WWE Vault Appreciation Thread

[TibBo]

Yes! Steiners vs Nastys!

[Chico Torres]

Watching WCW in 1998 is witnessing the decline and fall of the Roman Empire but nevertheless always entertaining. Nearly 4 hours of the lads.

 

[Dai]

2 hours ago, Chico Torres said:

Watching WCW in 1998 is witnessing the decline and fall of the Roman Empire but nevertheless always entertaining. Nearly 4 hours of the lads.

 

It feels like they've done every iteration of this angle already on the vault. Not sure how much more they can squeeze from it. 

That said, a clip from 4 days ago which is essentially a new vid of Bret saying Goldberg stinks has got something crazy like 350k views, so maybe just rehashing an Nwo vs Wcw every year still gets the views.

[DavidB6937]

1 minute ago, Dai said:

That said, a clip from 4 days ago which is essentially a new vid of Bret saying Goldberg stinks has got something crazy like 350k views, so maybe just rehashing an Nwo vs Wcw every year still gets the views.

Yeah but 300k of that is Bret showing his mates and the rest is @IANdrewDiceClay so it does skew it a bit.

[Chico Torres]

WCW guy finally remembers that the real and best WCW existed before 1995 and has given us this beauty of a match from Saturday Night with Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes vs Steve Williams and Terry Gordy

 

[Rossman]

19 hours ago, Chico Torres said:

WCW guy finally remembers that the real and best WCW existed before 1995 and has given us this beauty of a match from Saturday Night with Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes vs Steve Williams and Terry Gordy

 

Decent match but the Miracle Violence Connection could have been so much more. They weren't very miraculous and they weren't very violent for two 300lb guys. Their aura outshone their ability. In this match, Doc clearly doesn't know the finish as he's fiddle fucking about with the ref in the corner for the penultimate spot. Then when Windham goes for the winning cover after Rhodes' bulldog he just stands on the apron watching.

They had another match previously which was dreadful and also the Beach Blast match where they went to the 30 minute time limit with the Steiners wasn't much. It was the main event for the PPV and they crowd didn't react at all. They probably just wanted to go home by this point.

Their style of lobbing around Japanese blokes in Japan didn't translate to the US and the pair didn't have the ability to alter styles to make it work. So off the went back to Japan after 4 months.

[Chili]

33 minutes ago, Rossman said:

Decent match but the Miracle Violence Connection could have been so much more. They weren't very miraculous and they weren't very violent for two 300lb guys. Their aura outshone their ability. In this match, Doc clearly doesn't know the finish as he's fiddle fucking about with the ref in the corner for the penultimate spot. Then when Windham goes for the winning cover after Rhodes' bulldog he just stands on the apron watching.

They had another match previously which was dreadful and also the Beach Blast match where they went to the 30 minute time limit with the Steiners wasn't much. It was the main event for the PPV and they crowd didn't react at all. They probably just wanted to go home by this point.

Their style of lobbing around Japanese blokes in Japan didn't translate to the US and the pair didn't have the ability to alter styles to make it work. So off the went back to Japan after 4 months.

It's partly because they didn't lob blokes about in WCW. Bill Watts and his big weird head thought them being this legit, ground and pound, take a hold team was better. It wasn't. I think if you let them just be a villainous version of The Steiners, they'd have been much more fun. It's only really the matches with them where they shine a bit (baring Beach Blast, ending the PPV on a time limit draw was as stupid as banning top rope moves). They are for me a rose tinted memory of something in a great in ring period for WCW that actually isn't THAT fun compared to everything else.

[Chico Torres]

The Steiners vs Williams and Gordy matches were great! And impressive that Watts pulled it off given that they were respectively the top foreign in tag teams in New Japan and All Japan at that time and WCW was aligned with the former.

I also thought Windham and Rhodes were a great WCW team and this match where they won the titles was also the beginning of Barry’s heel turn on Dustin and the great Lone Wolf Barry Windham character in 1993, his last great run. Shame there wasn’t a proper singles match between them. This tv match is a glimpse of how great it could have been, a short, intense brawl

 

[Chili]

1 hour ago, Chico Torres said:

The Steiners vs Williams and Gordy matches were great! And impressive that Watts pulled it off given that they were respectively the top foreign in tag teams in New Japan and All Japan at that time and WCW was aligned with the former.

I also thought Windham and Rhodes were a great WCW team and this match where they won the titles was also the beginning of Barry’s heel turn on Dustin and the great Lone Wolf Barry Windham character in 1993, his last great run. Shame there wasn’t a proper singles match between them. This tv match is a glimpse of how great it could have been, a short, intense brawl

 

Fucking Battlebowl 92. Load of shite. That's why we didn't get a good or proper Windham/Rhodes match. Sod that Battlebowl bollocks off and book a better card, and they would have definitely had that on the card. As much as I liked that brief Windham/Pillman team against Douglas/Dragon, you could have just booked Austin & Pillman sooner. I actually think Bill Watts WCW is grossly overrated and it's actually the Jan-May Kip Frey run people REALLY remember but jumble it in because he's more forgettable and Watts did all that dumb shit when he ran the place, but during his era there are great matches scattered about the place here and there. None of the Watts headed PPV's were real home runs (Beach Blast is good, but ends in a miserable draw, Bash is a proper slog with an all heel downer ending, Havoc is patchy af and Starrcade has some bangers ruined by a shit tournament). Once he gets sacked he actually puts a proper great card on with Superbrawl III but he's already gone for being a big, mad racist. I know Dusty was booking all the year, but it's not a coincidence for me.

Edited Sunday at 02:59 PM by Chili

[wandshogun09]

I was always gutted we never got a satisfying ending to the Windham vs Rhodes team breakup. They should’ve absolutely had a big grudge match at Starrcade 92 and then maybe followed up with a proper slobberknocker blowoff at Superbrawl 3 or something, instead of Baz pissing about in a really disappointing match with Muta and Dustin being saddled with Maxx Payne. Having a Windham vs Rhodes ‘street fight’ or something, along with the Sting vs Vader strap match main event would’ve been class.

It’s WCW all over though. I’m not gonna go into it again but they did similar a year later with the Hollywood Blonds breakup. They split in the October, there should’ve been a properly built up, heated Austin vs Pillman match on Starrcade. Instead they just threw them out there in a quick match with a shite finish on a Clash and that was that. 

[Chico Torres]

It’s classic WCW where Starrcade was positioned as their flagship PPV but then for some reason they would choose that event to have random tournaments. Not that they weren’t often entertaining but 89 they had the dud round robin for the whole show, 1990 with the (great) Pat O'Connor memorial tag tournament,  91 and 92 with Battlebowl, 95 with WCW vs New Japan. They couldn’t have found different shows to do this and have Starrcade for feuds?

[Chico Torres]

Arguably (but quite obviously) the peak of wrestling, prime Dangerous Alliance against the top babyfaces in 1992 in a multi-man match on WCW Worldwide. Rude at the height of his powers along with the A team of Arn and Bobby against The Stinger and Steiners. Tony and Jesse on commentary. Perfection.

 

[wandshogun09]

That match was included in one of those ‘Sting in 92’ comps on the Vault a few months back. Quoting myself like a dick but I’d only be repeating myself…a significant wound from my childhood was healed. 

On 4/19/2026 at 10:42 AM, wandshogun09 said:

Vivid memory unlocked with this one.

When I used to watch Worldwide every Saturday, my Dad used to record it every week in Long Play so I’d get 8 hours worth of episodes on one tape. I’d watch it while it was on anyway but he knew I was weird and liked to rewatch the shit out of my wrestling. One Saturday afternoon, we were all going out somewhere, right as Worldwide was starting, so my old man quickly whacked the 8 hour tape in, checked it was where it left off at the end of last week’s episode and hit record just before we all rushed out the door.

Being the wrestling obsessed geek I was, as soon as we got home that evening, I had to watch it. Bearing in mind, Worldwide was usually just a couple of squash matches, some promos and a ‘name vs name’ main event that could be hit and miss from one week to the next. Sometimes the main event would be a Vader vs Steamboat banger or something, other weeks you’d get Greg Valentine vs Marcus Alexander Bagwell. Well this week it was a six man tag of Sting and the Steiners vs Rick Rude, Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton. I couldn’t believe my luck. Felt like my loyalty to tuning in every week religiously was being rewarded. Then the tape cut off just after Sting, Rick and Scott made their entrance. I was fuming. In his rush to get himself, my mum and the four of us little brats out the door that afternoon, me missing a Van Hammer squash match wasn’t at the top of my Dad’s list of priorities for some reason and he hadn’t realised there wasn’t enough space left on the tape. So I missed the most stacked Worldwide main event I thought I’d ever see at the time. 

Fast forward to 2026, I’m skimming through that video there and, fuck me, at 43 minutes in, what do I stumble across? 

It’s only taken 34 years but that childhood wound is finally healed. 

 

[SoloJones]

Loved that WCW six man, but yeah considering how much footage must be available, they do love doubling up on stuff like they did with this.

[BigJag]

This popped up on my feed. The crowd is going crazy the whole time. It's a very simple and fun match. I very much enjoyed it. Just what I needed after a hectic day.