Best memories of wrestling on VHS

[TheShowOff]

The VHS era was great, in terms of both mainstream and underground fandem. Frankly, there was no greater feeling in the early 2000's than receiving something like this from Mark Petar:

 

 

and being able to watch the Best of Backyard Wrestling Vol 1 & 2 (which back then seemed like mythical creations) with a couple of friends on a Saturday night, wearing No Fear T Shirts, was brilliant.

 

 

The pause function in the pre DVD world was another thing of interest. On the main VCR in the living room, you could pause pretty much at any moment and after a few seconds, you would have mostly a full screen still image. However on the crap VCR I had in my bedroom, you had to time it just right to get a so so image with white bars top and bottom. Trying to capture the snapshot of what happened a few seconds after this was the challenge:

 

 

Finding an old VHS tape in a second hand store was another great thing. I remember finding this and being blown away by the concept of a Shawn vs Bret ladder match.

 

 

And back then, reading the VHS box for actual matches was a must. That video alone: THE UNDERTAKER VS RAZOR RAMON. There was no chance of me not rushing home to put that bad boy in the ol' JVC.

 

What are your fond memories of the wrestling and VHS connection!

[goldeneye86]

 

 

 

just a couple I had back in my youth

[EdgarTheSlouch]

The only reason I had my Dad join blockbuster video

 

[Alexio]

Ah the original ECW videos that came over here back in '99. Which had their ACTUAL music!

[diamond_dust]

Bit hard to see but only pic I could find online:

 

 

 

Liking WCW but only being able to watch worldwide on c5 as Nitro was on at the same time as Raw and HMV/MVC only seemed to stock WWF/ECW tapes finding this on a local market was probably the happiest I ever was to find wrestling tapes. Bonus was it was still in the plastic wrap so it wasn't even second hand.

[Benno]

Ah the original ECW videos that came over here back in '99. Which had their ACTUAL music!

 

I dunno, I always had a soft spot for the dubbed ones, especially when New Jack came out. Can still hum that one.

 

Anyway, my favorite vhs memories are in the mid 90's, finding that the local video shop had a stock of old WCW tapes raging from the late 80's to about 1993.

 

 

Getting a tape and getting to see this era of wrestling I'd missed is one of my fondest childhood memories, especially twisting my dads arm to rent out the "18" rated War Games ones. Everything from the presentation to the wrestlers to the editing was like this new world of wrestling to me, as I'd been strictly a WWF fan until then. When they got the early UFC stuff in too it was a familiar feeling.

 

The cut-down over edited WCW VHS's of the later 90's on the other hand were just full on rubbish, they weren't even trying.

[FrankCastle]

I had these two "gems"

 

 

 

One of which had Lord Alfred Hayes and Sean Mooney dressed up like they were in Star Trek. Mind bending.

[zep81]

Still have most of my original SV VHS's, plus a few WCW ones from the early 90's, but WM4 Double VHS baby i stil have too, MASSIVe CASE Lol:

 

[TheShowOff]

Bloody hell, completely forgot about the double VHS, good call. As far as I can remember, it was the only wrestling title to get a double box - and come to think of it I can't recall any other VHS having it also.

 

Here is a version where it's interesting to see the price sticker on it:

 

 

I couldn't find a photo of the actual box, side profile though: I remember it being a beast, looking out of place in Blockbusters.

 

I like the note on this with the static reference:

 

 

I remember portions of some of my tapes going also. Sometimes it would just be dirty VHS heads on the player though - I remember borrowing a cleaning kit from school once to sort it out.

[zep81]

Yeah mate, glad i still have it tbh, plus its the full 4 Hour event which is nice, uncut as far as i remember.

 

Glad i kept most of my VHS's tbh, along with a few taped off Sky lol.

[Forrest]

My local library has these bad boys free to loan:

 

 

When you're 11, watching HHH no-sell death and Rikishi being run over is the best possible use you can get out of your library card.

 

Global Video was a goldmine, they had everything in brand new from WWE and WCW. I once found 2 ECW tapes in Poundland nearly a decade ago as well as Starrcade 1999 in a Home Improvement shop for no apparent reason.

 

I used to get my uncle to tape random PPVs. I asked him to tape WMXX, only he stumbled in from the pub about 20 minutes after it started, so for probably at least 5/6 years, I never saw John Cena vs. Big Show.

 

VHS thread are always a treat, good thread.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I couldn't find a photo of the actual box, side profile though: I remember it being a beast, looking out of place in Blockbusters.

Here's the side box. Thats not me by the way.

[NEWM]

I recently just hoyed almost my whole 200+ wrestling VHS collection but decided to keep all the covers in some plastic wallets. In the age of Youtube, torrents and whatnot, the cover art is basically my favourite bit anyway, and if I see a match I fancy whilst I'm gawping at the spine image used for 1993: The Year In Review, I can search online and watch it virtually on demand. It's saved me shelves worth of space and lots of time fast forwarding through shit to get to what I'm after. At least in some ways, the future is beyond what I ever would have imagined as a kid.

[JNLister]

Pah, Mark Petar and his fancy printed tape cases are from when tape trading went all commercial and pussyish. Real tape trading meant getting a tape labelled with a post-it note if you were all poncy and if you were proper hardcore, a "label" that was Glen Radford's illegible scrawl on the back on a piece of a cornflakes packet.

[TheShowOff]

Good work Ian - look at the size of that beast.... holding a large VHS box.

 

Lister, I used to receive from Glen also I can't remember who it was from, but it was in the days where I would receive a few sheets of A4 with new titles every other month (I could buy a "catalogue" for