WWE Vault Appreciation Thread

[Chili]

3 hours ago, CTXRussomark said:

Is that Francine at 7:08?

What the hell was Davey playing at? ?

It is Francine, she appears in the Lex Express Luger comp too as these were from the same event. She was one of the big NYC area super fans etc. Look out on early Raw's in the Manhattan Centre and you'll spot Mikey Whipwreck, Francine and a few others about.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

7 hours ago, Chili said:

Something to wash the taste from that HHH/Rollins video @tiger_rick mentioned. Mmm mmm, drink it in!

I know they re-edited the Slam Jam song to take out Davey Boy when he got canned but that’s the first time I’ve known Warrior recorded stuff for it. God bless whoever at WWE’s media team decided to create a YouTube channel for this and the other BTS stuff like the WM16 video the other day

[davertfnewman]

Warrior was in some of the promotional stuff for it in magazines and the like, but while he and Davey Boy got sacked at the time, he got taken out and Davey didn't (I guess because Davey was important for the UK market). They even had something in one magazine interview with Randy where they asked him about it and his answer was like "Well, I guess he got stage fright, brother!".

[2Xtreme_lives]

I was thinking this morning, I'd love for the Vault to do a compilation of the old Desire packages from the early 00s, I reckon there could be a lot of love for them.

[SaitoRyo]

40 minutes ago, 2Xtreme_lives said:

I was thinking this morning, I'd love for the Vault to do a compilation of the old Desire packages from the early 00s, I reckon there could be a lot of love for them.

That would be great, but I suspect there might be issues relating to the music used in them, unfortunately. 

[Doog]

Most of the old Desires are on YouTube, in pretty decent condition too, on random accounts.

Edited April 8, 2025 by Doog

[Merzbow]

A couple of minutes in there's an insane promo from Austin on Livewire that I don't think I've ever seen before.

[theringmaster]

On 4/8/2025 at 10:58 AM, 2Xtreme_lives said:

I was thinking this morning, I'd love for the Vault to do a compilation of the old Desire packages from the early 00s, I reckon there could be a lot of love for them.

I have always assumed it's because many feature Benoit, my sacrifice videos feature him for example.

 

Also, I'm pretty sure that livewire promo appears in part on the Steve Austin home video 'Because Stone Cold said so', a brilliant little 60 min VHS that i watched over and over again as a kid.

Edited April 9, 2025 by theringmaster

[tiger_rick]

7 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

A couple of minutes in there's an insane promo from Austin on Livewire that I don't think I've ever seen before.

Someone uploaded a lot of that on YT that I saved as a playlist so I've seen a lot of it many times but the first couple of interviews are new to me. "Wrestle Vessel" is amazing.

[The Gaffer]

Still the best match ever. Sometimes I even make myself suffer the drudgery of the rest of the card because there's something so weirdly special about the atmosphere of such a dark, dingy, thrown together, MidCardMania suddenly having one of the matches and angles of all time happen slap bang in the middle of it.

[Chili]

This match is worth a punt because it's actually not too bad and worth it for the unbridled joy of John Tenta looking like the happiest man alive when he gets the three count. He's absolutely delighted and you can't help but love the big fella for it.

 

[wandshogun09]

Imagine having a match as incredible as Bret Hart and Steve Austin had at Survivor Series 96 and then absolutely blowing it out of the water the way they did at WrestleMania a few months later? It’s ridiculous. Most wrestlers would sell a bollock to have a match as great as the Survivor Series one on their CV. Those two were so good, and so good together, that they somehow topped it in a match that was thrown together after a bunch of plans changed, and both came in gimpy kneed. Didn’t matter. Unbelievable. It ages so well on rewatches as well. For all the talk of the Montreal shite and the pathetically stupid way WCW handled Bret, I think one of the biggest travesties in all of that is that we never got more Hitman vs Stone Cold after mid 97. 

[tiger_rick]

Yeah, you hear a lot of What If stuff around potential Bret dream matches, like Kurt Angle. But Bret as an opponent for Austin in 1998 could have been incredible. Austin defending the belt against a man he'd never beat. The irony of Bret & Vince joining forces. Even Bret & Vince screwing Austin instead of Kane & Taker. Mouth watering stuff.

[The Gaffer]

19 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Yeah, you hear a lot of What If stuff around potential Bret dream matches, like Kurt Angle. But Bret as an opponent for Austin in 1998 could have been incredible. Austin defending the belt against a man he'd never beat. The irony of Bret & Vince joining forces. Even Bret & Vince screwing Austin instead of Kane & Taker. Mouth watering stuff.

I'd never thought of it from this angle, but that's brilliant.

It's such a natural play you don't have to egg up too much either. Bret was Vince's choice when he wanted to navigate the company through troubled waters by presenting a squeaky clean, wholesome champ. 

You're basically doing the exact same thing, but altering the framing slightly and embellishing Bret's completely genuine discomfort with the Attitude Era's presentation. 

Dreamland stuff. 

[air_raid]

30 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Yeah, you hear a lot of What If stuff around potential Bret dream matches, like Kurt Angle. But Bret as an opponent for Austin in 1998 could have been incredible. Austin defending the belt against a man he'd never beat.

Well, the pitch Vince made to Bret (as Bret told it to Meltzer) had Steve beating him for the belt at Mania 14 if he stayed for less/deferred money.

He'd retain the belt at Survivors on a DQ finish then at In Your House/December they would do Bret vs Shawn vs Shamrock vs Undertaker in an elimination match where at the end, Taker would cost Bret the belt to Shawn as a kind of reversal of Shawn costing him the belt to Bret (not really, but thats how Vince framed it). He'd fight Shawn at the Rumble in a ladder match and lose, then the next night on Raw he'd challenge Shawn one last time and say he'd retire if he couldnt beat him - and would win the title for the Hogan record-breaking 6th time. Then lose it to Austin at Mania 14. Bret looked at a plan where he'd wrestle 5 high-profile matches and only win 1 of them, and decided Vince was actually trying to persuade him to leave.

In other circumstances, I think he'd have jumped at the chance to put Austin on the spot. He held him in the highest regard.