video store memories

[jason1980s]

I would enjoy hearing from board memories about their memories of getting wrestling videos from video stores.

Growing up there were three video stores around my area, one was blockbuster and two were independantly run stores. The closest one I would go to a few times a week. By the time I rented all the same videos I probably could have bought the same ones for the $39.99 or $59.99 coliseum video price.

The closest store to me had just about every WWF tape up until 1991. They did have Royal Rumble 91 and 92 and 93, Wrestlemania 7, 8 and 9, 10. They didn't have Summerslam 92 or Survivor Series 91, 92 or 93. They didn't have any WCW but did have a tape from the mid 80s that had a black cover and I think Krusher Kruchev was on the cover-it may have been a PWI issue. They also had Wrestle War 89. When the Hasbro toys came out I took Big Bossman, Akeem and Andre toys to the video store while I got Summerslam 89 with their 6 man tag match. I left the toys there and was crushed! But went back and got them.

The other independant store had a different selection as did blockbuster. The independant store had a lot of In Your House videos and mostly had the latter pay per view tapes the other store didn't have. The had Survivor Series 92 I remember.

Blockbuster had King of the Ring 93, Survivor Series 91, 93, Summerslam 92. They also had a lot of the 1990s larger cardboard box tapes.

I miss those days. To me it's amazing that tapes were so expensive in the 80s and 90s and now you can get a DVD, a shirt and maybe an extra for a lot less through WWE.

[turkeysandwich]

That's interesting.
Almost every Friday, I would get my Mom to stop at Blockbuster and I would rent 2 or 3 tapes for the weekend. The first I ever rented was Wrestlemania 8. That was awesome, I learned so much about wrestling history that I had never known by renting those tapes.

Most all the Blockbusters in my area used to have a whole wrestling section. The one I used to go to all the time (around 1995ish) had the first 11 wrestlemanias, every Summerslam and Survivor Series up to 1994, they had several Supertapes and Best of WWF, I remember they had two WCW tapes, one had Ron Simmons as champion on the cover, and the other I think was Chi-Town Rumble.

There was local video store that had much older video tapes near my school, that I would go to in high school. I remember renting several tapes of WCCW and AWA. The only things I remember about them were that they were really short. I have a vague recollection of an AWA tape that had Larry Zbyszko and Rick Martel on the cover that was only like 30 minutes long of just highlights.

I almost never see wrestling DVDs at video stores anymore. I think the Blockbuster near me may still Tough Enough season 2 and a couple of Divas DVDs from 5 or 6 years ago, I hardly go there anymore, so they may not now.

Also, the main library here had the Ric Flair Ultimate Collection, and since it was listed as a documentary, I got to keep it for 21 days. I've never seen it there again, so I assume someone rented it after me and never returned it.

[johnnyk9]

the days of renting wrestling videos were so magical, it was always my chance to get away from it all and enjoy so good old fashioned coliseum video

[BlackoutCreature]

There were two video stores I remember from where I lived. First was the Blockbuster. It's been open since the early 90's and at no time has ever had more then 6 wrestling video's at a time, none of them from after 1995. The other was the Palmer Video, which eventually became a West Coast Video before closing down about 10 years ago. It was around for about 10 years, and when it first opened it had a huge wrestling section of some pretty obscure stuff. As time went by that section slowly shrunk until it too, only had about 6 video tapes left, all of them pretty horrible.

I think this is the reason why video stores are getting their butts kicked by Netflix and dying. They refuse to accept that people might want to rent something other then the latest hit movie release. In the late 90's there was nothing hotter on cable TV then pro wrestling, but there would be almost no pro wrestling tapes at Blockbuster and what they had was really old and outdated. Transformers was the biggest movie in the theaters a few years ago, but could you go into Blockbuster and find a single Transformers cartoon DVD? No. Their anime section is almost as non-existant as their wrestling section. And there TV on DVD section? Well fat luck if you wanted anything other then The Sopranos or Sex in the City. But I guarantee you Cop Out is gonna get released with about 100 copies sent to each store and posters all over the place to advertise it.

[agent817]

My mom used to be a little annoyed about my "obsession" with wrestling back in the day. Of course, she is more okay with it now, but I was like REALLY into it when I first got into it. She reluctantly rented me some wrestling tapes back then. I know she was really reluctant about it, but did it anyway. The ones I mostly remember her renting for me are Wrestlemania XIV, XII, Unforgiven: IYH, and Over The Edge: IYH. I still remember my local Blockbuster even carrying some old Coliseum Video releases of King of the Ring 93, 96, Wrestlemania XII in its old Coliseum Video form, and Summerslam 94. I wish I had rented those then. Hell, if my Blockbuster were giving out the VHS copies they didn't need anymore, I would have taken them.

[cool245]

There was really only one video store in the area with wrestling tapes. They had a lot of the old Coliseum Videos I think Wrestlemania 12 was the newest (this was in 1999) and the Wrestlemania IV two tape set was the oldest. I rented all the WWF tapes in the store, some multiple times. I remember when a new owner took over she noticed that I rented the tapes a lot and even bought the new pay per view VHS's when they came out for me (even though I was probably the only one that rented them). Unfortunately, after a year or so of her taking over I went in one day for find her closing up and selling off all the movies. I didn't have any money or I would have grabbed a few videos.

[Super Nintenjoe KBD]

We had no wrestling videos in my local video rental outlet. There were two others near enough to us, one had Summerslam 90 to buy only which I saved for weeks and weeks to get, which was obviously well worth it. The other had a couple to rent like UK Rampage 92 or something. But, my mam would sometimes visit her frind who lived on the other side of the city and their video store had an ample selection of Royal Rumbles, Wrestlemanias and the lot. Whenever we'd go Id get a video or two and a McDonalds and bring it back to their house and eat and watch while the grown ups talked in the other room, heaven for 8 year old me!

[probable]

I remember the kids play pen I used to go to (you know, big slides, zip lines, ball pit etc) having a Wrestlemania 7 video in the back of the counter.

I also remember the big f*** off box for Wrestlemania 4 in Blockbuster.

[Deleted]

We had this place called The Video Place in my hometown and our grocery store rented some videos as well. I remember renting all of the PPV's that came out back then and seeing the older ones. We had another place in a bigger city and they had more tapes with a better selection. They had these old tapes with early to mid eighties NWA matches on them. Great stuff.

[cookiemueller]

The store with the best selection around here was called "Mega Video" when they went under Blockbuster bought the stores around here and continued until I was in high school (late 90s) when the biggest one (had tons of 80s and early 90s vids) went out of business my mom was actually happy to take me there to buy up as many as I could. Got every WWF ppv from 1993 as well as a few of the starrcades from the 80s and then some random coliseum compilations. All for a few dollars each.

None of the Blockbusters around here every carried too many though.

[ani]

I remember the local "Captain Video" store had the wrestling next to he low budget horror films ;D

It became Blockbuster...and now it's a dollar store.

[Sir Woodrow]

It was great when I started to get into wrestling becaus thw whole sports section at Civic Video was nothing but Colliseum Video WWF releases and some WCW Vids

[FUNK_US/BRODUS]

It was always a treat fronm my parents as a kid to get a new tape. If memory serves, I had Wrestlemania 8, the Royal Rumble match that Big John Studd won, Summerslam 91, Survivor Series 1992, that video where Mean Gene was renovating a house with the Bushwhackers that had Bret vs Shawn in a ladder match, and maybe a few others. Most of my events were taped off Sky TV.

[Dean-o]

My local Blockbusters never had much, but a local Mom & Pop store had a ton of Coliseum Video releases. I rented them ALL...some multiple times.

Man do I have memories of getting 2-3 PPVs and watching them all weekend long, over and over again. There was also the Best Of Monday Night Raw from 1993, and Bloopers, Bleeps, and Bodyslams which I must have rented 10 times.

[wahoowah11]

I had two places to go too and it was a great selection, they even had nwa/wcw clash of the champions

[El Pollo Guerrera]

I used to work at a video store...

We had a ton of WWF tapes. I would throw a tape on the store's machine Saturday mornings when there were few renting customers and tons of returns to deal with.

[Kick Your Face]

Funny story here.

It wasn't me but back in the early or mid-90s, my friend went up to the counter and asked for Smack 'Em Whack 'Em and the lady just gave his mom a weird look.