiger Ali Singh while he was main-eventing in ECW as a part of a talent exchance, IIRC.

 

Things went from bad to worse when WWF management hated that match and Tiger Jeet Singh (Tiger Ali Singh's dad) tried to shift all the blame onto Al.

 

Things were so bad for Al that, after he refused to job to someone the night after that UK PPV (Mayhem in Manchester or One Night Only, I'm not sure which), the WWF couldn't do anything to him because:

 

1.  He was already being jobbed out

2. They were starving him anyway (not booking him often)

3. He'd asked for a release and had not received one, so they wouldn't fire him

4. They couldn't reduce his pay because he was already making the minimum amount allowed.

 

What's funny about the last story is that he wasn't even supposed to be in the UK after the PPV, as he'd specifically asked JR for a ticket back to the US right after the show, had been promised one, but never received it.  But since he was just sitting around that Monday night, one of the bookers said "We need to job a guy to Brakkus.  Hmmm... Al's here, so lets just use him."

 

That's one of the bigger stories on the tape, although WCW's ineptness when attempting to sign him as well as his initial attempt at getting trained by the Anderson Brothers (Ole and probably Gene, not Arn) were also pretty bad.

[Guest RetroRob215]

The Jim Cornette Shoot was easily the best ever.  As someone else said, almost all of the SMW fanweek stuff is great too.  I own the heel's BBQ from 94, which I enjoy alot.  The best part is seeing Bill Apter put the Figure-4 on Kane.

[Guest teke184]

My favorite Smokey Mountain BBQ was the one where Jimmy Del Ray set the fan's head on fire, as that one had a TON of stories by Cornette.  The best one had to be about staying in a real POS called the Airliner Hotel in Chicago back when Crockett still owned Mid-Atlantic.

[Guest The Son of Sting]

The Barry Windham shoot is really enjoyable and the Jerry Lawler one is quite good, the one im watching at the moment is Terry Funk.

[Guest teke184]

Lawler's is great in that it covers how he started and all of that, but it is WAY too old-school for me as they barely touch on anything past Andy Kaufman, IIRC.

[Guest RetroRob215]

Come to think of it, the BBQ I was talking about was from 95.