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Wrestling fandom

Snabbit888Posted on 08/29/05 at 01:24:55

With the question of age in a previous thread, it got me wondering this question. How did all of you get to become wrestling fans? What made you start watching? For me, it was a weird combination of two things. I've been watching since late January of '93. The two things that got me hooked were:

1) While visiting my grandma, one of the things we always got to do is that my mom would give me and my older brother $5 each to buy whatever we wanted at Ben Franklin's (anyone esle remember that goofy place?). While there, I happened upon a copy of the WWF Magazine and it had a picture of Yokozuna on the cover as he had just won the Royal Rumble. He just looked larger than life, so I bought the magazine and read it, and I loved it.

And number 2 is a little less impressive...

2) Other than briefly getting to see when Jake Roberts' sanek bit Randy Savage, I didn't really have any remembrance of watching wrestling. The first thing I watched that got me completely hooked on wrestling and made me not stop watching since was a episode of Superstars. Flipping through, the first thing I saw was Kona Crush being loaded into an ambulance, because the evil Doink had beaten him silly with a plaster arm. Yes, a plaster arm. In hindsight, that's one of the goofiest things ever, but I was enthralled at the time, and I made sure I watched wrestling as often as I could. I started renting old videos and watching the PPVs. To think, that's what hooked me.

My two favorites at the time were Crush and Tatanka. I hate Brian Adams now, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for Tatanka, even if he did break my heart by selling out to the Million Dollar Man. :(
americamamushiPosted on 08/29/05 at 02:19:16

I believe I must've happened upon wrestling sometime on TV when I was really young.  I seriously have been watching wrestling as long as I can remember.  I can't remember a time "Before wrestling" in my life.  I had to have come across it and wanted to watch it myself because no one in my family likes wrestling.  So as far as I can remember i've always watched wrestling (and always wanted to be a wrestler too, but that's a different story)
CarlzillaPosted on 08/29/05 at 02:44:17

I was really really young...I came home from my grandparents house and my dad had rented the first WrestleMania, I think the year would have been about 1986 or 87. I was hooked after that. I watched all the wrestling I could find, and was really happy when ESPN 2 played an hour of GWF everyday and the timeslot was shortly after I got out school. I used to go home and watch Eddie Gilbert and the Patriot and Scott Putski...it was awesome!

However I had a falling out with wrestling right before the attitude era in the WWF started. I got sick of all the taped segments and the lack of actual matches. I never really stopped loving wrestling though, I just didn't have any wrestling to watch, since I hadn't discovered puroresu at that point. I found the sweetness of japanese pro-wres about 3 years after the attitude era started so about 1999ish...and I've haven't really touched the WWE since.
Magister369Posted on 08/29/05 at 03:14:14

I started watching wrestling when channel 9 in NYC carried
WWF at midnite on saturday's. then I picked up CWF on channel 47 in the mid-late 70's. I have followed wrestling ever since, through all the good and bad of WWF or WCW
finally picked up puro in late 90's and also lucha as welll, fortunatly there is more than just WWE out there to watch.
AzraelPosted on 08/29/05 at 03:38:57

I think I started watching wrestling when I was like 6. There was a rerun of a Saturday Night Main Event on NBC or something and it was Mr. T and Hogan vs. somebody. I watched it when I could, but didn't get hooked until the Tito Santana/Mr. Perfect II match for the Intercontinental Title.
UnrightPosted on 08/29/05 at 04:07:52

The first wrestling I ever remember watching was a match between Hulk Hogan and one of the Killer Bees. It was a lumberjack match.

I remember Hulk won, then unmasked the Killer Bee. The guy hid his face and ran away to the locker room. I was confused as to why the crowds were cheering Hulk Hogan since I thought he was kind of a jerk for doing that.

So I kept watching...
FormulaFirebird91Posted on 08/29/05 at 08:10:16

Saturday Night's Main event... early 89 I believe... before the mega powers EXPLODED. haha All I remember was watching Hogan go at it with Akeem.... Bossman interfered... cuffed Hogan I believe and Savage came running out looking like crazed Pirate. (his outfit... only thing missing was an eye patch and a peg leg). Seems to me Beefcake fought the Outlaw Ron Bass that night too... and shaved his head. I can never remember exactly. Anyway after that I was sort of hooked I had just turned 10 and my mom was against me watching wrestling but after sneaking it in every saturday morning. After that mom finally gave in to me and it became a fun new way to punish me when I got bad grades or did something wrong. Bad grade... whoops no wrestling for me for 2 weeks.   (Still snuck it in. :D ) But I've been a fan ever since then.  

The first Wrestlemania I saw was 5 and to this day it is still my favorite wrestlemania. Just wish I'd started a few  years sooner... I live about 40 minutes from the Pontiac Silverdome. Would have been cool to see Hogan/Andre live.

ZedjaPosted on 08/29/05 at 08:55:24

I have never seen wrestling live, but I think my interest started a bit before they begun showing it on Swedish Television. The matches I could watch was far between.

I don't know when they released the first Music Video featuring Bret the Hitman Hart, Jim Duggan, Big Bossman, Gene Okerlund etc. I think it was called "We will survive" But it was someplace before that.

I actually have two music videos on tape.
Oliver CoppPosted on 08/29/05 at 12:56:41

For me, it was rather dramatic. Having lived in El Paso back then, my parents got free tickets for a show in Dallas at a local car dealership.

Turns out that show was the big one at Texas Stadium where Kerry Von Erich finally beat Ric Flair for the NWA Title.

My parents thought it sucked but I was hooked :)
Dragon_XPosted on 08/29/05 at 15:10:11

I can honestly say that I was raised on wrestling.  Both of my parents loved watching wrestling.  I remember my mother making posters for Tommy "Wildfire" Rich and Rowdy Roddy Piper.  The first live event that I can remember (and pictures help) included a cage match involving Buzz Sawyer.

My father and some of his friends were so into wrestling, that they would wrestle in the yard and even made a championship belt.

Ahhh, backyard wrestling before ICP. ;D
John ProulxPosted on 08/29/05 at 22:02:57

I'm not sure how I originally got into wrestling, either. I think I was probably looking for cartoons on a Saturday morning and came across one of the old WWF syndicated shows. I'd guess it was around 1980 or so. Bob Backlund was World Champ, Pedro Morales was IC champ, and I'm not sure who were the tag champs. I remember being so disappointed when Morales' leg went out from under him, allowing Don Muraco to win the IC title. I also remember the tag titles going amongst the teams of Garea/Martel, Fuji/Saito, the Wild Samoans, and then my first true "mark-out" moment, when the Strongbow brothers finally won them.

I don't really watch wrestling much since WCW closed down. I occasionally check out a WWE show, and for a while I was trying to check out the TNA shows on Friday. The only things keeping me going are the occasional foray into an e-fed and TNM :) .

Oh, and yes, Snabbit, I know Ben Franklin. When I used to visit my Dad's family in Minnesota in the summer, we'd always make a visit to the one in Crookston. Last I knew, it was still there, but that was around '97, so who knows?
Jimbo_from_MemphoPosted on 08/29/05 at 23:43:22

As my nickname suggests, I grew up close to Memphis, Tennessee. So every Saturday morning WMC Channel 5 in Memphis had pro wrestling on. Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, and all the AWA and World Class wrestlers were on, as well as getting to see the Lawler-Andy Kaufman stuff every weekend really got me going. I also remember seeing Andre the Giant and Dusty Rhodes on television quite a bit as a child.

I also remember watching all the NWA stuff on TBS when I got a bit older and really looking forward to seeing Ric Flair, the Four Horsemen and the Road Warriors as often as I could.
FormulaFirebird91Posted on 08/30/05 at 02:07:29

Wow there might still be  a Ben Franklin in operation? They all went out around here years and years ago. But I remember going to them when I was younger.  
Jimbo_from_MemphoPosted on 08/30/05 at 05:27:13

Wow...I haven't seen a Ben Franklin since the '70s...that takes me back.
Oliver CoppPosted on 08/30/05 at 10:17:18

It might not be of much help to you guys but there's a Ben Franklin in Singapore on Orchard Road :)
Snabbit888Posted on 08/30/05 at 10:42:57

On 08/30/05 at 10:17:18, Oliver Copp wrote:It might not be of much help to you guys but there's a Ben Franklin in Singapore on Orchard Road :)
Oh my!  Three years for Singapore, keeping the faith alive! :)
AllPowerfulGARTHPosted on 08/31/05 at 04:06:11

I don't post in this particular forum too often, but I can't not answer this one.

I got into wrestling because I kick ass with Spinal in "Killer Instinct."

I was part of a "Killer Instinct" tournament at a local electronics store, and along with a T-shirt and a gift certificate, I somehow ended up winning a tips & tricks video for WWF Raw in its SNES/Genesis incarnation.  After letting the video gather dust for awhile, I busted it out one day and popped it in.  Mind you, this video was made for a game that came out in 1994, and it was late fall of 1995 when I first watched it.  Because I didn't have cable at the time, it was the only exposure I'd had to pro wrestling in years.  And it wasn't exactly the most impressive thing ever.  Goofy WWF personalities like Razor Ramon, Doink the Clown and Luna Vachon explaining how to perform their finishing moves for an SNES game?  Okay, sure.  Paul Bearer's explanations were the best.  "To execute a boot to the face, on Super Nintendo, press Y!  And on Genesis, it's AB!  OHHHH YESSSS!"

But tucked away in that video were a couple of match clips.  One was Razor Ramon pinning Rick Martel to win the Intercontinental Title in 1993.  One was Lex Luger beating Bam Bam Bigelow.  And one was a clip from an absolutely stellar WWF Title match between Bret Hart and the 1-2-3 Kid.  I was enthralled.  And not necessarily because of Bret, though he was impressive.  Every impression I had about pro wrestling involved it being full of greased-up muscleheads with deep, threatening voices.  But the 1-2-3 Kid was this crazy athletic daredevil with an arsenal of martial arts moves, and he wasn't nearly as annoying as Razor, Luna, and Shawn Michaels (who I thought were the most irritating three on the video).

That's right.  I became a wrestling fan because of Sean Fucking Waltman.  Even though he'd sold out to Ted DiBiase and turned heel by the time my family got cable at the very beginning of 1996, he was still my favorite wrestler for awhile.  When he cost Razor Ramon, whom I hated, the IC Title at the 1996 Royal Rumble, it was a great moment.

The Rumble match itself was the clincher.  Almost everything I thought I knew about the Rumble was derived from the WWF Raw video game.  The real-life Royal Rumble has 12 participants, six at a time, and when one gets eliminated, another comes in to replace him...right?  The Rumble was a zillion times better than I was expecting it to be, and even though I turned on Shawn Michaels halfway through (I'd wanted him to win because of his "concussion" caused by Owen Hart, but he immediately became my sworn enemy the minute he ousted the 1-2-3 Kid), it was still enough to hook me.  Still my favorite pay-per-view, by the way.

Though Waltman is anything but my favorite wrestler now.
YunPosted on 09/05/05 at 19:12:40

Sean Waltman? I got ya beat.

I became a wrestling fan because of the Insane Clown Posse.

When I was learning Korean part of our tests were one on one speaking tests with the instructors. Naturally this left most of the class with a lot of down time, so someone brought in ICP's "Stranglemania" video. Stranglemania, for those who don't know, is a bunch of Japanese deathmatches (including some from the famous King of the Deathmatch tournament) with ICP overdubbing commentary. Even through the cringing (both at ICP's alleged humor and at the matches, themselves) I could see there was something special about this "Cactus Sac" guy. I'm not sure how, but I knew his name was really Cactus Jack.

Fast forward about two years. I'd been into anime fanfiction for a few years, and this one group of authors called "Improfanfic" had an ongoing story called "Ultra" which put anime martial artists into "Sports Entertainment" type situations, and was written in an episodic format.

One of the authors wrote a side story which pit the Ultra roster against the WWF roster of the time (mid-1999.) Matches included Ranma Saotome vs Triple H, Sephiroth vs The Undertaker, and my personal favorite, Hardcore Holly getting squashed (literally) by an Evangelion which then had to fight a genetically enhanced (really really) Big Show. The match relevant to this story, though, is Mankind vs Mr. Satan (a Dragonball Z character known as "Hercule" in the US.)

Re-enter ICP. A friend had their "Amazing Jekyll Brothers" album and lent it to me, saying she found them funny. In the album's liner notes was an ad for a movie they had made, and listed in the credits was "Mankind (Cactus Sac)"

Me: Holy $#!+, Mankind and Cactus Jack are the same person!

I tuned in to Raw the next week, and never looked back. Incidentally, Mick Foley remains my favorite wrestler of all time to this day.
JoeDesertratPosted on 09/25/05 at 05:01:23

A long time ago when I was about 10 or so I remember changing the antenna wires on the tv from the VHF to the UHF position (most of you probably have no idea what that means) and twisting the dial to view all the channels past 13 (or that). I came across a Spanish station (65) out of Newark that had wrestling on it. I remember a big wrestler (I always thought his name was Crusher Perdue but never heard the name again) that used a Boston crab to defeat his opponent. I checked when I could after that but never found wrestling there again.
A year or so later I discovered the WWWF. At the time Pedro Morales was the champion so that had to make it somewhere between 1971 and 1973. A seemingly invincible villain would arise to challenge for his title and he would manage to vanquish them each time (Pampero Firpo is one that comes to mind) and then they would usually disappear. I went to Shea Stadium to see Bruno Sammartino's comeback match against Morales which ended in a 1 hour time limit draw and Italian, Puerto Rican and US flags being waived. The Fabulous Moolah retained the women's title that day as well and George the Animal Steel made an appearance. I remember rooting for the tag teams of Victor Rivera & Manuel Soto (I believe they were the champs but I never hear them mentioned anywhere - lots of drop kicks), Sonny King & Chief Jay Strongbow (eventually champions) and against the heels Mr. Fuji & Toro Tanaka.
I was always interested in wrestling after that but only managed to catch it sporadically. I can remember a circuit in that time period that had Mil Mascaras as the champion (might have been in Spanish).
Eventually the (renamed) WWF came to Saturday mornings (late 70's, early 80's ?) and I could follow it regularly. My sister's then husband went to Iron Mike Sharpe's wrestling school in Brick and actually managed to get on TV twice.
On Saturday nights the AWA or NWA had a show that almost always went off the air with a big brawl with most of the locker room coming out. They never told you what happened either on later shows. The Freebirds, Rock 'n' Roll Express, the Midnight Express, the Von Erichs, the 4 Horseman, the Road Warriors and others made it an exciting show.
Although my mind is clouded by the years and beers somewhere in all that on various programs I remember Bruiser Brody (I think it was him) taking a bite out of wine glass during a promo and spitting blood all over the place while he made his rant. I remember Andre the Giant in a hilarious "handicap" match against 7 midgets that ended with him stacking them up and sitting on them for the pin.
I find myself disappointed in wrestling now. With the decline and fall of ECW, stupid gimmicks like the nWo, Triple H, the lack of good personalities and generally poor writing it just doesn't hold the same interest it used to. That's why I play TNM.
91Posted on 09/25/05 at 11:05:49

On 09/25/05 at 05:01:23, JoeDesertrat wrote:...stupid gimmicks like the nWo...
Snuh? You mean the nWo which changed the entire wrestling landscape and single handidly made WCW the biggest wrestling organisation in the world for two years and drew shedloads of money? Stupid?
JoeDesertratPosted on 09/25/05 at 21:30:38

On 09/25/05 at 11:05:49, 91 wrote:

Snuh? You mean the nWo which changed the entire wrestling landscape and single handidly made WCW the biggest wrestling organisation in the world for two years and drew shedloads of money? Stupid?
Initially it was interesting but as soon as it lost it's "outsider" status it began to get extremely boring. Every week it was the same thing. The few who stood up to the nWo got overwhelmed and stomped. And of course once everyone was in the nWo it was really ridiculous. I think that's what allowed Austin and WWE Raw to overtake it. I know I watched it less and less. And apparently everyone else eventually did too.
Of course, WWE now does the same thing on a smaller scale. There's just nothing else to watch.
91Posted on 09/25/05 at 23:32:21

Well whilst the way it panned out was indeed stupid, the concept of the gimmick itself (by definition what you were criticising) was very good. In any event, Steve Austin was so hot that even if the nWO hadn't stuffed up (let's pinpoint Starrcade 97 as a good starting point), the WWF probably would have overtaken WCW on merit anyway.