20 Greatest Wrestling Documentaries Ever
4. The Rise & Fall Of ECW (2004)
If Forever Hardcore was a more unauthorised take on the history of Extreme Championship Wrestling, The Rise & Fall Of ECW is one crammed full of that immediately familiar and slick WWE style. That particular production team hit a home run with this one, it's an incredibly flattering look at what made the original ECW so great.
This is the documentary that sold so well on DVD that WWE were forced to think about producing a (initially one-off) tribute show to ECW - entitled One Night Stand - the following year. That's the highest compliment that can be paid to Rise & Fall; it stirred emotion like few other wrestling films about a promotion outside the WWE bubble.
Take WWE's other similar release, The Rise & Fall Of WCW for example. That one was loathe to credit the competition for anything, and that would end up harming the quality. The ECW doc doesn't suffer from that problem, admiration is the over-riding feeling on offer.
ECW was a real jolt for the North American industry in the mid-1990's, and that's something Rise & Fall expertly conveys.