Blockbusters

[tiger_rick]

Can I have a V-H-S please, Bob?

When I listen to some American podcasts, particularly the Top Rope Nation pod, they often refer to renting tapes form the video store. It seems to be a massive part of the fandom experience in the late 80s and the 90s. Getting a PPV was a faff and no-one was paying $59.99 or whatever it was they used to advertise the tapes for in WWF Magazine, so renting them was a big thing and the shops seemed to carry a good selection.

What are your memories of going to the video shop for wrestling tapes?

We had an independent video shop (on Beverley Road near the library for those who'll know the area). I remember it had one small bottom shelf that had about 5 wrestling tapes on it. They were nearly all Survivor Series tapes because I vividly recall the shelf being pretty much filled with yellow. I remember renting Survivors 90 and 91 several times. The last tape I recall getting from that video shop was Mania 9. By that time, they still pretty much had the same handful of tapes. Mania 9 was the first new one I remember them ever having after 1991. 

[Arch Stanton]

I remember finding all the covers of the wrestling tapes in the video shop so exciting as a kid, they absolutely popped off the shelves with those vivid colours and hotdog- tanned muscles, but I was never allowed to rent them. If we were renting, it had to be something my sister would want to watch too.

It's a weird thing, but at the time that I first got into WWF, at the age of around seven or eight, my fandom was centred around Hasbros, magazines and trading cards. With no Sky TV at home, I didn't even get to watch any fucking wrestling!

[BomberPat]

the cruelty of it all is that in my early/mid-90s first wave of fandom, my Dad worked in Ritz Video in Beverley, but he hated wrestling and never let me rent any of the videos, so I was just left to stare at them and wonder. The best I got was him letting me rent Wrestlemania The Arcade Game.

By the time I got back into wrestling in late 2000/2001, the game had changed to trying to buy 18 rated ECW videos from HMV. I had a few of them, but can't for the life of me remember or figure out how I ever managed to actually buy them.

7 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

It's a weird thing, but at the time that I first got into WWF, at the age of around seven or eight, my fandom was centred around Hasbros, magazines and trading cards. With no Sky TV at home, I didn't even get to watch any fucking wrestling!

This is something I actually find fascinating, because it rings true with me too - we had Sky, and I did watch bits of wrestling on TV, but my parents and older brothers hated it, so I can't have seen much, because I'd have so rarely had that much control over the living room TV. I saw snippets of C-shows every once in a blue moon, that was it. The intensity of childhood fandom being completely out of proportion to the amount of the thing we actually watched is mental.

[HarmonicGenerator]

21 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

This is something I actually find fascinating, because it rings true with me too - we had Sky, and I did watch bits of wrestling on TV, but my parents and older brothers hated it, so I can't have seen much, because I'd have so rarely had that much control over the living room TV. I saw snippets of C-shows every once in a blue moon, that was it. The intensity of childhood fandom being completely out of proportion to the amount of the thing we actually watched is mental.

It's similar for me too. We didn't have Sky, so I can only have seen the tiniest snippets, maybe at someone else's house, and yet I liked WWF enough to have some Hasbros and the blue ring with the voice buttons ("break it up"). How did I know The Bushwhackers enough to have figures of them?! I vividly remember having an Ultimate Warrior coloring book and knowing who the people in it were. Maybe it was just the bright colours and superheroic characters in the years before Gladiators filled that gap, or maybe WWF was so culturally entrenched that I just knew what it was despite never actually seeing it! 

I can't ever recall any wrestling in our local video shop, but they were one of those ones that had a generic shop cover for all the VHSs anyway, so you had to know what you were looking for or go by title.

[tiger_rick]

Same here. My brothers and I were absolutely obsessed with the WWF despite our only access being the two tapes we actually owned (UK Rampage and British Bulldogs), the occasional rentals and a few times we'd have it taped for us by a cousin or a friend. Hasbros and WWF Magazine were more responsible for our fandom than actually watching.

[JLM]

Yup same here.  I didn’t have Sky and didn’t have any tapes. My mum’s best friend’s kids had Summerslam 90 and Wrestlemania 5 on VHS. My cousins had Battle Royal at The Albert Hall. Later they would also get Wrestlemania 9. Absolutely hammered those shows, but other than that it was figures, videogames, magazines and ungodly amounts of the WWF bubble gum that came with stickers. My friend’s dad worked in a corner shop so he would get full boxes of that gum and hook me up with the stickers. A lot of the time we didn’t even chew the gum. My wardrobe in my bedroom was completely plastered with the stickers from top to bottom. 

Wasn’t until 1997 that I actually started watching regularly, but was a rabid fan for years before that. 

[King Coconut]

There were some Bushido tapes in an independent video shop down my way. We knew nothing about it going in but after watching them it was clear to all of us that wrestling wasn't fake in Japan.

[Chili]

We had a fantastic independent store called quite imaginatively 'THE VIDEO BOX'. The shop didn't have wallpaper and instead the walls were just full of promotional posters for films. I can't begin to imagine how much value they'd rake in now.

This is when I was about 7-11 years old. The selection they had was for WWF: Wrestlemania's 2, 4, 6 & 7 as well as Summerslam 91. Later he got Wrestlemania 14, Unforgiven 98, Summerslam 98 & Judgment Day 98. I can't begin to explain how many times I rented the older tapes as a kid. Eventually my parents decided to occasionally buy me one.

However, the Video Box did also give me my first taste of WCW. I was a bit iffy about renting them because I enjoyed the WWF PPV's so much and so little access to WCW. But one day I must have relented. He only had two WCW tapes. Great American Bash 90 and Superbrawl II. A cracking pair of tapes to introduce me as I saw the Midnight's/Southern Boys match which I still remember blowing me away, and Superbrawl II for seeing Jushin Liger and being really fascinated by his look.

[gmoney]

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

By the time I got back into wrestling in late 2000/2001, the game had changed to trying to buy 18 rated ECW videos from HMV. I had a few of them, but can't for the life of me remember or figure out how I ever managed to actually buy them.

In my local MVC in Chichester they were more than happy to flog you 18 wrestling videos. The first time I was only scuppered because my MVC card (loyalty card that also meant discount on all products) flagged I wasn't old enough. I simply said "oh I didn't even see it was 18!", took another form for the card and signed up again with a fake age. Never had problem after that.

[SuperBacon]

5 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

What are your memories of going to the video shop for wrestling tapes?

Summerslam 88 and Wrestlemania IV from Videos4U which was on the parade of shops on the estate (years until Blockbuster opened up down the road)

My Dad would begrudgingly get them, moan and then get invested before he had to "rest his eyes" for the main event.

I must've rented them so many times honestly.

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

I don’t think I ever rented a wrestling tape, as a family back then my parents were not into films so I cannot even remember us renting any films.

The first wrestling tape I ever brought was UK Rampage 1991, I loved it and even now, still have fond memories of that event, even if Roddy Piper who was from Scotland(!) asked if they had cows in the UK….. 

After that I seem to remember my grandad buying me Survivor Series 1988 from Toy’s R Us as I was fascinated with a 10 man elimination match, this must have been 1991 as well as I always used ask my granddad to take me to Toy’s R Us on a Saturday morning as it had really more or less just opened in Hull.

I always wanted Summerslam 1988 but because it was 15 rating I had no chance

[Kamran]

I don't remember renting any however me and my brothers (I'm the youngest [innocent] of 3) would buy WWF VHS tapes from Our Price, watch them and then exchange them (some of the time)  for another one. We did that for a while until they started wrapping the tape in plastic so they would know if you watched them  We had quite a few in the end like SummerSlam 88, Battle Royal at the Albert Hall, Ultimate Warrior/Hogan specials etc.

[BomberPat]

17 hours ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

Maybe it was just the bright colours and superheroic characters in the years before Gladiators filled that gap

I think this is a big part of it, and that the advent of Gladiators and then Power Rangers is an underappreciated part of why the boom died off in the early '90s; both things that appealed to kids in the same ways as the WWF, but which didn't suffer from your Dad telling you it was all fake. 

[The Reverend]

Put me down as another one of the 'Absolutely obsessed with it - but couldn't actually watch it crowd'. We never had Sky at home so my fandom was also down to the Hasbros, sticker albums, collectors cards and whatever magazines I could get my hands on (mainly the WWF mag, WCW mag, the various Apter mags and then some of those weird ones like Wrestling Eye which featured a lot Indy promotions and then some slightly risque cat-fight and apartment wrestling ads - all very exciting to an 11 year old Rev). 

The local video shops never stocked any wrestling tapes for rent (they missed a trick) but there was a fair old playground economy for them. I had Survivor Series 90 and Royal Rumble 91 on TV copied tapes that had come from mates at school, and which I would watch endlessly. Same goes for the tapes I borrowed off classmates as well including Survivor Series 87 and Wrestlemania 3, as well as a SNME from 1990 (the Octoberfest one). I must have practically worn these out watching them.  

My first tape that I bought was Summerslam '89 from Woolworths - it was a toss up between this or Wrestlemania 2 from the co-op department store. SS won as it had a longer running time (thank god - even though I thought that WM2 had more historical value, what an awful event - I probably still would've played it to death). 

I think the next one was Halloween Havoc '91 as I had been following some of the build-up on the only regular wrestling I could get of WCW Pro on late-night ITV. After that I mainly targeted any kids I knew at school who were into wrestling and begged and borrowed their tapes, no matter how awful they were (those WWF compilation tapes). 

Just mad to think I lived and breathed something I couldn't really watch easily - maybe that was half of the allure of it all. The thrill of the chase, and why having such a dedicated and determined fandom I'm here posting on sites like this one.  

[Cod Eye]

I think I watched every PPV from about 1989 to about 1993 on rented VHS from a store that started as an independent owned by my mates dad, before becoming a Ritz Video and eventually Blockbusters. I remember they were about 99p for 3 nights, so I used to rent them over and over until my dad clicked on and got another VHS player and pirated them as I rented. For some reason, some tapes wouldnt copy and we just ended up with a tape of commentary and scrambled screens(I assume some early copy-protection), but I did end up with a small library of poop quality tapes.

Looking back, the rental stores is THE reason I'm a fan. There is no way I could have had access to wrestling if not for them(Yorkshire Television didnt even really show the WCW stuff most regions got, that I knew of anyway).