WWW Champion v Champion - DVD Review

Following my recent review of New England Championship Wrestling’s Gateway to Greatness DVD, we’re now going to check out the debut DVD release of their sister company, World Women’s Wrestling, Champion v Champion, which features a match to crown the first WWW Champion between Nikki Roxx and Ariel, and a four woman tournament to determine the number one contender. Our hosts for the evening are Sheldon Goldberg and Matt Storm.

The show begins with the aforementioned tournament, a semi-final match pitting Jana against Amber. It’s a well executed opener, with Amber looking the most impressive of the two, and Jana, apparently in the midst of a heel turn, using all the usual tricks in the book to get the win. Her tactics worked. After Amber almost got the pin (Jana’s foot was on the ropes), Jana came back strongly and took Amber down with her version of the face buster. Not a bad little opener here, although it could have been better.

The second semi-final follows straight afterwards, with Della Morte taking on Violet Flame. Della is somewhat of a larger girl, definitely not in the Diva mould, While Violet kind of looks like your girl next door, and had great entrance music in the form of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”. The match starts out quite well, with Della using her superior power and some good wrestling skills. However, I have to admit I really wasn’t impressed with some of Violet’s offensive moves, but then again maybe I’ve been spoiled by too many Awesome King v Gail Kim matches. But anyway, Della continued to dominate with her strength advantage, but after she missed with a senton from the top rope, Violet got the pin after a double arm DDT. Not as good as the opener, but with Violet through to the tournament final, hopefully her performance will be better there.

Then it’s on to six person mixed tag-team action, with Mia Love and The Canadian Superstars, J Busta and Dave Cole, who are accompanied by their manager Brian Cairo, against Natalia and 2D Edge, Pat Masters and Jose Perez. Now this was more like it. Fast-paced action between two teams that had great chemistry with each other, and the exchanges between Natalia and Mia were the best of this DVD so far, and the spot with the five-way Russian leg sweep had to be seen to be believed. So after the obligatory mass brawl, it was Natalia who got the pin for her time, taking Mia out with an over the leg neck breaker. The best match of the DVD so far, by far.

Back to women’s action, with Tanya Lee, with her manager Sean Gorman and NECW Champion D.C. Dillinger, facing Lexxus. With Gorman and Dillinger helping out their woman at the beginning of the match. Lexxus went backstage to get backup of her own, in the form of “The Human Nightmare” Evan Six. This one made the two previous singles matches look poor by comparison. It was a hard-hitting contest between two women you just knew would go all out to get the win, not holding anything back. We also got the big guys brawling in and around the ring, before Lexxus got the win with a school girl roll-up. A very good match here, with a great storyline throughout.

Next, the tournament final, with Jana versus Violet Flame, and the winner earning the number one contender’s spot. This was definitely better than the first two tournament matches, with the moves of both girls looking more crisp and well executed, especially Violet’s use of a few MMA-like holds. The end of the match was somewhat controversial. After Jana took off her studded belt, intending to use it as a weapon, the referee took the offending item off her. But while his back was turned, Jana pulled out a chain, wrapped it around her fist, clobbered Violet, and then got the winning pin as the referee returned his attention back to the match, and becoming the number one contender in the process. A really enjoyable encounter this, with a controversial ending which, although it’s been done numerous times before over the years, made sense in the grand scheme of things.

Main event time, a match to crown the first ever WWW Champion, with NECW Women’s Champion Nikki Roxx facing PWF Mayhem Women’s Champion Ariel, with Natalia, the only woman to have held both the NECW and PWF Women’s titles at the same time. There’s quite a few stipulations for this one - no holds barred, no disqualification, no count out and no time limit. It’s a brawl all the way here that sees these two girls go all round the building, hitting each other with chairs and rubbish bins, and Ariel mimicking the great Abdullah the Butcher at one point, grabbing a fork and plunging it into Nikki’s head. Oh, and there were some good wrestling moves as well, including a few high-flying moves in a match fought with such intensity it made you really think that these two really hated each other with a passion. We even got a table used in this one, which Nikki used to good effect, putting Ariel through it with her Barbie Crusher finisher. A three count later, and Nikki was the first WWW Champion. This was a tremendous match, and one of the most intense hardcore-style matches I’ve ever seen. In fact, and I know that this may annoy a certain person who lives about twenty-odd miles from me, but I think I’ve just found a new favourite women’s hardcore match.

DVD extras come in the form of pre and post match interviews from some of the wrestlers.

In conclusion - although I was a little disappointed with the two opening matches, this DVD got better the longer it went on, culminating in the tremendous main event between Nikki Roxx and Ariel. If this is what World Women’s Wrestling is all about, then I might become a fan if I see a few more shows.

I do, however, have to small complaints about the production quality. On a few of the matches the soundtrack of the commentary of messrs Goldberg and Storm ran one or two seconds faster than the pictures, which meant that you knew what moves were being used before they were actually executed. As for the camera work, while the hard cam footage was great, the work of the ringside cameraman left a lot to be desired. He was very, very shaky, and he often completely missed some of the moves being executed, making it quite hard to follow the action at times.

So while WWW Champion v Champion doesn’t come highly recommended, it does get the recommended tag, especially if you’re bored with seeing the WWE Diva brand of wrestling, you can put up with some dodgy production values, and you want to see real women’s wrestling.

With thanks to Sheldon Goldberg for supplying a copy of this DVD release. For more information of World Women’s Wrestling and it’s sister company New England Championship Wrestling, log on to www.NECWwrestling.com.