MECox Posted January 13, 2025 Posted January 13, 2025 15 hours ago, davertfnewman said: For those interested, I believe we got these tapes (edited and often not including the full card): Starrcade '89 WrestleWar '90 Capital Combat The Great American Bash '90 Halloween Havoc '90 Starrcade '90 WrestleWar '91 SuperBrawl 1 The Great American Bash '91 Halloween Havoc '91 Starrcade '91 SuperBrawl 2 WrestleWar '92 Beach Blast '92 The Great American Bash '92 Halloween Havoc '92 Starrcade '92 SuperBrawl 3 Slamboree '93 Beach Blast '93 Fall Brawl '93 Halloween Havoc '93 We were that close to getting Flair/Vader on tape! (This is of course during the era we're talking about, not the later run of videos during the Nitro era.) WCW VHS trivia; Slamboree and Havoc 93 were not released in the UK, although they were released in the US. Starrcade 90, Starrcade 92 and Fall Brawl 93 were the only complete shows of that UK VHS era, maybe minus an interview here and there. Beach Blast and Fall Brawl 93 were released at the same time after a long delay in new tapes, one had half the matches cut, the other complete! Shows continued to be released in the US market. Havoc 93 thru Spring Stampede 94 were all complete but EP speed tapes. But, if you were lucky enough, there were SP speed versions of Starrcade 93 and Slamboree/Stampede 94 floating around. I’ve no idea how I found out about/realised this. The UK didn’t get a look in again until WCW magazine started offering PPV VHS via mail order. Not 100% but I think this began with Souled Out 1998. In the Anglia TV region 93/94 Worldwide was airing Saturday afternoons but also around 1am on either a Thursday or Friday morning. Although both airings were edited, they 100% showed a longer cut in the am version.
Chili Posted January 13, 2025 Posted January 13, 2025 (edited) I think the lack of VHS and PPV availability might be what clouded my mind for a long time that WCW, whilst really good was very much the Burger King of American wrestling to English fans. Yeah WWF were on first with Sky, but they still marketed better regardless. Edited January 13, 2025 by Chili
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted January 13, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 13, 2025 I don't think I ever met anyone in the real world who'd ever watched WCW. Even in the nWo days when I knew people who loved the N64 game, I never spoke to anyone who'd watched it. The video covers bring back memories for me too. I think Halloween Havoc 1991 was the first WCW PPV I ever saw. I got the tape from a game shop that also swapped tapes and CDs. I don't know when it would have been. Probably around 1996, I think but could have been earlier. Though my disposable income before 1996 generally didn't stretch very far and was normally spent on Match magazine, Merlin stickers or Corinthian big-heads.
Paid Members garynysmon Posted January 13, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 13, 2025 2 hours ago, air_raid said: Heavy Metal Van Hammer vs Maxx Payne in arm wrestling was definitely the way to my heart. I’m pretty certain that was the first episode I ever saw thanks to mum’s VHS skills, so December 92. WCW must have found itself in a better timeslot (HTV Wales at least) by mid 1993.
LCJ Posted January 13, 2025 Posted January 13, 2025 Think some ITV regions stopped showing WCW before others. Pretty sure I recall Granada not showing WCW in 1995 but Central still did (in Cheshire, we could get Central but the picture was that snowy, it was barely watchable). Granada didn’t show Thunder in Paradise either whereas a lot of other ITV regions did.
WyattSheepMask Posted January 13, 2025 Posted January 13, 2025 I genuinely don’t remember ever seeing WCW on TV until Nitro started airing after Cartoon Network finished and it became TNT. I know people mention about it being on ITV but I can only assume it didn’t air in the Yorkshire region otherwise I’d have been all over it, unless it did air and it just completely passed me by. I don’t recall ever seeing a WCW video in a shop until HMV started stocking the latter PPVs around 1999 along with those Best of Hogan and Best of Sting videos
Chico Torres Posted January 13, 2025 Posted January 13, 2025 WCW was definitely shown on LWT in 1991, I remember seeing Steiners beat the Freebirds for the titles on one of the Saturday shows. This would have been early 1991. I’m sure up until around April 1992 the show we were getting was WCW Pro not WCW Worldwide, commentators were Lance Russell and the Freebirds and then Jim Ross solo later in the year until the switch to Worldwide and Tony and Jesse. First time I saw a cage match was on the Pro show in late 1991 with Big Josh, Dustin Rhodes, Tommy Rich and a few others (6 man tag). Main memories is that when WWF got really big here in 1991, the rich kids had Sky and would talk about all this cool shit like Undertaker locking the Ultimate Warrior in a casket and the snake biting Macho Man but the rest of us poor plebs contented ourselves with the likes of Van Hammer and PN Newz and the Yellow Dog and were hoping our parents would take us to the WCW Roar Power tour in London in 1991 but never did.
Paid Members air_raid Posted January 13, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 13, 2025 14 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said: I don’t recall ever seeing a WCW video in a shop until HMV started stocking the latter PPVs around 1999 along with those Best of Hogan and Best of Sting videos I picked up Fall Brawl 93 from my nearest John Menzies (that eventually became a WH Smiths) though anything older from Starrcade 89 onwards, I only ever picked up from car boots or charity shops. It's a shame that those mail-away ones from Clear Vision where you could buy Uncensored 97-SuperBrawl IX only managed to retrospectively release Bash At The Beach 96 before they stopped coming out.
Paid Members Jazzy G Posted January 13, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 13, 2025 I remember buying a box set of the first 5 WCW PPVs of 2000 on VHS from Longsight market for a tenner backin 2005. Another stall further down had the same box set and was charging £40 for it. They were pretty awful shows from a wrestling standpoint, but in terms of what was going on in WCW it is an interesting snapshot of the landscape at the time as it covers the New Blood/Millionaire's Club stuff, and the David Arquette title reign.
Chili Posted January 13, 2025 Posted January 13, 2025 9 minutes ago, Jazzy G said: I remember buying a box set of the first 5 WCW PPVs of 2000 on VHS from Longsight market for a tenner backin 2005. Another stall further down had the same box set and was charging £40 for it. They were pretty awful shows from a wrestling standpoint, but in terms of what was going on in WCW it is an interesting snapshot of the landscape at the time as it covers the New Blood/Millionaire's Club stuff, and the David Arquette title reign. Yeah I had the same, I also had Starrcade 99 and GAB 2000 to bookend those. Horrible but fascinating shows.
Paid Members air_raid Posted January 13, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 13, 2025 12 minutes ago, Jazzy G said: I remember buying a box set of the first 5 WCW PPVs of 2000 on VHS from Longsight market for a tenner backin 2005. You were fleeced.
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted January 13, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 13, 2025 @mim731 and @David Mantell I am not going to argue you with you there. I am certain that my first exposure was on a Friday night with Married with Children and American Gladiators. Saturdays for me were Movies, Games and Videos, The Munsters Today and NBA Jam Session (at various points). I must have been out on Grandstand was on instead for me to have missed WCW during the day. As an aside did Carlton ever show Thunder in Paradise? I was aware ITV did show it, but again never saw it myself.
Chili Posted January 13, 2025 Posted January 13, 2025 While we're all chatting WCW, Guy Evans has a follow up to his Nitro book in April and here's a great little extract with Jenni Sloan, the lady who designed the nWo logo.
davertfnewman Posted January 13, 2025 Posted January 13, 2025 With the talk of the late night airings, I do recall the days where people would put a tape in when they went to bed and would just let it record to try and catch stuff. Problem with that is that you had to tape over it again the next week as you had to use the same method and couldn't guarantee keeping what you already had.
Chico Torres Posted January 13, 2025 Posted January 13, 2025 41 minutes ago, davertfnewman said: With the talk of the late night airings, I do recall the days where people would put a tape in when they went to bed and would just let it record to try and catch stuff. Problem with that is that you had to tape over it again the next week as you had to use the same method and couldn't guarantee keeping what you already had. A lot of tapes filled with The Hitman and Her, Get Stuffed, American Gladiators and other late night ITV programming just so you hopefully taped the Young Pistols vs York Foundation feature bout.
Recommended Posts