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DVD Review : Fight Hard : The Allison Danger Story

Earlier this year Strong Style Productions sat down with Allison Danger to film two DVD projects, the first of which was the 4 hour “Quick Shooting with Allison Danger” shoot interview released back in April. Now work has been completed on their second project, “Fight Hard : The Allison Danger Story” which is a documentary on the life and career of Allison Danger.

With a main feature runtime of 2 hours and 15 minutes, Fight Hard is able to offer up something completely different from the previously released shoot interview as the shoot focused more on her thoughts and opinions on the world of professional wrestling, picking apart the WWE, TNA and Shimmer rosters. In this feature you learn what it was like growing up as the little sister of Steve Corino, how her entry to the world of professional wrestling came about, how much involvement her brother had in her training and of course her eventual international career is covered in depth. At times there is spots were there is an assumption that you know what was going on with the storylines she is speaking of, but luckily that gets corrected as the documentary goes along. Overall there is very little downtime and makes for a fairly interesting watch. Chapter listings are as follows : 1) Growing up Corino, 2) Entering the business, 3) Ring Of Honour, 4) Hitting her stride, 5) Branching Out, 6) The girls step up, 7) USO Tour, 8) Debut of Shimmer, 9) Wrestling Takes it toll, 10) 100% Strong Style!, 11) A farewell to ROH, 12) Crowning a Shimmer Champion, and finally 13) What does the future hold?

Strong Style Productions does a decent job in dealing with the limitations an independent company faces when creating a documentary in this day and age. Video and Photo footage of Danger in action in Shimmer, ROH, Chikara and Chickfight finds itself sprinkled throughout the feature which to say the least is a nice addition and has become a must for a documentary nowadays, However being unable to spend a ton of cash to travel,interview, and film those she has worked and been influenced by, written quotes were instead obtained for the DVD from the likes of Francine, her brother Steve, Rebecca Knock and many others. Despite all this the video and audio quality deserves top marks. The documentary also features music from California band “theSTART” as well as irish band “Eden” and some of the musical choices are great and placed well, however sometimes the producers try a little too hard to use the music, as 10 second bits that end abruptly are more annoying than helpful.

The second disc offers up an hour of deleted scenes from the documentary which could of easily been included in the main feature and not brought it down a bit. Stories including her time hanging out in the ECW locker room, as well as hilarious stories of teasing the guys in ROH about how she got to make out with Mickie James, how Matt Hardy’s dad made her cry and why she is deathly afraid of Curry Man! Also included is 2 matchups, first up is Danger against Daizee Haze from Chikara in March 2005, Then we have 6 way women’s action from February 06 in Chikara as Haze, Sumie Sakai and Mickie Knuckles team up to take up Danger, Rain and Ranmaru.

I was generally impressed with the overall quality of this DVD. Its rare to find a documentary of high quality that tells a interesting story and actually enables you to learn about someone who has done so much for the business, specifically for women’s wrestling which right now is more popular then ever, so if your looking for something different in your wrestling library give Fight Hard a look when it comes out next week.

Fight Hard : The Allison Danger Story will be available from Strong Style Productions on October 14th, For more information or to order your own copy check out www.strongstyleproductions.com, And to read my previous DVD reviews check out www.maineventradio.com/reviews.htm

Reviewed by Steven Wilson from Main Event Radio on October 8, 2008

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Fight Hard The Allison Danger Story

Just released by Strong Style Productions this documentary about Allison Danger is absolutely top notch material. There's over three hours of material here as Allison talks about her career in great depth. It's not really a shoot interview though, this is a step above that. There's a soundtrack, quotes about her from fellow wrestlers and match highlights.

Allison certainly has a lot to talk about that's for sure. From growing up in the Corino family when despite Steve's ambitions she wasn't totally determined to follow the same direction to her time in ROH and helping to create SHIMMER there's plenty to discuss.

We find out about her time with the Christopher Street Connection, the decision to finally admit in the ring that Steve was her brother, how a visit to Hiroshima affected her so much personally, the many injuries she's suffered and her work with SHIMMER that means so much to her. Also find out why Allison won't phone Matt Hardy's father and the wedding dress she definitely didn't wear when getting married to Ares.

This is a two-disc set with more from the interview on disc two as well as two matches, a tag bout and a singles encounter against Daizee Haze.

Reviewed by Steve Ashfield from Fightiing Femlaes online magazine at Piledriver-Online on October 18, 2008

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Allison Danger is proud to call herself Steve Corino’s little sister, but she was determined to make it in the world of professional wrestling without big brother’s influence. Now over eight years later, Allison Danger is an island onto her own, having carved out her own legacy as a respected pro-wrestler all over the globe. Anyone who has followed her career, knows Allison paid her dues as she climbed up the ranks to become one of the most tenacious trailblazers for women’s wrestling in North America.

Earlier this year, I reviewed a DVD from Strong Style Productions called Quick Shootin’ with Allison Danger - a two disc sit-down interview with the feisty SHIMMER ambassador. That DVD was an in depth look into the dangerous mind of Cathy Corino, exploring her intimate thoughts related to all aspects of the wrestling world. Click the link to explore that particular DVD.

Now as the year 2008 comes to a close, Strong Style Productions has made good on its promise to release a sequel to the highly praised “Quick Shootin’” DVD. This edition, appropriately titled “FIGHT HARD: The Allison Danger Story” managed to dig even deeper into the life and times of Cathy Corino, smudging the line between real life and the fantasy world of wrestling where she is best known for her Allison Danger character.

The disc #1 interview follows a chronological format, hitting the most important events of Allison’s life, starting at the beginning with a chapter called “Growing Up Corino.” From there Danger discusses in detail how she got into the wrestling business, a journey that got her into the original ECW locker room. Danger also talked about her debut in Ring of Honor, getting driven through a table by Da Hit Squad, her character development, the women’s wrestling revolution, plus some exclusive insight into her roll in Dave Prazak’s SHIMMER Women Athletes promotion. Danger lays it all on the table, chronicling her numerous injuries, modifying her ring style, and the shadows of doubt that clouded her point of view as her passion for wrestling started to wane. Danger talked a lot about her time in SHIMMER, including the pride of crowning the first SHIMMER champion - her best friend Sara Del Rey. Danger also talked about what the future holds, expressing her desire to start a family - a dream which would come true before the end of 2008 after she married European wrestler Ares and became pregnant with her first child!

Disc #2 continued the interrogation, hitting a series of about twenty random topics including the ECW locker room, kissing Mickie James, C.M. Punk getting Punk’d, meeting the Great Muta, some Matt Hardy stories, Jamie Noble as ROH champion, her fear of Curry Man, more SHIMMER analysis, Daizee Haze’s toughness, feedback from Jim Cornette, and tons more perspective on various engaging topics. Finally disc two is frosted with a couple of bonus matches courtesy of Chikara Pro, presumably hand-picked by Allison Danger. First up, they show a match with Daizee Haze which took place in March of 2005. Then they showed a six woman tag team match featuring Danger, Rain, and Ranmaru against Daizee, Mickie Knuckles, and Sumie Sakai from February of 2006. Both matches are very fun to watch, especially if you’ve never seen Chikara wrestling footage.

With over three hours of material, this 2-disc DVD set will entertain you from start to finish. If you missed the first DVD, Quick Shootin’ with Allison Danger, then pick up that one too and you’ll be treated to six and half hours of entertainment! Check out these selections exclusively at www.strongstyleproductions.com

Reviewed by Brad Dykens from Online World Of Wrestling in October, 2008

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FIGHT HARD! - THE ALLISON DANGER STORY
Here comes the girls... well, girl (singular)

Although shoot Interviews are more common these days than the cast of Shameless, decent examples featuring the female athletes of the grappling world aren’t. There’s probably a reason for that though. Ring Of Honor has featured some ladies as a part of its Straight Shooting series without a great deal of success, while most of the other pretenders end up serving up scraps that are akin to the tales of ECW’ skankiest road-rats.

But there’s hope in the form of Fight Hard!: The Allison Danger Story. Danger, as committed to the development of ladies wrestling as much as anyone out there, is the perfect subject for an in-depth discussion. She’s traveled the globe as one of the premiere female workers in the business, learning her trade in Japan, Ireland, Germany, and France, as well as across the United States. It’s only appropriate then that Strong Style Productions has really gone that extra furlong in producing a shoot Interview set that demonstrates a high level of respect for the lady.

It’s not unkind to suggest that most shoots are of sub-standard production values. RoH’s are filmed from one single, continuous camera angle and often looks very amateurish indeed. Even Kayfabe Commentaries, which has created some wonderful releases, is sometimes lacking in presentation. But Strong Style has adopted a really neat and professional, though still ridiculously simple approach. Filmed in widescreen and alternating between a mid-shot of Allison taking us through her career and close ups in classy black-and-white, it certainly looks the part. But creator Rob O’Brien really show his stuff by seamlessly integrating clips from Chikara, RoH and Shimmer and a variety of graphics and title screens. There’s also music throughout and while the odd dance beat can get a little irritating, it’s much preferred to the sound of Raven slurping on his water for three-hundredth time. In terms of quality, this is the stuff that RoH shoots can only dream of...

Additionally, the second disc boasts a ridiculous collection of 18 (18!) outtakes from the chat and a couple of actual matches thrown in. Sadly, the one disappointment is that a Chikara Six-Woman tag is so heavily clipped, it’s impossible to gauge its quality from what's shown here. As stated, Allison’s a super choice for a feature- length piece like this. This lady is talkative, open and seemingly willing to delve into any topic. She admits to her bout with Tiana Ringer (who has now retired incidentally) from Shimmer Volume 4 ‘sucking’ and alludes to the occasion when she realised that ‘Alex Shelley wasn’t a dick’. A genuinely humorous and charismatic figure in person, that charm comes across well on disc without meaning she’s in any way bland or ever less than informative and enlightening.

Granted, there are no real revelations here, but that isn’t to say Fight Hard! is anything other than compelling. If you’re not particularly a fan of shoot interviews, this isn’t
going to sway you but otherwise, this two-disc set will make a swell addition to your collection.

Reviewed by Michael Campbell from Fighting Spirit Magazine in Issue 37, February/March, 2009