The tribological functions of cartilage are governed primarily by its interstitial fluid content, but the means by which cartilage recovers and retains interstitial fluid during articulation following periods of static loading remain unclear. Recently, we demonstrated a phenomenon in which articular cartilage recovers fluid at the loaded contact interface; we refer to this as ‘tribological rehydration’. Our findings were consistent with two competing hypotheses: (1) that hydrodynamic pressures exceeded local interstitial pressures; (2) that fluid from the trailing wedge squeezed into the porous surface during direction reversals (reciprocal wedging). In this paper, we use unidirectional sliding to eliminate the potential effects of reciprocal wedging on tribological rehydration. We observed the same tribological rehydration effects from speed as in our previous reciprocating studies; thus, any effects of reciprocation are secondary to those of sliding itself. Tribological rehydration was enhanced by increased speeds, decreased loads, increased lubricant viscosity, and increased sample diameter. Although our results are generally consistent with a hydrodynamic interpretation of tribological rehydration, our attempts to eliminate the convergence zone by systematically decreasing the sample diameter failed to extinguish tribological rehydration. This final observation reveals an extremely robust mechanism for preventing tissue collapse and highlights some of the remaining challenges in modeling cartilage as a mechanical and tribological material.