It's said in the Batman movies, Batman Begins and Dark Knight, that the criminal mind isn't complicated. The accusation could be made of wrestlers - their mind isn't complicated. Guys who take Sports Entertainment, telling a story and the general lot of them being meatheaded thugs. Then there's Jake the Snake Roberts. And make no mistake people; nobody can ever accuse this man of being anything BUT complicated.

And utterly and completely compelling.

Seriously. Jake exists to be compelling. He opens his mouth, starts to speak, and he holds you. He slithers into the ring, and he captures you. You may or may not find his story tragic, and you may or may not hate the man outside the squared circle, but generally when he even tries just a tiny tad, he steals the show away and truly walks away with your emotions.

But this isn't a review of Jake Roberts the Wrestler, right? Wrong. This disk is mainly Jakes' own - exceptionally biased, and sadly some years later slightly tarnished - biography. The disk tells the story about how Jake got into wrestling, had feuds with Rick Rude, Honky Tonk Man, Jerry Lawler - feuds that established Jake as an amazing workhorse for the federation, during a time others were coasting. The documentary is fascinating. Jake, as ever, is fascinating. I mentioned what I did above to highlight once again that the man is as hypnotic as his namesake. The problem is, hypnosis is only as deep as you let it become. Jake's story here is indeed tragic, and you feel sorry for the man, but the problem is, his story isn't happy ever after. He closes the story giving his aspirations to become a backstage WWE agent, and hopefully staying away from the drugs and drink. The documentary tries to play the 'Jake was screwed, now he's sorted' card... and unfortunately, passage of time hasn't been kind to this UMD as, as of writing, Jake hasn't conquered his demons, and it leaves the documentary feeling slightly tarnished, as if it becomes as surreal as many wrestling plots. As with the man who holds all the poker cards and plays you for all it's worth, you're not quite sure the story you're seeing on this disk is the real deal, and it's difficult. It's a shame Jake is so much the *perfect* actor, you can't quite believe his 'real' story. You can take this as a positive or a negative and perhaps it's both. But it's how I felt watching the disk unfortunately.

The other side of this is, the retrospective - like Jake's life as a whole - is extremely self-indulgent. 'Pick Your Poison' is a very apt monicker as the UMD might as well be 'don't get drunk kids'. I get it. I get what the documentary is trying to do. I even think it does it well. But it does it in such a hamfisted way, and Jake phoning in a quick cash check here, that it doesn't leave a good taste in the mouth. Maybe I'm being unfairly critical, but if you're going to do a documentary on the dangers of alcohol abuse - something which wrestlers need to do more of, quite frankly! - then don't pick a man wallowing in his own muck to do it. As much as Jake 'the wrestler' should be in anybody's top five, Jake 'the man' here makes excuses and it doesn't taste very nicely. You'll have to make your own judgment call on this, but I felt very uncomfortable sometimes, as if I wasn't seeing truth. And I think with the spin on the documentary the WWE tried to create, it was very important to have that feeling.

Jake doesn't consider himself the greatest mat wrestler of all time. Which is bizarre as he created the Greatest Finishing Move Ever, the DDT, and his matches are always crisp and clean. The UMD can't boast the match count of the DVD, but there are a smatterig of matches here and it's definitely well appreciated. Any Steamboat / Roberts match is going to be worth any price of admission.

UMDs are generally cheap. If you don't own the DVD set of this, I can heartily recommend the UMD as you're getting slightly lesser extras but getting the whole documentary of the DVD, for cheaper, and more portable. This is certainly an option if you don't own the DVD and have a PSP. On the other hand, if you own the DVD already, you've got the documentary and it's not exactly designed for the 'carry and play' PSP aspect, so I'd probably sit this out unless you're a massive Jake Roberts fan, like myself. If you don't own the DVD, the UMD will work as a feasible alternative. The digital quality of the UMD seems, somehow, superior to other UMD releases. I don't know why this is. But the picture quality is extremely sharp and good.

So the tragic story of Jake the Snake remains a tragedy. Retrospect and age haven't been kind to the - otherwise extremely informative - documentary. Actual matches are completely sparse, save a brilliant Steamboat match, on the UMD version, which is what this review is. If you're a Roberts fan, or liked 80's and 90's WWE, you have no excuse not to pick this up in some format. Otherwise, I think this disk may be too much of an oddity for you, and you might find better documentaries and pursuits elsewhere.