Wrestling Memories: Silver Vision/Coliseum Home Video

Wrestling Memories Silver Vision/Coliseum Home Video

Today I want to talk about how I was addicted to collecting WWF VHS tapes in the 90s. Here in the UK, the distribution of WWF videos was handled by a company called Silver Vision. The tapes still had Coliseum Home Video on them as they did in the USA, but it was Silver Vision who put them out here. I had so much fun collecting these and right up to my teenage years and until DVD’s became a thing, these were displayed with pride in my room.


The very first Silver Vision WWF video that I got was The Best of Saturday Nights Main Event. I got this via a poster magazine called Sporting Superstars which was a big deal here in the UK. The reason that I picked this tape was that you got a free series 1 (and yes it was series 1 before people start saying it was series 2!) Hulk Hogan figure and the fact it had The Rockers on the front also made it awesome. I did eventually send in my “stamped addressed envelope” which resulted in me getting their catalog and also being on their mailing list.


Ordering something back in 1990-1991 was not like it is today. You had to wait 4-6 weeks for delivery! It is kind of funny that these days you are ready to kill someone if Amazon’s next day shipping takes a couple of hours longer than you would like, but back then waiting a month was deemed acceptable. I waiting every damn day for that tape to show up and when it did, I watched it over and over again. The best matches were Hulk Hogan vs Big Boss Man in the cage and The Rockers vs The Brain Busters.





The next tape I got which officially started my collection as now I had two, was The Ultimate Warrior. I loved the artwork on these Collector Series VHS tapes and Silver Vision was pretty awesome giving their series a rather uniform look so they looked great on display. I still have that original Saturday Nights Main Event and Ultimate Warrior tapes and the cool thing is I also got these WWF Tattoos at the time and put them on the tape and they are still there. The first PPV event that I got on VHS was SummerSlam 88 which I may be mistaken here, I think was one of if not the first PPV to be released on VHS here in the UK.





In 1992, I started a paper route so I had more disposable income and that was when my collection really exploded. I would purchase tapes all the time and amassed a pretty impressive collection. Around 1992, with Survivor Series 1992 being the first, I am 99 percent sure it was this or Smack Em Whack Em. Silver Vision changed the style of their artwork. Each VHS tape now had this ripped kind of design to it, no matter the show it was. While I liked collecting the different PPV events it was compilation tapes such as Smack Em, Whack Em, Grudge Matches and Battle of the Superstars that I loved. I always enjoyed how they would have these skits as part of the tape usually with Bobby Heenan, Sean Moony and Lord Alfred Hayes.





One of the tapes that I was most excited about was released in 1993 and that was a tape that featured matches from Monday Night RAW. We did not get RAW on TV until 1995 here in the UK and had to make do with highlights on a Saturday morning on WWF Mania. So, getting a tape that was fully dedicated to Monday Night RAW was something that I was very excited for. My WWF VHS collecting came to an end in 2001 when I got a PlayStation 2 and I started purchasing DVDs instead. For a short while not all VHS releases were also on DVD so that was annoying.


One fond memory I have of Silver Vision was when the WWF changed to WWE. Silver Vision had a massive blow out sale of all their products that had the WWF logo on them. I cashed in big time. This would have been in 2002, the year I started university so I had my own place to proudly display my collection, not to mention I also had a good part time job so I had way more disposable income. These days I no longer really collect WWE DVD’s, I think the Shawn Michaels Unreleased Collection was the last one I got. I also sold off a lot of my VHS collection when I made the jump to DVD, but I do still have two huge boxes of tapes.




Silver Vision did an awesome thing when they started their Tagged Classics line of DVD’s., which as far as I know were exclusive to the UK. These were two disc sets that would have two PPV’s or two WWF/E specials on them. For example, you would have one with WrestleMania 1 and 2, SummerSlam 88 and 89. You would also have specials like Year In Review 95 and Year In Review 96. These were not touched up in anyway and were just the VHS slapped onto a DVD. What was great about this was that they were not edited or butchered like many of the WrestleMania, SummerSlam and other “high end and high quality” collections that were put out were. No horrible blurring of the WWF logo, no edited commentary or theme music! They were just the way they were when they were released on VHS.


I have noticed that a lot of the older Silver Vision releases I have started to get pretty bad tape rot. Not that I would ever watch these over firing up the WWE Network of course, but I have heard that my tapes are not the only ones this has happened to so it must be because of the way they were made or the kind of tape they used.


Thanks for reading and I hope the included pictures of some of my collection have made it a bit more interesting. I would love to know your memories of WWF Silver Vision/Coliseum Videos 😊


Oh, one last thing, the early Silver Vision videos had this awesome intro that showed action from the 1988 Survivor Series. This was on a ton of the tapes back in the day and it was something that I never, ever fast-forwarded past.