Introduction to the Board as a wrestling fan

[benjaminkicks]

Didn't even now about this thread until just now, but I'm still a relatively new member of this forum, so I figure I'd give one of these intro posts a go. Not much to tell really.

 

My name is Ben, I'm 21 years old, and I live in a small town outside of Seattle. My interests include movies, music, cartoons, comic books, video games, sports, smoking weed, and watching wrestling. I am somewhat of an amateur writer, both fiction and non fiction, and hope to make a living writing someday.

 

Wrestling likes: pretty much everything All Japan, late 80's/early 90's NWA/WCW, '96-'97 WWF, mid-2000's Ring of Honor, prime NOAH, modern New Japan, modern Joshi, Zero1

 

Wrestling dislikes: Hulkamania-era WWF, Hulk Hogan, the Attitude Era, Lucha

 

Some of my favorite wrestlers: Terry Funk, Toshiaki Kawada, Shinya Hashimoto, Ric Flair, Daniel Bryan

[supremebve]

Hi, I'm supremebve. I'm a lifelong wrestling fan, I honestly don't remember the first match I watched. I think I've been pretty hardcore since 1988, which is when the whole Mega Powers thing started, but I remember watching wrestling before that. I missed a good bit of the mid to late 2000s, but I've followed almost all of it vicariously through the internet. I've been around the DVDVR message boards for a while, and while it is great for what it is, it doesn't satisfy my needs for in depth conversations about matches.

 

I'd say I joined this board because I started a project where I've been trying to watch every match that Dave Meltzer ranked 4 stars or better and write a bit about them. Sometimes they're full recaps, sometimes they're a breakdown of the story of the match, and other times they are just a discussion of one interesting thing I noticed during the match. Recently I've been thinking of expanding this project from matches Dave ranked to any and all matches that are considered great(I know this is going to be impossible) and are available on the internet. I'll still be using Dave as a guide, but he just has too many holes for me to feel like this project is anywhere close to complete. He didn't really review many AWA matches, any prime Fujinami matches, and he seemingly underrates a lot of matches that are considered great elsewhere. I started in 1983 with Dynamite vs. Tiger Mask where I wrote 5 short sentences and the last match I've watched was Ric Flair vs Genichiro Tenryu (SWS 09/15/92) where I wrote 500 words. This project has taken on a life of its own, and I'm trying to figure out how to watch the most great wrestling matches and discuss them in new and interesting ways. I try to discuss them as personally as possible, because I'd much rather talk about how a match appeals to an individual than how it appeals to the wider audience.

 

The most interesting part of this project has been finding the matches that I'd never have watched otherwise. This is hopefully a place I can post my thoughts on these matches and have a conversation about what makes them great and how fun it is to discover new matches and wrestlers that have somehow been lost along the way. I hadn't watched a single Jumbo Tsuruta match before this project, and now I'm pretty sure he's one of the top 5 wrestlers I've ever watched. My hope is that I find more Jumbos and find more matches like Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Fuchi/Ogawa from 7/5/92 that I would have probably never watched. I'll be bringing my perspective, and I hope I can hear the perspectives of everyone in this community.

 

I've been compiling a list of all of the great matches you can find online which you can find here...https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mQEPDOO_SEkMjt1dwqVKrNh69cOXJXQJwYDcQJaKJF8/edit?usp=sharing This list is a work in progress, and I would love for it to be a shared work in progress. I'm going to try to update it as much as possible, but I also want to hear from you guys. So if you have any suggestions, just put them into a reply to any of my review posts. Note that I'm trying to do this close to chronologically so if you have a suggestion before my current spot on the list, I'll probably review it sooner than if you suggest something after my current spot on the list. If I'm in 1993(where I'm starting this week) and you suggest 1995, I'll add it to the 1995 list and get to it when I get to that date, but if you suggest 1989 I'll probably get to it in the next couple of posts.

 

Thanks for having me and I look forward to discussing some classic wrestling with you guys.

[dmacgreg37]

I'm 33. Have been in-and-out of wrestling for the past 10 years or so. Was big into it during my childhood (from 1989 or so) through the attitude era. Getting back into it after having found a lot of the PWO-PTBN podcasts. Will does an awesome job with these things and the old school wrestling is making me want to get back into it.

[maestroken]

39 year old living in the Chicago Suburbs, Don't really know exactly when I got into wrestling. I know I watched SNL with my mom at times and remember Hulk and Mr. T with Billy Crystal, but I might not have gotten more into it until I found out my uncle was decent fan and had bartended for a lot of the at the time WWF, and prior territory guys in Indianapolis (He loves telling Hennan stories). He took me to my first live event WWF at Market Square Arena. I know there was a scheduled Funks vs. JYD & Someone match that ended up not happening and Bulldogs vs. Studd/Bundy with Dynamite slamming Bundy. Was at Chi-Town Rumble, my holding my WWE LJN Ricky Steamboat figure made the broadcast or the highlights on TV one of the two.

 

My internet fandom began on newz sites and various other places but I started actually posting instead of lurking first at CRZ's board and then InThisVeryRing, ChicagoProWrestling, DVDVR, etc. Bought my first tapes from prowrestlingtapes.com got I think 10 VHS for $100, Including of course the 1995 IWA-Japan KOTDM, some Scherer Mixtapes, etc. Then I read on DVDVR about the IWA-MS Tracy Smothers riot. That's when tape trading and my big time following of the indies started. Got really into getting all the '02 and '03 IWA-MS and ROH I could, and really never stopped. I at one time had such a backlog of US Indies to be watched I was known for jokingly scoffing 'Fuck Japan' at any one that wanted to offer me to watch any or trade any. I didn't really think that, I just knew with such a backlog I couldn't get hooked into any more stuff.

 

Eventually in late 2003 IWA-MS began running Highland, IN and I went to all of their shows there (except sadly missing the Chris Hero-Samoa Joe show) including the best wrestling weekend I've ever attended TPI'04. Nowadays I'll occasionally go to bad indies around here to hang with friends and heckle, and I get to about every third AAW show. Have traveled the past couple of years for some bigger shows, but those are equally for the road trips with friends as for the actual wrestling. Have done Mania, CZW, and IWA-MS trips, going to try to get AIW, Beyond, and PWG under my belt sometime, and figure since WWE loves the Allstate Arena, we're bound to get an NXT show here soon.

[drew wardlaw]

First post here. My name is Drew, I'm 30 and I live in Southern California where we are all going to die from draught. I've been lurking the board for a few years, but only recently through the Where the Big Boys Play podcast became more aware of the community and how much depth of knowledge there is. My great grandma in Mississippi introduced me to wrestling in 1990 when she would scream obscenities at heels during WCW Main Event. From there I remained a diehard WCW fan until they folded in 2001. I casually watched WWF but growing up I thought you had to choose to support one promotion over the other, like sports teams, so I chose WCW. After WCW was bought out I lost interest in wrestling until 2008 when I started very casually watching the classic All Japan 90's matches (I don't even remember how I heard about them) and got into the Jericho vs Michaels feud that summer, and the CM Punk vs Jeff Hardy feud the next summer. For some reason The Rock coming back in 2011 really re-ignited my interest in modern wrestling, and since it has been one of my major hobbies along side napping, running, and playing music.

 

I currently follow NJPW and Dragon Gate, casually follow WWE, and whatever other treats I hear about. Most of my watching is devoted to older material of the 80s and 90s. WCW is my favorite promotion of all time, specifically 1990-1994, but I celebrate the entire run of the promotion. The juxtaposition of absurd nonsense and serious working, combined with the perpetual chaos and financial ruin the company was always in is endlessly compelling to me.

 

As far as my wrestling knowledge, I know A LOT about WCW, a lot about Stan Hansen, and some about New Japan and All Japan through the 80s and 90s. But I have a horrible memory so that might be worthless.

 

My favorite things in wrestling are grizzled veterans destroying young up-and-comers, and midcard workhorses. My favorite current wrestler is Heath Slater. All time favorites are 3. Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton 2. Dean Malenko 1. Stan Hansen. My favorite matches are 3. Flair/Funk I Quit 2. Malenko/Benoit Hog Wild 1. Hansen/Kawada 2/28/93.

 

I'd like to contribute positively to the forum in some way, and I'm excited to learn and interact with people who like wrestling.

[soup23]

Glad you are here Drew, welcome.

[goc]

Is the validation process working ok? I've seen a few names in yellow popping up at the bottom of the fantasy threads lately (Super Stan being the latest one) and I know the last person I told to sign up here told me he had an issue getting validated (NWATerritorySuperFan)

[Grimmas]

Is the validation process working ok? I've seen a few names in yellow popping up at the bottom of the fantasy threads lately (Super Stan being the latest one) and I know the last person I told to sign up here told me he had an issue getting validated (NWATerritorySuperFan)

They have to e-mail charles to get an account. Signing up through the registration form does not work.

[Super Stan]

Super Stan here.

 

Took a few days but I finally got the validation.

[cheapshot]

Welcome Super Stan!

[ghost]

I been lurking this board for a while before I decided to sign up. I've been a wrestling fan since I was a kid. I was born just too late for the Monday Night Wars, started watching around 2000, having access only to WCW Worldwide and WWF Heat - plus whatever my friends had taped. Little later on when we got more channels I discovered The Wrestling Channel - users in the UK might remember that - and it exposed me to all sorts of stuff from Ring of Honor to World of Sport to FMW. I did stop watching for a few years when I was in my late teens but got back into it a few years ago. I don't keep up to date with the current stuff too much except for the big PPVs and the occasional indie show.

 

As far as favourites and such go I have a varied taste, to give you an idea, favourite matches off the top of my head: Flair/Steamboat, Vader/Sting, Megumi Kudo/Combat Toyoda, Lawler/Dundee, WarGames '92.

[shoe]

Welcome aboard.

[TheU_2001]

Hey, I'm Dave. I'm new to the board, and discovered it through the amazing podcasts. I'm 36 and have been a fan since I was around 4 or 5 years old. I'm married and have 2 kids. My 7 year old has recently become a fan, watching old WWF stuff with me.

 

I was born in Minnesota, but have lived in Oregon since 1988. When I was young in Minnesota, my dad introduced me to wrestling. We didn't have cable, but had WWF, AWA, and World Class, through networks and syndication.

 

I was a huge fan of Hulk Hogan (and still am). I also liked The Von Erichs, Savage, Steamboat, Andre, and The Road Warriors.

 

The first show I ever went to was a WWF house show in May of 1988 at the Met Center in Minneapolis. I got to see Andre vs Duggan, Rude (who was awesome) vs Jake, Warrior vs Hercules, Demolition (who I also loved) vs Steike Force, Bret vs Bad News, and Bam Bam vs Honky.

 

In 1988, when my family moved to Oregon, we got cable. This is when I saw NWA/WCW for the first time. That's when I finally discovered Ric Flair and his awesomeness!

 

I went to the video store and rented all the tapes I could from WWF and NWA/WCW. For some reason my cable carrier didn't carry PPV, so when I wanted to watch WrestleMania V so bad, I couldn't. Instead I turned on the TV and found Clash VI. From that moment forward Inwas hooked on NWA stuff as well, with Flair vs Steamboat becoming my favorite match that day, and forever since.

 

I've been a huge fan ever since my childhood, attended WrestleMania 17 (where I met Regal, Okerlund, Heenan, Earthquake, Typhoon, And Tony Garea) and 19 (Where Hogan waved at me from his limo, I met Benoit, The Dudleys, and Maven)

 

while I was in college (for Spring Break both times), and in about 2002ish or so, started to become a little less interested in WWE, that's when I finally ordered some AJPW tapes and the NJPW Super J Cup tapes. I found myself hooked on the Japanese product then. Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, and Taue were awe inspiring to me.

 

I also have attended a few Raw and Smackdown shows in Portland, and No Mercy 2008, which was awesome.

 

Anyways, I've been a fan for a long time. I've tracked down as much footage of things I can find, have hundreds (maybe over 1,000 wrestling DVDs), and just have always enjoyed being a fan. I don't watch RAW that much anymore, if at all and usually follow things online, and watch the specials and other things on the network, DVDs, Japan, territories and so on.

 

My favorite wrestlers of all time are: Hogan, Flair, Vader, Austin, Misawa, Kawada, Steamboat, Savage, Shawn, and some others. Tag Teams: Brain Busters and Holy Demon Army, The Midnight Express, Demolition, The Rockers, British Bulldogs, Misawa/Kobashi, Miracle Violence Connection.

 

Favorite Matches: Flair vs Steamboat-Clash VI, Savage vs Steamboat--WM3, War Games 1 7/4/87, Misawa/Kobashi vs Kawada/Taue--6/9/95, Misawa vs Kawada 6/3/94, Hogan vs Savage-WM5, Demolition Team vs Powers of Pai Team-Survivor Series 1988, and some others.

 

Favorite years: 1989, 1992, 1994, 1987, 1997

 

Current Favorites: Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins, Daniel Bryan, Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shinsuke Nakamura, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn

[soup23]

WM 17 and 19??? Impressive stuff Dave.

[scg84]

Hey, name's Steve.

 

I'm 31 years old, born and raised in the heart of Flair country, Charlotte, NC. I'm a bit of an anomaly though, as I NEVER watched Crockett/NWA/WCW growing up. I was born within six months of Wrestlemania I, so my childhood kinda paralleled the WWF boom. I had a Hogan birthday cake like three years in a row. The first time my parents let me stay up late was for Hogan/Andre with the false title switch, and the first PPV I talked them into ordering for me was Wrestlemania V.

 

My favorites on the rare occasions I saw non-WWF stuff were the Road Warriors from AWA commercial tapes, and Sting on VHS tapes my uncle had recorded and left at my grandmother's house.

 

When we got high-speed internet in my mid teens, I discovered a SNES ROM of Firepro wrestling, and through that, Japanese wrestling. From there, I was off and running, and started watching bits of everything.

 

I've been a member over at DVDVR for a while now, under the name 'steve', and I'd been lurking around here for awhile, too. Finally decided to sign up when I caught myself reaching to click reply out of habit, only to remember I'd been too lazy to join.

 

Anyway, looking forward to joining in the discussions!

[TheU_2001]

Yeah it was pretty crazy. Both were trips for Spring Break during college. Flew to Texas for 17 and went to Six Flags also (Foley and Al Snow were there that day too), and drove to Seattle for 19. So much fun, Axxess was a blast too, both times. Got to see Raw in Seattle the night after also (and missed class that day, that was the end of break), but that was the night Goldberg debuted.

[The Russian Daydream]

Hi everyone.

 

My name is Fraser, I'm 33 and I'm from Scotland. My earliest memories of wrestling are from the mid 1980s when I would watch the dying days of British wrestling on ITV with my dad and grandad on Saturday afternoons. When WCW started showing on British television around midnight in the second half of 1989, my parents must have noticed and recorded some episodes for me. It was upon seeing these that my utter fascination with professional wrestling begun. As a seven-year-old, it was the almost inhumanly massive individuals that caught my eyes the most. I have distinct memories of squash matches featuring Doom and Sid Vicous, and to that end, I'm not sure if it's nostalgia or what, but I would still rate Sid's squash of Lee Scott as one of my favourite matches of all time.
While my school friends rode the WWF wave of popularity in the early 90s, i remained a firm WCW guy. As I grew older, I got to appreciate the wrestling more and more and began to gain some feeling for which matches were actually 'good'. 1992 was a fantastic year for WCW for me to be coming of age in this regard, with Rick Rude, Ricky Steamboat, Sting, Vader, The Steiners, Barry Windham and others having standout performances on TV that year, as well as on the PPVs which I collected on VHS tape. It was through Parv and Chad's reviews of the early 1992 PPVs that I found Pro Wrestling Only, and would like to applaud Parv in particular for giving the Rude vs Steamboat matches from Superbrawl and Beach Blast the credit they deserve. The Beach Blast match in particular remains one of the best worked matches I've ever seen (my only criticism being that in making it a non-title match, they telegraphed the final result).

I remained loyal to WCW until its coverage on British TV started to become patchy (I had to watch on the German channel DSF), which conincided with Hulk Hogan's arrival in 1994. Thankfully around this time (actually just before Wrestlemania 10), my parents had Sky Television installed. This allowed me to get into the WWF, and became a huge fan of both Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels throughout the remainder of the 1990s. Through magazines like PowerSlam, I also became familar with other avenues of wrestling such as ECW and the Japanese scene, although I didn't see much of either until I got a decent internet connection in the second half of the 2000s!

My wrestling fan-dom took a dip in 2000 when I went off to university. I kept up with key happenings via the internet, but asside from a spell over the summer when I was at home, I didn't actually watch a lot of wrestling for that four-year-period. My dad also decided to stop giving Rupert Murdoch his money around this time too, so I no longer had access to the bulk of the WWF programming on Sky.

After graduation, I've remained a fan, but have struggled to get into following the current product as much. I read results and make an effort to watch important events or if I hear about an especially must-see match. In the main, however, I now spend most of my wrestling time (I don't get much of it with a job, a wife and a baby boy!) watching historical stuff. I'm trying to get through the main matches of 1990s AJPW (the Pro Wrestling Excite podcast has helped add context to this - so thanks a lot guys) as well as 1980s Crockett. I'm also re-watching as much of the 90s WCW shows as I can along with Where the Big Boys Play and the odd bit of this and that too.

I'm glad to have found PWO - this seems to be the place that covers my interests in wrestling pretty well and can't believe it has taken me so long to have found it. I'm also looking forward to getting involved in the discussion throughout the board.

[cheapshot]

Welcome Fraser! This podcast I did may be of interest to you: http://wrestlingeye.libsyn.com/wrestling-eye-podcast-episode-6-talking-powerslam-magazine-with-rob-butcher-john-lister-and-greg-lambert

[andrew79]

Hi, I'm Andrew.

 

I started watching wrestling in the early 90s when WCW Worldwide aired on a Saturday afternoon here in the UK. When they stopped showing it, I was able to watch the occasional Raw and WWF ppv at friends' houses.

 

But everyone else grew up and found girls and partying, leaving me with nowhere to watch, so I reluctantly put it to one side.

 

Then in 2000, on a whim, I bought a copy of ECW Living Dangerously 99 and I was hooked again. This led me into tape trading, which led me to the DVDVR board, which introduced me to puroresu.

 

And for about three years I consumed all the wrestling I could get my hands on. I can't remember why I stopped, probably burned out.

 

Now I'm back, I've been causally watching stuff for the past year or so and decided to sign up to PWO to contribute to the GWE poll.

[Grimmas]

Hi, I'm Andrew.

 

I started watching wrestling in the early 90s when WCW Worldwide aired on a Saturday afternoon here in the UK. When they stopped showing it, I was able to watch the occasional Raw and WWF ppv at friends' houses.

 

But everyone else grew up and found girls and partying, leaving me with nowhere to watch, so I reluctantly put it to one side.

 

Then in 2000, on a whim, I bought a copy of ECW Living Dangerously 99 and I was hooked again. This led me into tape trading, which led me to the DVDVR board, which introduced me to puroresu.

 

And for about three years I consumed all the wrestling I could get my hands on. I can't remember why I stopped, probably burned out.

 

Now I'm back, I've been causally watching stuff for the past year or so and decided to sign up to PWO to contribute to the GWE poll.

Also, Living Dangerously 99 was one of the last Super Extreme Vault podcasts we did, going through ECW so you might want to check that out.

 

Awesome, glad to have more faces in the GWE section. The more discussion the better, welcome aboard.

[andrew79]

Awesome, glad to have more faces in the GWE section. The more discussion the better, welcome aboard.

Thank you.

 

Also, Living Dangerously 99 was one of the last Super Extreme Vault podcasts we did, going through ECW so you might want to check that out.

I'll have a listen, see if it sounds as enjoyable as when I first watched it...

[joeg]

Hey, I'm Joe.

 

puroresu.tv died. So I went to WKO and puroresufan but those are dying slow deaths as well, so I've come here. I grew up watching wrestling. Was fortunate enough to have attended a few ECW shows at the arena back as a teenager. Went to a lot of indy shows as a teenager, back when Dragon, Ki, Spanky, Daniels, Joe, Punk, etc were breaking out on to the scene. I'm a fan of pretty much anything and everything.

[Scarlet-Left]

I don't know how active I'll be, since I've got a lot of studying to do over the Christmas break, but I though I might as well make an introductory post either way.

 

I'm fairly young so my first real introduction to wrestling was in the early 2000s. I remember once "borrowing" a book from my infants school library, which I still have to this day, and it was a UK version of the WCW annual from the year 2000. After that, I remember a demo of one of the early 'Smackdown!' games coming on one of the massive load of demo discs my uncle had given me for my PS1. There were only four playable characters and me and my friend both wanted to play as 'the Undertaker' so we decided that, to be fair, neither of us would; I picked 'the Rock' and he picked Steve Austin.

 

I also have vague memories of watching the 'WWE Experience' when we first got cable (we never had sky), and my mother bought me a pencil case to take to primary school which she decorated in felt-tip with the words 'the Undertaker' and either '14-0' or '15-0' (can't remember which).

 

I can then remember two live experiences which came in quick succession, a local indie promotion came to my town (they promised they'd come again, but they never did) and I remember rooting for 'Lionheart' even though everyone else was booing (which I couldn't understand, since I had basically zero knowledge of any of the wrestlers). Then, after that, I remember seeing a wrestling show at Butlin's which featured American and British indie guys and an inter-gender (one mixed team against the heel team of just guys) tag-team match which I remember enjoying.

 

After that, I remember getting into TNA from 2007 to about 2010, which I really enjoyed, especially since it was such a new experience for me to be able to regularly see full-length matches and storylines play out (TNA aired their PPVs for free in the UK). AJ Styles really stood out to me and became my favourite pretty quickly.

 

Then there was a lull period after I'd moved to a different town, where I barely watched any wrestling at all. That all changed when I decided to watch the Royal Rumble in 2013 (I already knew the roster since I'd never stopped playing the games, usually getting a new one every Christmas). That solidified me as a fan, and I would spend hours tracking down and watching whatever I could find on the internet (matches, reviews, interviews, etcetera).

 

Then, after a surgery on my foot this October kept me house-bound for about a week, I decided to get a subscription to the Network and my interest has increased exponentially. I would watch a different 'Starrcade' everyday for that entire period. Since then, I've discovered a podcast called 'Where the Big Boys' and am up to Clash of Champions 7.

 

Favourite Wrestlers (in no particular order):

 

• Harley Race
• Bret Hart
• Ric Flair
• Pat Patterson
• Chris Jericho
• Lance Storm
• Goldust
• AJ Styles
• Nikki Roxx
• Chris Benoit
• William Regal
• Kurt Angle
• Gail Kim
• Buddy Landel
• Austin Aries
• Terry Taylor
• The Undertaker

[cactus]

Hey, I'm Sam and I'm 23. I got into wrestling in 1999 and I 'grew out' of it in the middle of 2006, but I ended up coming back to it in 2010 due to my love of the new WWE video game out at the time. I branched out to indy/puro about a year later and was active on a number of boards. I haven't been actively posting in a handful of years as my passion was not what it used to be, but that all changed when I got the WWE Network and that rekindled my love for it. I've been slowly making my way back to puro and all the other stuff and I've even started posting on my blog again, which I haven't touched since the start of 2013.

[concrete1992]

Are you the Cactus that used to post on Wrestling Forum (I would mostly know you from the MOTYC thread if so)?