WWE Vault Appreciation Thread

[Chili]

Some interesting little finds in this. Always love seeing that stupid helmet he wore on the houses in 1988. 

[tiger_rick]

When Hulk was hitting those home runs 300 yards as a 10 year old, yer man should have been practising his fielding! Appalling catching of those beers.

Apologies if this is a bit serious for this thread but, man, it made me sad to see Hulk being so great to the little black disabled lad. How on earth could he meet that many people through his life and develop the attitude he had and use the words he did to describe anyone of colour. It makes it even more infuriating to me.

[Chili]

13 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

When Hulk was hitting those home runs 300 yards as a 10 year old, yer man should have been practising his fielding! Appalling catching of those beers.

Apologies if this is a bit serious for this thread but, man, it made me sad to see Hulk being so great to the little black disabled lad. How on earth could he meet that many people through his life and develop the attitude he had and use the words he did to describe anyone of colour. It makes it even more infuriating to me.

Yeah I found it both really sweet but knowing his language later rather disappointing that he ended up saying that stuff. I think generally it's the only thing absolutely nobody knocks Hulk about on, which was the stuff with kids. Before Cena was the Make-a-Wish king (and let's not forget how floored Cena is himself, never hold a TV hero to a moral standpoint), Hogan was the big wrestling name doing that prior. I think it's either Meltzer or even Bret Hart who mentioned a lot of Hogan's kids visits were very much without publicity too and it seemed like something he just felt was important. For an awful fella, I quite like there was some aspect of him that knew being who he was meant something to someone. 

[Chili]

Test run of the Mania VII blindfold match. I've always genuinely loved the Blindfold Match they had on PPV as it's extremely silly but the psychology and performances from both are so spot on that I really appreciate the idea.

 

[SpykeDudlei1]

5 hours ago, Chili said:

Test run of the Mania VII blindfold match. I've always genuinely loved the Blindfold Match they had on PPV as it's extremely silly but the psychology and performances from both are so spot on that I really appreciate the idea.

 

The Mania match was never going to be an all-time classic but because Meltzer crapped all over it at the time, the Observer sheep helped create this illusion over the years that it wasn’t an entertaining match. The use of crowd reaction by Jake (as well as the attempt by Martel to do the same without success) to guide him is simple but wonderfully impactful.

I suppose the only slightly controversial take could be that the pay off to the feud being a somewhat comedic effort might have taken away from the apparent seriousness of the initial start to the feud that Martel came close to costing Jake his sight. However, he’d had chance to get his hands on him at Survivors and the Rumble on PPV and the idea being that it was about taking Martel’s sight away from him to see how he liked it when placed in a match.

On a side note, it has also forever bugged me that the camera did a close up shot of Jake just at the point he was putting his hand under the hood/blindfold to adjust it meaning you could clearly see his hand appear through the obvious ‘window’ at the front of the hood.

Edited August 5, 2025 by SpykeDudlei1

[tiger_rick]

Enjoyed that dark match run through. A couple of real nice spots, some that they re-ran in the Mania 7 match and some they scrapped. It has 4-5 boring minutes in the middle that they clearly tweaked for Mania. I think I like the finish better. Martel removing his mask for heat and losing clean anyway was spot on.

[wandshogun09]

Noticed they uploaded SummerSlam 89 the other day so I stuck it on, for what must surely be my 859th watch of it since I got the VHS as a kid. Just noticed though, in the little video package where they show Andre attacking Warrior, why have they edited the ‘…Of Wrestling’ out of ‘Superstars Of Wrestling’ here?

Is wrestling still that much of a dirty word in the land of racists and sex pests? Or is there some other reason I’m missing for why they’d blur that out?

In other news, Bret and Jim vs Arn and Tully is still ace and I’m now very much looking forward to getting to Piper’s barmy “EAT A GARAAGGE” promo. 

Edited August 5, 2025 by wandshogun09

[SpykeDudlei1]

9 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Noticed they uploaded SummerSlam 89 the other day so I stuck it on, for what must surely be my 859th watch of it since I got the VHS as a kid. Just noticed though, in the little video package where they show Andre attacking Warrior, why have they edited the ‘…Of Wrestling’ out of ‘Superstars Of Wrestling’ here?

Is wrestling still that much of a dirty word in the land of racists and sex pests? Or is there some other reason I’m missing for why they’d blur that out?

In other news, Bret and Jim vs Arn and Tully is still ace and I’m now very much looking forward to getting to Piper’s barmy “EAT A GARAAGGE” promo. 

“WWE abandoned the Superstars of Wrestling trademark when they changed the show's name to WWF Superstars in the early 1990s. Albert Patterson, a Wisconsin independent wrestling promoter, successfully trademarked the phrase in 1993.^[3] Although there has been litigation between the WWE and Patterson, WWE has not been able to settle with Patterson for the usage of "Superstars of Wrestling".^[4] Due to this issue, WWE blurs the Superstars of Wrestling banners when archival content is shown on the WWE Network.”

[tiger_rick]

Yeah, it became just WWF Superstars after the suit. I think that's one of the reasons they've taken ages to upload them in the past, because they blur or mute out the "of Wrestling" and it must take ages, especially when those banners are hanging from the rafters in every taping. Affects their Wrestling Challenge tapes pre-1991 too because highlights and links to Superstars were all over that show too.

[davertfnewman]

When the Network started uploading post-WrestleMania VIII episodes it was when the show had changed to WWF Superstars, so no need to blur or mute any "of Wrestling" from that point on.

[wandshogun09]

They’ve uploaded the Piper documentary from his DVD years ago.

Really good from what I remember. Guessing this is because it was the 10 year anniversary of his death recently. Can’t believe it’s been a whole decade already.

Also noticed they put the Mike Awesome vs Masato Tanaka match from Heatwave 98 up.

Rough watching that now with all the unprotected chair shots and knowing what we know about CTE now. But I can’t deny I loved their series and Heatwave 98 was one of my first ECW DVDs so that particular match was a bit of a gateway to me getting hooked on ECW and collecting all the DVDs.

I wish they’d make a separate ECW Vault channel though, like the WCW one. One thing I miss about the Network is each promotion had their own section. My OCD can’t be doing with mixing them all up. 

[BigJag]

This is a lot of fun!

I'd forgotten a lot of this. The 2hrs flew by. Steph looks incredible in that segment where she steals Lesnar away from RAW.

 

Edited August 13, 2025 by BigJag

[Devon Malcolm]

Chris Benoit's Best Matches next, yeah?

[Merzbow]

"The Story of Durag Vince" is next.

[Onyx2]

28 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

"The Story of Durag Vince" is next.

What, this one? 

On that topic does anyone know Wrestling Bios from here? It seems incredible he's not some former UKFFer. But he doesn't mentioning pooing very often in the Monday Night Wars so maybe not.