WWE Vault Appreciation Thread

[SpykeDudlei1]

1 hour ago, air_raid said:

The letters were pure fiction. The “UK Fan Favourites” tapes were released in the US with different names/addresses associated with the matches. Fair play for the Koko B Ware vs Brooklyn Brawler match from the 89 tape though, at least Koko actually winning a match with the Ghostbuster made it to home video.

My favourite bit of nonsense was a “German Fan Favourites” tape that never got repurposed for Silver Vision - it included a couple of high stakes matches from TV that fairly obviously hadn’t happened just because Fake Hans from Bremen had asked for them e.g Tatanka vs Crush KOTR qualifier, Razor/Diesel ICT switch, and a bunch of matches recycled from old releases including an Undertaker vs Bam Bam match over a year old. Lazy bastards.

Indeed. They weren’t very good at not insulting the intelligence of their audience back then but I suppose plenty lapped it. BTW…I knew they were fiction, my comment probably didn’t make that obvious enough ?

[WyattSheepMask]

I did kind of fall off of checking up on what the vault was adding, but had a browse of what’s gone on recently and it’s good to see there’s still plenty of decent stuff.

There however still the odd stinker, particularly the Edge v Orton “Greatest Wrestling Match Ever”, which I did watch at the time and couldn’t tell you a single thing about it now

[air_raid]

1 hour ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Edge v Orton “Greatest Wrestling Match Ever”

Was this the worst lie in WWE history, or does promoting Reigns vs Lesnar as the "biggest WrestleMania match of all-time (sic)" trump it?

[Ro_y Disco]

After the borefest that was Edge & Orton's WrestleMania match, I never dared put myself through that rematch. The talk at the time was it was billed like that to screw with anyone searching "what is the greatest wrestling match ever" and knock AEW off the top of the results.

[WyattSheepMask]

1 hour ago, air_raid said:

Was this the worst lie in WWE history, or does promoting Reigns vs Lesnar as the "biggest WrestleMania match of all-time (sic)" trump it?

Depends how you look at things I suppose. If you ignore that they’d already had Lesnar v Reigns at two previous Wrestlemanias, that match was as close as they’ve come to doing a World Title Unification Match at Wrestlemania, which if you’re trying to sell something as being big then yeah, that probably was in terms of Championship Stakes. They’d had Title matches before sure, but this was for all the marbles. One guy was leaving that night with all the World title belts at that time, it doesn’t get much bigger than that

Edited May 8, 2025 by WyattSheepMask

[tiger_rick]

2 hours ago, air_raid said:

Was this the worst lie in WWE history, or does promoting Reigns vs Lesnar as the "biggest WrestleMania match of all-time (sic)" trump it?

They are big ones as a promotional tool. The WM3 attendance is another company wide "fib". One of my favourites is the Monsoon lie at Mania 7 that it's the biggest PPV audience ever, despite them never knowing the buyrate until weeks later, and it being complete bullshit anyway. 

[The Dart]

Going back to the Fan Favourites, I seem to remember there being at least one where it wasn't "fans who had written in" but they actually went to fans in the audience at a show and asked them what match they'd want to see and the video made out that the match then happened straight away, but most likely it was probably weeks later, or just as likely, had already happened and they just gave the kid in the audience a t-shirt to say he wanted to see a match that they'd recorded the day before.   Or probably a mix of the two, it was a match scheduled for that show anyway and they just told the kid what to say and gave them a t-shirt.

[davertfnewman]

Pretty sure the Fan Favourites video itself included some arena-based staged surveys where you would get the "If I could watch one match it would be the Hart Foundation against the Twin Towers... Now THAT would be awesome!" bits.

[air_raid]

52 minutes ago, The Dart said:

I seem to remember there being at least one where it wasn't "fans who had written in" but they actually went to fans in the audience at a show

 

Just now, davertfnewman said:

Pretty sure the Fan Favourites video itself included some arena-based staged surveys where you would get the "If I could watch one match it would be the Hart Foundation against the Twin Towers... Now THAT would be awesome!" bits.

You are correct. This is the tape where some fan was actually meant to be excited about the prospect of Koko vs Brawler. Although my favourite memory of the tape (aside from an excellent Tito vs Perfect match) was the guy asking for Superfly vs Ted DiBiase and doing a Superfly impression by going "Ooo, ooo!"

[air_raid]

On 4/9/2025 at 3:03 PM, Chili said:

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.

 

Bit odd that they uploaded this without commentary considering they did get Monsoon & JR to do commentary on it for the Grudges Gripes & Grunts tape... wildly incongruous though it is, considering it was taped MANY months before Ross worked there.

[Chili]

3 hours ago, air_raid said:

Bit odd that they uploaded this without commentary considering they did get Monsoon & JR to do commentary on it for the Grudges Gripes & Grunts tape... wildly incongruous though it is, considering it was taped MANY months before Ross worked there.

The example of this I find even weirder is JR, Brain and Macho speaking about Kerry Von Erich in semi passive tones on a battle royale that was recorded obviously before JR began at WWF a month after Kerry died.

[Snitsky's back acne]

On 5/8/2025 at 4:40 PM, air_raid said:

 

You are correct. This is the tape where some fan was actually meant to be excited about the prospect of Koko vs Brawler. Although my favourite memory of the tape (aside from an excellent Tito vs Perfect match) was the guy asking for Superfly vs Ted DiBiase and doing a Superfly impression by going "Ooo, ooo!"

I'm sure I read once that they usually wrote back to the person who sent the request in and said "We can't do.... but we can do Koko B Ware v Skinner. Are we okay to say you requested that?' or something akin to that. 

If I was a kid and I got the chance to get my name read out on a WWF tape I would have thought it was the most amazing thing in the world so, yeah, say I requested Kamala v The Berserker, I don't care. 

[davertfnewman]

It's like an article I believe Off the Telly had on their site years ago about Games World, the Sky equivalent of Gamesmaster. The lad who won their first series grand final turned up at the recording of the second series and Bob Mills saw him and asked if he'd gotten his prizes and the kid was like "Nah". TV and entertainment is this weird beast where following the rules and making it right are optional. If they did genuinely interview fans and asked what they'd like you'd have stuff like "I wanna see Sting against Bret Hart", quickly cut off by a staff member who tells them to ask for Jake Roberts against Akeem.

[air_raid]

16 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

I'm sure I read once that they usually wrote back to the person who sent the request in and said "We can't do.... but we can do Koko B Ware v Skinner. Are we okay to say you requested that?' or something akin to that. 

No chance did that happen. That would mean when they repurposed the same set of matches for a UK Fan Favourites and a German Fan Favourites tape, that they wasted money air mailing letters to both Ian Simister of Barnsley AND Herr Raid of Dortmund, just to say “Sorry, I know you asked for Adam Bomb vs Crush or IRS vs Chuck Norris, but we literally just taped Bomb vs IRS in a dinghy little community centre for Raw, can we put your name on that?” Doesn’t sound like something the cash-strapped WWF of the early/mid 90s would do. They were taking water coolers out of Titan Towers because they didn’t want to pay the bill any more, they weren’t posting anything that wasn’t a catalogue or similar invitation to spend money.

[TibBo]

Yup, not a chance they were replying to random fan mail for stuff like this. It was all kayfabed. 

Even the 'Get well soon' Matilda campaign was just a cunning way to build the merchandise catalogue mailing list wasn't it?