Death Valley Driver Video Review

The Death Valley Driver Video Review (DVDVR) is an online fanzine dedicated to criticizing, analyzing, and reviewing professional wrestling. Characterized by its use of parody and satirical humor, DVDVR has been credited for popularizing certain expressions and slang in internet culture such as the "tilde-bang" (~!) and coining the term "metric assload".
History
The Death Valley Driver Video Review was started in 1995 by Richmond, Virginia-based pro wrestling fan Dean Rasmussen. It began with Rasmussen posting his wrestling review/newsletter to rec.sport.pro-wrestling. He covered a wide spectrum of professional wrestling styles, ranging from basic United States-style to Japanese puroresu organizations to lucha libre. Rasmussen wrote the first 60 issues and eventually compiled a massive video library numbering an estimated 1,500 tapes. He also published weekly "Nitro Workrate" reports, the title and format a deconstruction of the term "workrate" used by internet it has been recognized by independent promotion the Carolina Wrestling Federation.
Recent years
Rasmussen and DVDVR have had a strong presence in the internet wrestling community over the last decade. They have been acknowledged by several wrestling writers such as Scott Keith and Bryan Alvarez and IGN.com. In 2002, a columnist on 411Mania.com named Rasmussen one of the top 100 influential internet wrestling personalities since 1997. In August 2006, and again in March 2007, he appeared on the internet radio show Joe Versus The World to discuss DVDVR as well as his opinions on wrestling in general. He also appeared with fellow DVDVR writers Phil Schneider and Rob Naylor on the debut episode of the Good Will Wrestling radio show for an in-depth discussion on the downfall of World Championship Wrestling.
DVDVR Foghat vs. DVDVR Hollendaise
In March 1999 on rec.sport.pro-wrestling, Phil Schneider and Rasmussen had a war of words with each other. This led Schneider, Phil Rippa, and Mike Naimark to form the splinter group DVDVR FOGHAT, and Rasmussen to form DVDVR Hollendaise with Ray Duffy and Pete Stein. Sniping continued on both rec.sport.pro-wrestling and on the DVDVR board. Finally it was agreed that both factions would share time on DVDVR by writing alternating issues, starting with FOGHAT's DVDVR #90, which featured a column where Schneider heavily criticized Rasmussen. All parties resolved the conflict just in time for DVDVR #100.
Writing style and content
Initially, Rasmussen's style was just thoughts on the week's episode of WCW Nitro and other matches he had recently watched, but soon it became match-by-match reviews of entire cards. Rasmussen and company use a variety of methods to get their points and feelings across in their reviews, including enthusiasm, satirical stories, parody, sarcasm, hyperbole, and analysis of everything from the actual in-ring product to a wrestler's fashion and haircuts. Rasmussen gives crazy, complex, long-running, often humorous summaries in the header for each issue. Another feature of the web site is the DVDVR Road Reports. The DVDVR Playaz attend various indy wrestling shows on the East coast Mid-Atlantic area where they meet and commentate on the quality of the show.
In addition to wrestling, DVDVR also hosts interviews with stand up comedians conducted by staff writer Ryan Muldoon including The Onion editor-in-chief Rob Siegal, Matt Walsh and Amy Poehler, Janeane Garofalo, David Cross, Mitch Hedberg, Steven Wright, Tenacious D, Frank DeCaro, Lewis Black, Patton Oswalt, Greg Behrendt, Todd Barry, Doug Benson, Dave Chappelle and Marc Maron.
Writers and contributors
*Dean Rasmussen (Founder)
*Phil Schneider (First appeared in DVDVR #61)
*'Pogo' Pete Stein (First appeared in DVDVR #75)
*'Reverend' Ray Duffy (First appeared in DVDVR #66)
*Tom Karro-Gassner (First appeared in DVDVR #129)

*Marcel Hillie (First appeared in DVDVR #129)
*Phil Rippa (First Appeared in DVDVR #76, Last Appeared in DVDVR #146)
*Raven Mack (First appeared in DVDVR #144)
*Ryan (Mul)Doomstone (First Appearance in DVDVR #148)
*Rob Naylor (First appeared in DVDVR #155)

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