WWE Vault Appreciation Thread

[Snitsky's back acne]

I'm more interested why they had a dirt floor at the arena.

There's currently a live event watchalong on and it is over 5 hours in so far. Great stuff. 

[tiger_rick]

13 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

I'm more interested why they had a dirt floor at the arena.

I clocked that too. Best I can find is that the Anaheim Pond is an annual venue for Professional Bull Riding so I'd wonder if that was related?

[Chili]

Part of me is astounded this is only 3 1/2 hours.

It's the 1989 trilogy and the 1994 revisit.

Edited March 12 by Chili

[gmoney]

While trying to find when the last Steamboat vs Flair match was (July 94 on Worldwide, according to cagematch) I noticed this Nasty Boys and Rick Rude vs Flair, Sting and Steamboat. 
 

Couldn't possibly live up to what's in my head, but I'll be watching this later. 

[TheScarlettChad]

7 minutes ago, gmoney said:

While trying to find when the last Steamboat vs Flair match was (July 94 on Worldwide, according to cagematch) I noticed this Nasty Boys and Rick Rude vs Flair, Sting and Steamboat. 
 

Couldn't possibly live up to what's in my head, but I'll be watching this later. 

Hopefully Flair doesn't turn on Sting. 

[air_raid]

23 minutes ago, Chili said:

Part of me is astounded this is only 3 1/2 hours.

It's the 1989 trilogy and the 1994 revisit.

Ah, 1994. Where the title gets “held up” and Flair wins it back but somehow never gets counted in the “16 times.” Which officially was 10 with the NWA and “7” with WCW, which would be 17 but they counted two as concurrent. So, 18. Not including WWF title. So at least 20. Etc etc

[AshC]

2 hours ago, gmoney said:

While trying to find when the last Steamboat vs Flair match was (July 94 on Worldwide, according to cagematch) I noticed this Nasty Boys and Rick Rude vs Flair, Sting and Steamboat. 
 

Couldn't possibly live up to what's in my head, but I'll be watching this later. 

Must be right near the end for Steamboat and Rude. Imagine they'd been around another few years to wrestle all the Nitro lads. 

[JNLister]

4 hours ago, air_raid said:

Ah, 1994. Where the title gets “held up” and Flair wins it back but somehow never gets counted in the “16 times.” Which officially was 10 with the NWA and “7” with WCW, which would be 17 but they counted two as concurrent. So, 18. Not including WWF title. So at least 20. Etc etc

#nerd #pedant

In my interpretation, if it's held up and then you win it back, it shouldn't count as a new title reign. Held up shouldn't be the same as vacated - it's effectively the title reign being put on pause because there's some controversy that needs settling in a rematch and you don't want to risk the champion losing the title in the meantime and messing it up further. 

(What happens if the other guy wins by countout or DQ in the rematch is a bit fuzzy, admittedly.)

[air_raid]

33 minutes ago, JNLister said:

In my interpretation, if it's held up and then you win it back, it shouldn't count as a new title reign. Held up shouldn't be the same as vacated - it's effectively the title reign being put on pause because there's some controversy that needs settling in a rematch and you don't want to risk the champion losing the title in the meantime and messing it up further. 
 

Thought this might come up. I managed to WCW myself a bit there with the wording… much like themselves.

On 7/8/2025 at 3:24 PM, air_raid said:

At Spring Stampede 94 Flair wrestled Ricky Steamboat to a double pin and in the weeks thereafter Nick Bockwinkel as the on-screen Commissioner (yes, WCW used that term first) declared the title vacant pending a rematch, taped 21/04/94 and won by Flair. Why the fuck that win didn't officially make Flair ALREADY a "12-time" World Heavyweight Champion before he eventually would win his next from Macho Man, I don't know, dear reader.

 

[Fog Dude]

1 hour ago, JNLister said:

#nerd #pedant

In my interpretation, if it's held up and then you win it back, it shouldn't count as a new title reign. 

That knocks Triple H's total number down by one as well then, doesn't it? Not that his ego needs taking down a peg or two since he's famously so very modest.

[gmoney]

9 hours ago, gmoney said:

While trying to find when the last Steamboat vs Flair match was (July 94 on Worldwide, according to cagematch) I noticed this Nasty Boys and Rick Rude vs Flair, Sting and Steamboat. 
 

Couldn't possibly live up to what's in my head, but I'll be watching this later. 

Bags of fun.

[Snitsky's back acne]

I love MSG's reaction to Bull Nakano and Dump Matsumoto. 

[Merzbow]

On a similar note, it's just come out that WWF had offered a contract to Manami Toyota yet she didn't even know about it until much later because the AJW top brass turned them down and kept it from her.

[Chili]

5 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

I love MSG's reaction to Bull Nakano and Dump Matsumoto. 

Interestingly they must have had their own crew shooting stuff on the same trip because here's a delightful music video of Bull & Dump walking about Manhattan, getting ice cream and visiting BDSM shops. Lovely stuff.

 

 

[Snitsky's back acne]

6 hours ago, Merzbow said:

On a similar note, it's just come out that WWF had offered a contract to Manami Toyota yet she didn't even know about it until much later because the AJW top brass turned them down and kept it from her.

I remember reading that Takako Inoue had a try out with WWE in 2004 and despite apparently impressing officials nothing (obviously) ever came of it.

I don't know what the Joshi scene was like at the time but I wonder if similar politics came into play with her too.