WWE Vault Appreciation Thread

[HandsomeButchIII]

 

 

GREATEST PPV OF ALL TIME. GREATEST MAIN EVENT OF ALL TIME! YES!

 

Koloff taking the bullet for Sting, Dustin and Barry wearing yellow when BW hadn't wore yellow in years just as they knew they were going to bleed for Britain. Everything is perfect.

Edited May 18 by HandsomeButchIII

[theironshake]

Great main event and the Stieners match is fantastic too. But ay event that has Valentine and Terry Taylor against the crappy version of the Freebirds as a opener is not the greatest ppv of all time 

[Chico Torres]

Slightly tenuous reason to post this but given the Big Josh talk and the greatness of Matt Bourne as Evil Doink, I saw clips of this match posted a few days ago.

Sadly most people think “technical” wrestling is about “smooth” wrestling and nothing I hate more in wrestling than “smooth”, check out Doink here as he does the nastiest (and best) type of technical wrestling, punishing our Ray with some painful stretching and relentless holds, treating him like some wannabe trying to break in to the Florida territory.

Such a high concept character for 1993 WWF, as I just mentioned in the downgrade thread such a shame we got less than a year of this before it all went shit.

 

[BigJag]

Yes! I hope Vladimir is doing well.

[Snitsky's back acne]

On 5/19/2026 at 12:58 PM, Chico Torres said:

Slightly tenuous reason to post this but given the Big Josh talk and the greatness of Matt Bourne as Evil Doink, I saw clips of this match posted a few days ago.

Sadly most people think “technical” wrestling is about “smooth” wrestling and nothing I hate more in wrestling than “smooth”, check out Doink here as he does the nastiest (and best) type of technical wrestling, punishing our Ray with some painful stretching and relentless holds, treating him like some wannabe trying to break in to the Florida territory.

Such a high concept character for 1993 WWF, as I just mentioned in the downgrade thread such a shame we got less than a year of this before it all went shit.

 

Heenan really put the Doink gimmick over on commentary too - saying that there was a great wrestler under the paint but that the guy was clearly a psychopath (without actually saying that).

[SoloJones]

On 5/19/2026 at 12:58 PM, Chico Torres said:

Slightly tenuous reason to post this but given the Big Josh talk and the greatness of Matt Bourne as Evil Doink, I saw clips of this match posted a few days ago.

Sadly most people think “technical” wrestling is about “smooth” wrestling and nothing I hate more in wrestling than “smooth”, check out Doink here as he does the nastiest (and best) type of technical wrestling, punishing our Ray with some painful stretching and relentless holds, treating him like some wannabe trying to break in to the Florida territory.

Such a high concept character for 1993 WWF, as I just mentioned in the downgrade thread such a shame we got less than a year of this before it all went shit.

 

Thats such a great little match, they're constantly moving for five minutes but everything looks credible and doesn't rely on someone having to be in the exact right spot to take a move. And as already mentioned, the holds look great, I wish there was a few more long-form heel Doink matches available. 

[BomberPat]

1 hour ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Heenan really put the Doink gimmick over on commentary too - saying that there was a great wrestler under the paint but that the guy was clearly a psychopath (without actually saying that).

in Doink's debut, Heenan says something like, "those aren't ordinary clown moves!", as if he knows exactly what "ordinary clown moves" a clown wrestler would be expected to use. 

It's kind of an analogue to the problem with spooky gimmicks - a guy who's just a bit of a goth and using mind-games rooted in that can work, just as a guy who's crazy and thinks they're possessed or something can work, but the moment you present their claims literally, that they are a demon, that they do have magic powers, there's no subtlety and the gimmick doesn't really fit in wrestling any more. With Doink, he was a skilled and sadistic wrestler who dressed as a clown to put people off their game and get in their heads. But babyface Doink was just a clown. Why was he also a wrestler, then?

[Chico Torres]

2 hours ago, SoloJones said:

Thats such a great little match, they're constantly moving for five minutes but everything looks credible and doesn't rely on someone having to be in the exact right spot to take a move. And as already mentioned, the holds look great, I wish there was a few more long-form heel Doink matches available. 

There are quite a few matches out there including a 3 match series with Mr Perfect and a few matches with Marty Janetty, one of which is a 2/3 falls match, a good match with Macho Man and quite a few others. I also enjoyed when he faced guys like Typhoon and Kamala, his approach to wrestling the big guys was so different to the WWF norm.

Since the WWF was working with the USWA in 1993, one Saturday morning our Doink headed to the Memphis studio and he was at his unhinged best. Annoyingly split into 7 short parts instead of one video but you can witness the chaos starting here

 

[Snitsky's back acne]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

in Doink's debut, Heenan says something like, "those aren't ordinary clown moves!", as if he knows exactly what "ordinary clown moves" a clown wrestler would be expected to use. 

It's kind of an analogue to the problem with spooky gimmicks - a guy who's just a bit of a goth and using mind-games rooted in that can work, just as a guy who's crazy and thinks they're possessed or something can work, but the moment you present their claims literally, that they are a demon, that they do have magic powers, there's no subtlety and the gimmick doesn't really fit in wrestling any more. With Doink, he was a skilled and sadistic wrestler who dressed as a clown to put people off their game and get in their heads. But babyface Doink was just a clown. Why was he also a wrestler, then?

It was the same with The Undertaker in his first year.

Heenan, the heel, would say "You cannot hurt this man. He is not human!".

Gorilla would say "He may have a higher threshold for pain but you can hurt him. He still puts his pants on one leg at a time".

It was a clever way of making the viewer question things while still maintaining credibility. Heenan was the heel, he was going to buy into The Undertaker being something other than human. Gorilla, the babyface, was the voice of reason whilst still acknowledging that Heenan had a point about Undertaker being a scary monster. 

It was then up to the viewer to go "He's a zombie* or whatever.

As you say - if the character thinks they are crazy but everybody else doesn't it works. Toni Storm worked when she thought she was a classic film star and everyone else went "She's bonkers". When everybody started going along with it, it was less effective.

Nobody else spoke to Head other than Al Snow. He was the bonkers guy who talked to a dummy head and everybody else knew it 

Same with Danhausen. A heel like The Miz believing he is cursed because random bad things keep happening to him is fine. It can be passed off as coincidence and the heel buying it because he's an idiot  Danhausen making flames fly out of the ring posts and having a cloning machine that produces a bunch of little people is silly. 

[Chili]

3 hour best of Brian Pillman comp just dropped. Why Vault, with these uploads you are really spoiling us.

 

[Dai]

On 5/18/2026 at 11:38 AM, Mr.Showtime said:

Yeah I enjoyed that Undertaker/LOD tag match, but mainly for my man The Mountie, taking the piss out of Taker before the match and pretending he isn't scared, but of course it doesn't last. Did The Mountie and Undertaker ever have a 1-on-1 run at any point?

Maybe a coincedence, but the Vault has just uploaded a singles match between the two on the Taker channel. Or does the Vault guy lurk here when hes waiting for the uploads to complete?

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, Chili said:

3 hour best of Brian Pillman comp just dropped. Why Vault, with these uploads you are really spoiling us.

 

I needed this this evening. My all-time favourite. I will bore you all with reviews that none of you deserve.

[stewdogg]

11 hours ago, BigJag said:

Yes! I hope Vladimir is doing well.

This is wonderful. Vlad's passion for wrestling is infectious. Just a hard working guy living his dream, struggling with life the rest of us. 

Given how much his life is wrestling I really hope he is able to afford (and his health holding out) to go to shows. This guy deserves a Wrestlemania black card

 

[WyattSheepMask]

Is that the Vlad thing that was meant to be on the network but then got pulled at the last minute? I want to say there was a Lex Lugar doc that suffered a similar fate.

[The Dart]

19 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Is that the Vlad thing that was meant to be on the network but then got pulled at the last minute?

It wasn't pulled last minute.  They made it, released a trailer for it, but then just took ages to actually release it.  It was on the Network.