High Hopes For The Hart Trilogy, Update On "Rise and Fall of WCW" DVD, Mysterio

source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

— Internally, some people noted the surprising amount of heat David Hart Smith and Tyson Kidd garnered last week on ECW for beating down Finlay. It’s been said that there was even more heat in the arena than it came off on television. This is being seen as a big positive for Smith, whom everyone in management likes but was regarded as not being able to project his personality particularly well.

Many have high hopes for them as a unit. It helps that Natalya is a “real worker,” as she can have good timing on interference and bump taking. They also have a good heel dynamic in Kidd, the smaller guy, talking trash to the bigger wrestlers, and having Smith in the background as his backup.

— Regarding the development of the upcoming “Rise and Fall of WCW” DVD, the word going around is that the people involved in putting it together were completely clueless to the actual history of the company.

The knowledge of the history of World Championship Wrestling among certain people in World Wrestling Entertainment was described as simply searching the Internet and reading basic historical material in what many described as “laughable” facts. Plus, so many grew up with the inherent bias from working on the WWE side.

Since then, things have apparently changed and it appears the final product will be much better as they ended up interviewing a number of people who worked for the company and were set straight on a variety of topics.

As noted earlier, company officials recently reached out to Eric Bischoff, Ted Turner and former WCW Executive Bill Shaw to take part in interviews. All three turned them down, with Bischoff noting the following on his Twitter account: “Chose not to participate in WWE’s latest revisionist history initiative for many reasons including the obvious one.”

The three-disc DVD set is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, August 25.

— Rey Mysterio will be appearing at a benefit Lucha libre show on Friday, June 19 in Tijuana, Mexico to help pay for his uncle’s back surgery. WWE officials aren’t allowing him to wrestle on the show, but he will be signing autographs.

See *RARE* photo of The Hart Foundation in WCW (>>)