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Your Wrestling Breaking Point


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I'm taking Loss's advice and starting a thread instead of continuing this discussion in the large general comments thread......

 

In that aforementioned thread, I made a comment about spotting only three females in the audience through the first disc of an ECW comp. This eventually led to a few posts about silliness/crudeness in wrestling, and what angles/gimmicks eventually drove people away from caring about wrestling.

 

I threw in the towel when the Dungeon of Doom came along. I was about 15 years old, so perhaps I was naturally growing out of wrestling because it wasn't "cool" at the time, but the Dungeon of Doom definitely put me over the edge. I tried, tried and tried to tell myself that the whole schtick was so bad, it was good, but I just couldn't do it. I was done, and haven't cared about the modern product all that much since.

 

I came back for a bit when the NWO was formed, and stuck around for a while because of the cruiserweights on Nitro, but bored quickly of the NWO and their rambling, pointless promos/angles. I watched a few PPVs during the Attitude era because my friends enjoyed wrestling once it became cool again, but never did follow it on a weekly basis.

 

I'm giving the WWE another try, mostly because I went to Raw a few weeks back and am intrigued by Rock/Cena, Taker/HHH and anything CM Punk does. I don't see my interest lasting much longer, though. Unless Rock, Taker, or Punk is on the screen, the WWE is barely watchable.

 

Is it fair to blame my apathy toward modern wrestling solely on the Dungeon of Doom? No. If the Dungeon of Doom was the ONLY horrible thing in wrestling back then, I'm sure I could look past it and enjoy the other stuff. But I distinctly remember watching Kevin Sullivan dissapear into a mist or some other bullshit, turning off the TV, and never enjoying wrestling the same way again.

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I'd like to hear more about what about the Dungeon of Doom you didn't like. More so elaborate on what about it pushed you over the edge. Just saying that it was bad doesn't really invite discussion as you are assuming that everyone agress with you. Which, while that may be true, isn't a great discussion.

 

Now onto the question, my mindset towards wrestling is severely warped because I have been a part of the business for so long. I don't know if I have a point where I will say nope I am no longer interested. But on the flip side, I am always far more interested in seeing guys I have known wrestling and having their chance to shine more so than their gimmicks.

 

I am however a huge fan of over the top and ridiculous gimmicks, theatrics, and the like so personally I always dug the Dungeon of Doom because I appreciated the theatrics and the over the top memorable nature of the ridiculous characters they came out with. Bottom line is that I can probably remember more dungeon of doom members than I can ROH wrestlers because they all look the same to me. So... there is my rambling response

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My breaking point was the reaction from everyone in wrestling to the Benoit tragedy, which was pretty disgusting and made me hate wrestling for a few years, because I couldn't watch anything without noticing how many people were dead/in prison/wrecked their lives when watching old stuff, and WWE not changing a thing about how they hire, fire and push people made it hard to enjoy new stuff. He who increases knowledge increases sorrow, I suppose.

 

It's not that I would have expected anything different, but not using that tragedy as a chance to apologize for the past, re-examine all of wrestling's norms and attempt to clean things up got to me, because I couldn't help but wonder why I was watching this shit.

 

Before that, I had watched wrestling since at least 1983, becoming a pretty religious wrestling watcher in 1988 when I got old enough to use my allowance to buy magazines and never really stopping from there.

 

Beyond that, I have my personal ideas of what wrestling should be, but I don't really insist on them in order to enjoy something. But angles (not "storylines", but championship chases and heel beatdowns to build up big matches -- that sort of thing) dropping off in quality have made it difficult to stay invested. I think one of my favorite things to do is watch a guy rise through the ranks to the top, and repeatedly seeing that start to happen only for it to be a false alarm made me stop caring eventually.

 

It goes against every sensibility I have as a wrestling fan to have Punk and Bryan having world champ vs world champ matches on a weekly basis in throwaway TV segments with no one noticing, when that's the type of thing that could have filled a dome and broke PPV records in a different era. The champions should be several steps above everyone else, and I think kids growing up and not getting a chance to have arguments for years about who would win between Punk and Bryan are missing out. Anyone who followed wrestling in the 80s knows how big the Hogan/Flair comparisons were. Dream matches don't really exist these days and that's a shame.

 

Good wrestling is about the whole, not the sum of its parts. I've never really looked at wrestling in a compartmentalized way. Promos and other outside-the-ring stuff are there to build heat and enhance the in-ring, so without any of that, sure it's possible to have a great match, but it's much harder to make anyone care about it.

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It's funny, my breaking point was not due to any embarrassing angle or scandal but due to simply saturation. I had these hundreds of unwatched DVDs in 2006/2007 that I'd be so excited to get, as well as the plethora of stuff appearing online with torrents and YouTube, and suddenly I didn't feel like watching any of it. When there's that much volume of stuff you always tend to go for the 'Best of all Time' type matches, angles and they invariably disappoint because of high expectations. When I was watching 06/03/94 and thinking how overrated it was was when I decided to give up the ghost for a while. If you can't get into the Best Match Ever then what hope is there? Plus it detracts from what got you in to wrestling in the first place, the weekly TV and varied promotions and characters. If every match you watch is a good match, it ceases to become a good match. You get complacent. I found I was more interested in the character than the wrestler, and the things that I dug were getting less and less.

 

Plus, with WWE I'd been watching on and off for eight years since I was a kid and had the feeling I'd seen it all before. The breaking point I suppose was the number of boring stereotype characters (anti-USA foreigners like Renee Dupree or Kenzo Suzuki), the paint by numbers wrestling style and just general lack of innovation. The two champions meant I had to put up with title reigns from the likes of JBL and Booker-T and I wasn't even really a fan of Cena or Batista on top in terms of weekly television, even if they often brought out reasonable matches on PPV.

 

At the same time, ROH had lost most stars, and with every match becoming an epic intense fest of a million kickouts I just got bored. Japan had declined, and I found that I was only interested in seeing guys like KENTA, Nakajima and various flippy juniors, with the heavyweight scene in AJPW, NJ and even NOAH becoming so boring and lacking in quality matches and interesting challengers.

 

Individual angles were never a 'breaking point' for me as I just skipped past them. I'm pretty desensitized to the point where nothing ever shocked or disgusted me into giving wrestling up for life. A boring, characterless product is more offensive to me than one filled with moments of cringe.

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I'd like to hear more about what about the Dungeon of Doom you didn't like. More so elaborate on what about it pushed you over the edge. Just saying that it was bad doesn't really invite discussion as you are assuming that everyone agress with you. Which, while that may be true, isn't a great discussion.

You're really going to make me go in-depth on the Dungeon of Doom? :)

 

I love gimmicks also, but there's a fine line between a gimmick and just plain stupid. Obviously, everyone's line is different and the Dungeon of Doom crossed my line. Why? I think because even though I enjoy gimmicks, I still need the gimmick to be somewhat beileveable. Casting spells on people and having mummies wander into the ring isn't remotely believeable and, to me, was just stupid.

 

As stupid as gimmicks like American-hating Sgt. Slaughter or Brutus the Barber Beefcake might have been, they didn't bother me because they were somewhat believeable. In my young brain, an Iraqi-sympathizer trying to beat up Hulk Hogan or some juiced up dude in mesh pants cutting a guy's hair after he beats him up made sense to me, at least a little bit.

 

When the Dungeon of Doom came around, nothing made sense and all I saw was stupidity. But like I said in my original post, I'm sure there were other factors. I was getting older, wrestling wasn't "cool" at the time, etc. I'm still a huge wrestling fan -- my closet is full of 80s and early 90s footage -- but ever since the Dungeon, I haven't paid much attention to the modern product.

 

Maybe it's not completely fair to blame most of my disinterest in modern wrestling on the Dungeon of Doom, but that's the time period and storyline that stick in my head as the one that drove me away.

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Breaking Point #1

Spring 1992. Papa Shango and the black ooze scaring the crap out of me (I remember being 10 and seeing it at my grandparents' house distinctly). End of the Dangerous Alliance. KOing of the Light Heavyweight Title in WCW. I came back with the local hype for Mania XIV in Boston and then really watching Nitro, with Jericho and the internet both big factors. I got into indy wrestling, watching pimped matches, workrate, etc.

 

Breaking Point #2. I moved to England for a year for school in Sept 03- Sept 04. Granted, I only watched two things on TV for that entire year and one was WM XX. But when I came back I barely went to shows anymore and I didn't follow it nearly as closely. I was still casual though.

 

Breaking Point #2.1. When I moved in with my wife-to-be in June, 2007, that was basically it. I was pretty much closeted with her to begin with, and far, far away from 95% of the people I'd watch wrestling with when I was younger. I'm sure there's some alternate reality where I started to go to shows with Mr. Odessasteps or actually made the trek down to VA to see the Playaz, but it was not to be. 24 days after I moved in, Benoit happened and that was it for me.

 

when I got the exercise bike, pre-wedding in 2009, I started to watch, while riding, pre-headdrop-y low-impact stuff. Late 80s WWF. I also started to go with whole shows instead of going for specific matches. I started watching morebroadly. Then with Justin.tv I got into old territories more and more...

 

and now with that down I'm just watching 08 ECW and waiting for the AWA discs i suppose.

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I'd like to hear more about what about the Dungeon of Doom you didn't like. More so elaborate on what about it pushed you over the edge. Just saying that it was bad doesn't really invite discussion as you are assuming that everyone agress with you. Which, while that may be true, isn't a great discussion.

You're really going to make me go in-depth on the Dungeon of Doom? :)

 

I love gimmicks also, but there's a fine line between a gimmick and just plain stupid. Obviously, everyone's line is different and the Dungeon of Doom crossed my line. Why? I think because even though I enjoy gimmicks, I still need the gimmick to be somewhat beileveable. Casting spells on people and having mummies wander into the ring isn't remotely believeable and, to me, was just stupid.

 

As stupid as gimmicks like American-hating Sgt. Slaughter or Brutus the Barber Beefcake might have been, they didn't bother me because they were somewhat believeable. In my young brain, an Iraqi-sympathizer trying to beat up Hulk Hogan or some juiced up dude in mesh pants cutting a guy's hair after he beats him up made sense to me, at least a little bit.

 

When the Dungeon of Doom came around, nothing made sense and all I saw was stupidity. But like I said in my original post, I'm sure there were other factors. I was getting older, wrestling wasn't "cool" at the time, etc. I'm still a huge wrestling fan -- my closet is full of 80s and early 90s footage -- but ever since the Dungeon, I haven't paid much attention to the modern product.

 

Maybe it's not completely fair to blame most of my disinterest in modern wrestling on the Dungeon of Doom, but that's the time period and storyline that stick in my head as the one that drove me away.

 

 

I can understand where you are going there, having a paper thin veneer of a story can make something that seems ridiculous work much much better. I wholeheartedly believe that is why some gimmicks fail completely is that their story doesnt even pass a glance test. I have often wondered for somethign like the yeti if they had taken some time to establish that they were forcing some big oaf to become this mummy via Kevin Sullivan's control of the black arts leading to this crazed monster who had been brainwashed into thinking he was a mummy? That would have been awesome to me.

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Breaking point 1. Came some time in 1995. Around the period where Hogan had totally fucking wrecked the WCW product I loved, and WWF was all Men on a Mission, multiple Doinks, the Godwinns, etc. etc. Think the actual thing that did it was DiBiase get slopped.

 

Breaking point 2. The brand split basically. For me wrestling has never been the same again, for a variety of reasons.

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I don't know that I had a "breaking point," but I've definitely had points where I thought this wasn't for me before. I do remember specifically going to a Raw/Smackdown double taping in July of 2006, it might have been July 4th weekend. I remember going to the show with two of my friends, and being surrounded by kids with their parents, and thinking to myself, "What am I doing here? I'm the only adult who isn't here with a kid." Prior to that, I'd go to a lot of WWE TV tapings in Philly and New Jersey, but I haven't gone to one since, only PPVs and a house show, and that's mostly because I've been fortunate enough to not have to pay to get in.

 

Still, even after that point I'd watch the TV, if not regularly then at least frequently, but over the past year, that has dropped considerably, to where I never watch the current TV unless I can't find anything else on. I'll watch Wrestlemania this year and have my yearly Wrestlemania party at my house, which has become a fun time for me and my friends, but I doubt I'll ever regularly watch current WWE TV again, unless things change. I just feel at some point, their interests and mine stopped intersecting. I still like wrestling, as evidenced by the fact that I've watched almost a year of SMW TV in the past month, and I really enjoy the stuff I do with UWC, producing a weekly wrestling TV show and (to a lesser degree) play by play announcing. But WWE TV just isn't for me, and TNA was never for me.

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I've never had a breaking point.

 

The closest was 01 when I moved out of a house with cable, lived with acid/coke dealers in a shithole punkhouse, and spent all my time with the woman who would eventually become my wife and my shitty band. This coincided with my best friend dropping out of wrestling altogether when ECW and WCW died with in a couple of months of each other. But by Sept of that year we had cable again and I was watching every week like nothing had changed.

 

My first memories in life are associated with wrestling and I have multiple family members who are fans to varying degrees. I doubt I'll ever quit altogether and it would take something epic for me to quit watching the modern product as for all my criticism of the WWE I honestly do believe they have more good matches week in and out than any promotion I can recall.

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When the Dungeon of Doom was first on TV I thought it was the worst shit ever. Over the years I have learned to appreciate its campiness. I've been a huge fan since 85, an while the Benoit deal turned me off for about 4 months I've never stopped watching besides that. My tastes have changed enough over the years that there has always been something about wrestling that felt fresh and exciting enough for me to keep watching.

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I had two breaking points I guess.

 

The first was only partial. It was one of Russo's WWF angles, the one where Terri Runnels had some fall that was supposed to produce a miscarriage. Russo wrote a lot of weird/shocking/intentionally offensive shit, and for whatever reason... that really pushed the biggest of wrong buttons for me and was my "last straw". Can't remember what a lot of the other stuff that was putting me off specifically at the time was, but I remember that basically being a tipping point where I'd seen enough, I didn't like where the product was at in general in the States, and I started really tuning out a fair amount. But I didn't quit watching wrestling, just weekly TV stuff. I instead just went hard into Japanese wrestling that I loved, and I'd still see WWF/WCW PPV's on video sometimes. But truth be told I've never resumed watching weekly TV regularly since.

 

Second was the death of Misawa. I honestly have watched very, very little wrestling since then. He was pretty close to my all time favourite and I think it got pretty similar to me as it did for Loss when he says "because I couldn't watch anything without noticing how many people were dead/in prison/wrecked their lives when watching old stuff" and I had that going on too. It became a bit... morbid isn't quite the right word, but it wasn't fun. Part of it was probably also burnout from years of watching so much, but that death hit me really hard and I sort of flipped a switch then.

 

I don't know if I'll ever really get back into it again. If I had a circle I could watch wrestling live with and riff on matches and such, I would consider it because that's really good fun, and I think I've been "away" long enough I'd enjoy it again. But I have tried just getting into it on my own a couple times and it doesn't really happen anymore.

 

Those yearbook sets are more than halfway tempting, though.

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I've stopped watching twice.

 

1. Around 2002-2003. Raw had gotten pretty bad, with the constant overwhelming Triple H super-dominance, Foley/Austin/Rock rarely being around, and a bunch of bland roided OVW developmental fucks being pushed as the "exciting new talent". I never watched Smackdown, because my home indy wrestling fed ran on Friday nights. I was working two or three shows every week, which led to some burnout. Also, I could attend the weekly TNA shows whenever I wanted to, which further added to my general feeling of oversaturation.

 

Then I got back into it around early 2005, and watched semi-consistently for a while, and then...

 

2. The celebrity guest GMs. I hated that shit more than I can coherently explain. It was the saddest, most desperate form of pandering to the mainstream; and as the ratings showed, nobody in the mainstream cared. It ate up oceans of time, most of the guests sucked, and it made me simply not want to see Raw. And right when they finally gave up on it, here comes Screaming Heel Michael Cole to insure that I could never watch a single segment in peace. Add this to 1.me just never being in the habit of watching Smackdown and 2.TNA getting really bad at this point, and I tuned out.

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I'm in the minority I guess in that I don't mind current WWE programming. This is not saying much but it's much better than the stuff we got from 2002-2004. 2002 and 2003 are really bad IMO. I don't know once RAW started to settle down and have a less frantic pace and less shock value I started to enjoy it more. Same with Smackdown. There are obvious flaws and maddening booking but I like the laid back feel of both shows. It's more like the wrestling I grew up on.

 

 

anyway I stopped watching briefly in early 90 when all the Tugboat/Dino Bravo stuff was going on in the main events. It was just a complete turnoff.

 

Didn't watch much in 91 between WM and Summerslam because the Iraq stuff bored me.

 

WCW after Starrcade 97 because I was so psyched for that show and it was such a kick in the groin. Last WCW PPV I ordered.

 

ECW after Raven left was never the same. Them going off MSG in early 98 sort of ended by intest fandom of the product. The stuff in 99/2000 was tough to watch for me

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Katie Vick. My interest had been waning since the botched Invasion and the Trips uber-push of outright boredom, but the Katie Vick stuff finally crossed that line for me where I just felt like an idiot for watching. I've never really been back barring a special occasion night here and there (like Bret's return). I still enjoy the older stuff, but that one angle turned a lifelong fan who had spent a ton of money to go to two Wrestlemania's, various Raw tapings and every house show in my area; as well as getting together regularly with friends to buy PPV's to someone who just said "fuck this shit".

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As a kid Papa Shango circa mid 92 scared me enough that I stoped watching WWF until a few months into 93 when my mom told me he'd disapeared a while ago so I assumed it was safe again but during that time I still watched WCW.

 

A few months into the Invasion angle I was this _ close to quiting being a wrestling fan all together just because WWF was such shit at the time. Bad booking, endless short 2-3 min matches and the first era whear they really started hot shotting the belts. If I hadn't discovered FMW, joshi & all the other foreign & US indy wrestling out thear I probably would have ended up quiting.

 

The Mark Henry incest angle was offense enough that I considered not watching WWF anymore but I went back the next week and got over it.

 

Finally caved around 09 I think and just gave up WWF all together outside of watching a few times a year. The realisation that everything was worthless is what did it for me. The feuds & storylines? All worthless, 75% chance they'd be a tag team in a few months, there'd be no mention of their history and unless it involved a top guy there was a major chance they might drop the feud entirely before even blowing it off. The belts? All Worthless, even the world titles by this point. The Wrestlers? Worthless to the company as is the fans opinion of them. Doesn't matter how talented you are or aren't, they're just going to push who they want AND go out of their way to try and make sure those that they don't want to get over dont. It's a legit miracle Danielson got whear he is, now imagine how big of a star he could have been if for the past year they weren't constantly trying to beat ppl over the head that he was boring, charismaless, a dork, a massive loser who couldn't beat anyone of worth in a fair fight and a fucking virgin who never had a girl friend even though months earlier on their own stupid fucking god damn show they had an angle whear he was secretly dating/sleeping with Gail Kim. The ocasional good/great match isn't worth putting up with all that horse shit to me anymore because I can get much better wrestling from a million diffrent promotions without the headache.

 

Can't see a point whear I ever quit being a fan now tho. There's 365 days in a year and I probably watch atleast 1 match a day on 350 of them.

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Dungeon of Doom wasn't really that bad. It's easy to see why it isnt someone's favorite angle but it was surrounded by cool stuff and the idea that it represented a low for wrestling is nutty. (i have questions as to the significance of an off time that begins at the dungeon of doom and ends with the debut of the nwo considering they were virtually successive angles)

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A lot of breaking points for me.

 

1. WCW closing it's doors. I watched a good deal of WWF in the Monday Night Wars era but WCW was my passion. The WWF was wrestling and the Austin run was good so I tuned in and liked it. But WCW... I loved WCW. WCW could absolutely suck on a weekly basis and I would still watch because I remembered the good times and I knew if I would just hold on long enough that it would get better again.

 

2. Katie Vick. The HHH nose honk from laughing at himself for "I screwed her brains out" skit was a moment where part of my fandom died a hard death.

 

3. Bob Sapp winning the IWGP Title. Oh man, I was fucking pissed when I signed on to my computer that day and saw that he won the belt. New Japan had been making horrible decisions to that point but that's where you just knew the company was really fucked up. And past that we were subjected to Lesnar and two Fujita reigns before Tanahashi made the belt seem to have value again.

 

4. Vince Russo returns to TNA. 2006 was a pretty good wrestling year for me. I was enjoying the TNA product quite a bit. Bound for Glory was a satisfying event and then Vince Russo came back. The product went off a cliff immediately.

 

5. The Benoit murders and the fan reaction. To be specific, the idiots that were accusing Nancy of killing Daniel really disgusted me. My fandom promptly died there.

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3. Bob Sapp winning the IWGP Title. Oh man, I was fucking pissed when I signed on to my computer that day and saw that he won the belt. New Japan had been making horrible decisions to that point but that's where you just knew the company was really fucked up. And past that we were subjected to Lesnar and two Fujita reigns before Tanahashi made the belt seem to have value again.

Don't think this one was so bad myself. The stupid part of it was that they gave him the belt without securing an agreement for him to appear very often and to drop the belt when he left. Had they actually gotten him to stick around and not vacate the title on his way out then I think it would have paid off and been a smart move. Really in hindsight Sapp getting it isn't even top 5 stupidest thing they did involving the IWGP between 01 & Tanahashi getting it in 06.

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I think if I hadn't been subjected to the previous year and a half of what New Japan was doing it wouldn't have been such a big deal. It just kind of turned into this embodiment of everything that I hated about the product at the time. Really, the Fujita reigns bother me more now and I'm less bitter about Sapp now. But at the time, I was really disgusted with it.

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Dungeon of Doom wasn't really that bad. It's easy to see why it isnt someone's favorite angle but it was surrounded by cool stuff and the idea that it represented a low for wrestling is nutty. (i have questions as to the significance of an off time that begins at the dungeon of doom and ends with the debut of the nwo considering they were virtually successive angles)

I probably should have been a little more clear.....

 

I didn't stop watching wrestling, period, because of the Dungeon of Doom, but I quit following it week to week. The NWO roped me back into week-to-week viewing for a while (around the Sting/Hogan stuff) but that faded quickly.

 

I still am, and always will be, a wrestling fan. I don't think anything will ever cause me to stop watching all my old footage and DVDs. As far as following the modern product week to week, those days are done and I don't see myself getting sucked back in any time soon.

 

And I hold the Dungeon of Doom responsible.

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I've dropped in and out a few times. But to be fair, only the first time can any blame be put on the product, and even then I was fair-weather with my interests.

 

First time I quit watching was in 93 not long after Wrestlemania. I didn't really care for Hulk Hogan and enjoyed it a lot more when he was gone. Shoulda waited it out. Also, FWIW, I am a girl and would've been 10 in 1993 so that's around the time I got into teeny bopper magazines and probably spent more time talking about...I don't know...whatever guy was "soooo cute" at the time.

 

Picked it back up late 95 and was diehard until 2000. Went to dozens of WCW, WWF, ECW live events. Rented about 15 PPVs a year. But then Junior year, in fall of 2000, I moved schools. At the other school, most of my friends were boys and we talked about wrestling all the time. But at my new school, all of my friends were girls and we had cars and went out most nights so wrestling fell off. It wasn't the fault of anything on the screen. BUT I did get (secretly) roped back in when WCW was bought and when it was botched so bad, I quit watching it straightaway.

 

Been off and on ever since, but mostly I've been going back catching up on everything. Buying old PPVs, season sets etc. I've caught completely up through August of 2007. And then I've watched the last 4 Wrestlemanias live (on PPV) because my stepsister and my dad both still watch off and on too.

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