RE-POST: The Sour Touch from the Sweet Saraya - DVD Review

It’s been almost five months since I reviewed a shoot interview, so what better place to return to this particular genre than my old stomping ground, the World Association of Wrestling, as the English Rose herself talks to the cameras in “Sour Touch From The Sweet Saraya”.

With WAW webmaster Scott Fusion acting as director and interviewer, Saraya begins by talking about how she got into the business, how a chance meeting with “Rowdy” Ricky Knight led the two of them to become partners in life and in the wrestling business. She talks openly about how hard it was to break into the business, and how some of her contemporaries of the time showed very little respect for her.

We then skip forward a number of years to the wrestling world of today, and Saraya is very forthcoming about her views on the current state of the business. She doesn’t hold back one bit as she heavily criticises some of today’s workers who take jobs abroad for peanuts, and how badly some promoters treat their imports, not even laying on the most basic of essentials. It’s when she talks about this and some of the events she has experienced herself that she comes across as a woman who is extremely passionate about her chosen profession, and it’s this that makes for compelling viewing.

So while, overall, I enjoyed watching this interview, I couldn’t help but still feel disappointed with the whole thing. As with the Ricky Knight and Zebra Kid shoot interviews, discussions about large chunks of Saraya’s career are missing. It would have been good to hear about how she felt when she won her first title, how she felt when she won the world title, and how other certain aspects of her life and career have affected her. But sadly, there’s none of that here, and that’s what makes this, and the other releases in the WAW Shoot Interview series disappointing, because, essentially, they’re not really what I’d define as a “shoot interview”. Scott Fusion does a good job as the interviewer, but I can’t help but feel that someone with more journalistic experience and good research material in his hands would be able to get more out of these interviews.

I must also make mention of the packaging. Frankly, it looks very poor, and as someone who has worked in the customer service field for nearly a decade, I speak from experience when I say that presentation is everything, and if I saw the cover of this DVD for the first time, I’d tend to think that it could be as poor on the inside as it is on the outside.

In conclusion – if you’re looking for a shoot interview where the Sweet Saraya talks about the events in her life that made her the woman she is today, then you might be disappointed with this release. But if you’re looking for a general type of interview, aren’t put off by a few swear words, and you’re a fan of WAW, and Saraya in particular, then you’ll enjoy this one.