Scott,
As a big collector of WWE DVDs in the past, I've always wondered what sets sell well and what sets don't. Is there a list/website that tracks the sales numbers?
Thanks
Yeah the WWE investor's site typically goes over home video sales and maintains a top 5 for the year, so you'll get numbers every quarter. I just remember that the SNME one disappointed, for example, which is why there hasn't been a sequel yet. Generally the Observer will lay out the numbers when they become available.
I know that Best of Raw Season 1 &2 dvd flopped, which is why there's never been further ones. I think the consensus was there was far too few Doink matches to make it worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteA shame about the SNME set as that was PERFECT in selections of matches and highlights to put on, worked great.
ReplyDeleteI think the ones with huge docs tend to do a bit better, a lot of folks (like me) enjoy those big looks at the past. Guess it also depends on name recognition, HHH or Rock will sell better than something on Mid-South.
Didn't the Goldberg set sell a bazillion copies, or at least enough for WWE to put feelers out to see if he'd come back?
ReplyDeleteI remember the original Flair, Hart, and ECW DVDs doing very well--haven't really followed news of DVD sales since that time period.
ReplyDeleteSNME was great, greatp matches , it really captured that show well. And it's first run was during my early days as a fan s I remember it fondly.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you that the Roddy Piper DVD, for some reason, was one of the worst selling in company history until at least 2009 or so.
ReplyDeletePiper's a guy best in very small doses, I think.
ReplyDeleteHe's Martin Lawrence. Not Denzel. Except in They Live. Then he's mother f'n Carl Weathers.
ReplyDeleteand he tried to kayfabe shit. It was cool to see some Piper's Pits but the doc was rough.
ReplyDeleteThat explains it sitting in Wal-Mart $5 bins for roughly 8 years. I bought a used copy for a buck.
ReplyDeleteECW DVDs have to do well because WWE keeps putting them out
ReplyDeleteThat's nice.
ReplyDeleteMr. Perfect DVD also bombed.
ReplyDeleteBest thing on that PPV by miles.
ReplyDeleteIt *was* a pretty poor PPV, to be fair, but that match is objectively great on its own merits.
That might've helped them keep solid PPV numbers for a bit actually lol.
ReplyDeleteAngle? Earth shattering pop?
ReplyDeleteThe Guerrero and Mysterio sets contained their matches from the When Worlds Collide PPV, but WWE has that full show in their archives due to WCW's involvement (they were responsible for airing the show in the United States and WCW announcers Mike Tenay and Chris Cruise hosted it). The whole event was aired on Classics On Demand as well.
ReplyDeleteBesides that, there were no AAA matches on either set.
Hah. That set. It's actually rather interesting as a "snapshot" of the business at the time, but WOW did they overuse Doink. And there was like 900 Jobber matches for some reason. Who the fuck puts JOBBER MATCHES on a DVD set?
ReplyDeletewell much like the Piper doc (kayfabing killed it), the Hennig doc sucked too. Great matches, but the doc was just awful. The short version: Hennig was great at everything, everybody loved him, and he never, ever did any drugs except for one single time and overdosed. We still love him. The end. Boring AND full of crap.
ReplyDeletethe match selection was weak, too. WWE's doc's have been hit or total miss. Even Bobby Heenan's DVD doc' sucked, cramming an entire career into 75 minutes of weak narration.
ReplyDeleteoh yeah, forgot about the Heenan one. I don't actually own it but I watched it on Netflix years ago and was disappointed in how short it was. Didn't get to see the matches and promos though. Kinda figured I had seen them all other than the stray AWA one they might have had.
ReplyDeleteI'm convinced that the monkeys who compile for most of the sets just draw random matches out of a hat
ReplyDeleteYeah, if Shane didn't look like such a perfect cross between Vince and Linda, I'd be convinced that he was adopted.
ReplyDeleteSomething like that, yes.
ReplyDeleteI got that one, the Clash set, the Rock set, the Falls Count Everywhere, and Greatest Cage Matches out of the $5 bin at Walmart about a week before the Network debuted. There were a bunch others that I already had. No idea if there was a connection, just that when the Network came along Walmart seemed to clearance out their entire wrestling stock.
ReplyDeleteThe SNME set is what kickstarted me buying wrestling DVDs.
ReplyDeleteHeenan's documentary was more or less produced out of respect than as a cash cow. It was barely promoted.
ReplyDeleteIt was barely informative or interesting, too.
ReplyDeleteThe best matches selected were put on the set. Those *were* the best matches of Raw from 1993 and 1994. They just happened to have a lot of Doink. Stuff like Luger vs PJ Walker etc (there were very few jobber matches, actually, not 900) were to show off the hot Manhattan crowd (cheering for heel Narcissist Luger) and Luger's Raw debut.
ReplyDelete"The Best of Monday Nitro Vol. 2" and the "War Games" set also both sold well.
ReplyDeletefunny:
"It should be noted that the Goldberg DVD had only been out for less than
two months, with 74,000 sold in the first month. It greatly outsold the
Triple H video released two weeks prior, Triple H - Thy Kingdom Come, which was not ranked as a top-seller."
http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2013/1226/568661/wcw-nostalgia-driving-wwe-dvd-sales-in-2013-three-releases-trail/
they do:
ReplyDeleteECW, WCW (and WCW-related stars), WrestleMania, The Undertaker, The Rock, Cena, CM Punk: afaik that's pretty much the list of the top sellers of the last few years.
maybe Scott is confusing the SNME dvd with some other release? because all the numbers one can find via google are pretty decent (or maybe the WWE was disappointed because they used to ship more units and it the sales were rapidly declining at that point):
ReplyDelete"The top three selling WWE DVDs based on number of units shipped for this year is WrestleMania 25 (213,000), The Best of Saturday Night's Main Event (128,000) and The Greatest Stars of the 90s (111,000)."
http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2009/1011/451680/
btw: are there really that many people that care mostly about the documentary? because to me that's just the icing on the cake. I care a lot more about which matches and promos are on it.
ReplyDeleteThe Ricky Steamboat 3 disc set was pretty good. The Steamboat/Flair match on it from the very early 80s was really good. Slow by today's standards, but very good. The Steamboat/Jake Roberts match and the WM III match also help justify a purchase.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned already, the AWA and World Class docs are good stuff too.
I thought Joey Styles had a big hand in the WWE docs and match selections.
ReplyDeleteThe Punk DVD sold huge, didn't it? 137,000 as of May 2013.
ReplyDeleteI'm more about the Documentary than the matches and promos. I can find matches and promos elsewhere, but I like the original documentaries because they provide new insight.
ReplyDeleteTest vs Shane, by a mile.
ReplyDelete"Triple H: Thy Kingdom Come has sold 64,000 copies"
ReplyDeleteI'm sure at least 63,999 were bought by HHH himself.
Want more DVD sales? Bring back "Wrestling's Biggest, Smallest, Strangest, Strongest".
ReplyDeleteThey're just leaving money on the table..
I'm still holding out hope that Shane will follow in his father's footsteps by buying out his father's shares, changing the name back to the WWF, and force the old guard out.
ReplyDeleteAngle one by far.
ReplyDeleteI think Steph is a better character. Shane seems like more of a wrestling fan though.
ReplyDeleteSo he really is Vince's son!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think alot of online fans over-estimate Angle's popularity with casual fans. And I only enjoyed his work in WWE as a comedic heel.
ReplyDeleteThe huge writing teams filled with clueless Hollywood writers were all Steph's idea.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree with the statement that you can't find every match and promo elsewhere, at least not in that quality - up until the Network launch, there even was huge number of ppv matches that weren't available in great quality.
ReplyDelete(the usual sites for this stuff have a lot of vhs transfers, but many of them were already the who-knows-what generation copy)
Yeah, but he gave them away as Christmas gifts. So he was being generous.
ReplyDeleteIn unrelated news, "Triple H: World's Worst Gift-Giver?" is currently the #1 topic on Twitter.
Yeah, can't imagine him garnering a major reaction at all. Maybe I'm very wrong - this is a crowd that popped mega for Sting, after all.
ReplyDeleteShane... Shane... Come Back!!
ReplyDeleteWWE Airlines?
ReplyDeleteThat's Tina Fey, genius
ReplyDeleteMordecai was a Shane idea. That is all.
ReplyDeleteHa ha haha ha
ReplyDeleteVery well played!
ReplyDeleteAfter watching that Austin interview, I'd totally buy a Vince McMahon documentary DVD. It would be hilarious watching him try to defend some of the godawful bookings he's done:
ReplyDelete"We had high hopes for the Red Rooster to become WWF champion, but Terry Taylor just didn't know how to play a chicken man."
"The Ringmaster! Master of the ring! Get it? Haw-haw! How is that NOT a good gimmick?"
"Mae Young giving birth to a hand is one of the funniest things we've ever done, better than the time I pushed Gerry Brisco into my swimming pool!"
There was a Macmahon doc.
ReplyDeleteMore than a little biased
http://www.wwe.com/wweshop/dvd/mcmahon
It's where we learned he wanted to do an incest story with Stephanie
Probably stuck in Hunter's craw a bit
ReplyDelete