Tremendous Tirades: WWE’s Brothers of Destruction – Greatest Matches DVD Review

In the spirit of full disclosure, the following DVD set was provided to 411 by WWE for review purposes.

The DVD set is scheduled for an October 7th, 2014 release.

Runtime is approximately 180 minutes.

Product Description: “Brothers of Destruction chronicles the long history of the partnership of Undertaker and his half-brother, Kane. Following Kane’s introduction to WWE in the late 90’s, he and Undertaker engaged in bitter battles, before finally uniting as a team known as the Brothers of Destruction. Their on-again, off-again partnership captured the imagination of the WWE universe throughout the next decade, with memorable battles both individually and as a team, against some of the greatest Superstars in WWE history. This single-disc DVD contains 7 matches featuring the best action from Kane and Undertaker as a tag team spanning from their formation as a team in 2001 through some of their most recent matches in 2008.”

THE DVD

The Brothers of Destruction: We get a short video open, maybe a minute long, and then we head right into the matches.

No Disqualification WWE Tag Team Championship Match: The Undertaker & Kane vs. Edge & Christian w/Rhino (SmackDown • April 19, 2001) : Obviously Edge and Christian were hot at the time, as this was well after the tag team ladder match with the Hardyz that put them all on the map. This is also “American Badass” Undertaker. Rhino, Edge & Christian attack pre-match, to work over Kane’s injured left arm (thanks to Austin and Triple H). Commentary focused on Kane’s arm being inured very badly, Edge and Christian worked the arm for five minutes, Kane was so hurt that he could only use one arm to summon his pre-match fire, and then minutes later picked up Christian, only using his injured left arm and powerbombed him. RING PSYCHOLOGY! Edge and Christian were fun during this time obviously, but when you look back you can really see how much better they got. Good hot tag by Undertaker, lots of interference by Rhino and then Austin and Triple H as they beat down Kane. This led to nothing because Undertaker made his own comeback and pinned Christian to get the titles at about 7-minutes. Edge and Christian were secondary citizens here; this was all about the Brothers vs. the Powertrip, which they do not get into more on the disc. Great selection process WWE. RATING: [**¾]

Tables Match: The Undertaker & Kane vs. The Dudley Boyz (RAW • July 30, 2001) : This was one of those matches that was not good AND had frustrating booking aspects. So let us move on from the not a good match thing and look at the booking. The Dudleyz looked like shit here, and so did DDP. DDP you ask? Yes this was during the Invasion angle, which featured DDP stalking Undertaker’s wife, Sara (she was 24-25 at the time, good on you brother). We’re having this not good at all match, DDP sneaks down to stalk/kidnap or whatever Sara, gets completely cut off by Kane, and then Taker chokeslams Bully Bubba through the table for the win. Everyone looks bad but the Brothers and Sara. That was frustrating after a fun opening match. RATING: [*]

WCW Tag Team Championship Match: The Undertaker & Kane vs. Chuck Palumbo & Sean O’Haire (SmackDown • August 9, 2001) : Chuck Palumbo & Sean O’Haire had wanted competition, and the Brothers (and Sara) answered the challenge. This was a set up to the Brothers facing DDP and Kanyon (who were the WWE Tag Team Champions) at Summerslam in a cage match. Palumbo & O’Haire were young guys with good looks from WCW, but when they got to the WWE they got the stigma that “they couldn’t work” and got downgraded quickly. Like 10-days before Summerslam dropping the tag titles so Kane and Taker can have an ego boost before they destroy DDP and Kanyon quickly. Palumbo & O’Haire worked hard, barely got any heat, and got finished off with stereo chokeslams in about 6-minutes. RATING: [**]

Steel Cage Match to Unify the WWE and WCW Tag Team Championship: The Undertaker & Kane vs. Diamond Dallas Page & Kanyon (SummerSlam • August 19, 2001) : The best way to describe this match is “extended squash” with a few cool spots thrown in. This whole thing was basically a joke, and part of why I hated the Invasion. You bury DDP and Kanyon to no end with this, and instead of trying to work on and build a real feud and money making unification match we got this. WWE having to show its superiority and “win” when they have already won when they bought out their opponents. This was slow, I never bought DDP and Kanyon as threats (which was confirmed when I watched this again) as the Brothers allowed Kanyon to escape and then beat on DDP and even did the “cover the jobber and pull him up before three” deal with him. The Brothers become unified champions after a frustrating and lethargic 11 or so minutes. RATING: [*½]

Five years later is another short video which has some text, noting that the brothers went their separate ways for five years, and then reunited. Seriously, can we not get a few talking heads for this?

The Undertaker & Kane vs. MVP & Mr. Kennedy (SmackDown • December 15, 2006) : This match was under seven minutes long, and was during the time where MVP and Kennedy were trying to prove themselves as top stars. They went after Kane and Undertaker to accomplish this. This was a bad plan because WWE never showed a ton of faith in them, usually giving the duo those “wink and nod” wins over the Brothers during the time period. They worked for 10-minutes or so, it was generally ok but not that exciting. They ended up brawling to the floor, where Kennedy tried to commit vehicular homicide on Kane with a hearse. Unfortunately for him the lights went out, came back on and Undertaker was in the hearse with him. MVP & Mr. Kennedy ran away. MVP & Mr. Kennedy were working hard, but the overall pacing was slow and this was the basic Taker and Kane walking through their formula match with some smoke and mirrors. It was a match, not a good match, but a match. RATING: [**]

The Undertaker & Kane vs. Mark Henry and Big Daddy V (SmackDown • February 1, 2008) : This was the big main event for Smackdown on this evening. The match went almost 11-minutes, and felt like 20. I really cannot think of anything nice to say about this match, it was a big guy match, worked at half speed, it was repetitive and it simply felt so long. I remember this match and thought it wasn’t very good at the time, I went to watch again, and I was right. Take the pacing of the last match, add in two less motivated and slower opponents and well, this is what you got. RATING: [*]

Non-Title Match: The Undertaker & Kane vs. The Miz & John Morrison (ECW • April 15, 2008) : Miz and Morrison were the WWE tag team champions at the time, Kane was the ECW Champion and Undertaker was the World Champion. This match was actually a lot of fun, nothing spectacular, but it was a fun match. Taker and Kane seemed more motivated, and Miz and Morrison actually looked good most of the time. We get stereo chokeslams, and then a tombstone on Morrison for the finish at about 12-minutes. One day the tag team champions will be important enough in WWE to win a match like this, but it was not on this day. This ended up being the best match on the DVD. RATING: [***]

The 411: Bottom line, this is NOT a good DVD. While the title calls it the “Greatest Matches” of the Brothers, simply put, there are no great matches, and most of the stuff is just the Brothers running wild and doing their thing. But the thing is that the brothers never had a laundry list of great tag matches, it was more about their story. They did have some fun stuff, but they did not cover any of the stuff with Austin and Triple H, which may have helped the quality of the disc. Unfortunately this DVD is as barebones as it comes. All matches, not very good ones, and no documentary. Not only is there no documentary, there is no real set up for the matches. It’s just, “here’s a match with Kane and Undertaker kicking ass” and they leave it at that. With so many people under contract and so much footage shot for the Network, I find it hard to believe that they couldn’t add in a little something to spice this disc up. There may be a big set coming down the line, highlighting the fun and very wacky relationship between the bothers and going into great detail, but this felt like a DVD release for the sake of releasing a DVD. Unless you’re a diehard Brothers of Destruction fan, I would avoid this DVD because overall this is a poor presentation. But even if you ARE a diehard Brothers of Destruction fan, save the money and subscribe to the Network, you’re better off because you can pick and choose what you want to watch and at a cheaper price than this DVD will run you..

Final Score:  3.5   [ Bad ]