Introduction to the Board as a wrestling fan

[Carlosa]

Hello everyone, I figured I would post here first since, well since I am new here. I started watching wrestling around late 2009 ~ early 2010. I can say for a fact that I am significantly younger than everyone else here (lol). I discovered PWO a couple of years ago over the summer and I've been going through all the forums and all the matches and discovering so many new things. Discovering a whole site dedicated to wrestling from any promotion from any time period absolute rules, so for that, I am grateful. I ended up making a spreadsheet gathering all the matches that seemed interesting and some matches that even though I never heard of, but were highly praised in the forums. Prior to this, I would always watch wrestling from all over the world, but I would never even touch matches from the 80s or 90s. When going through the forums, I would see matches that I had no idea that was considered at an all-time level. Going through matches, researching, and discovering more and more made me go insane! Over the past few years, my tastes changed dramatically, and a large part is these forums. Something that I would like to get done is making a GME list of my own. I'm really excited to be a part of PWO now. Outside of wrestling, I like to ride my bike and watch some TV. I don't follow sports aside from MMA (even that I don't really follow).  

If I had to pick a GME right now, with my limited viewing (I haven't seen A LOT), I would pick any of the following: Cena/Lesnar (Extreme Rules), 06/09/95, Flair/Funk (GAB 1989), or Okada/Naito. I am wildly excited to watch a ton of wrestling over the next year. As far as favs go: Cena, Lesnar, Kobashi, Tanahashi and Naito. Thanks for your time!

[Ricky Jackson]

Welcome aboard! Flair vs Funk from Bash 89 is definitely one of my all-time fave matches

[Muss]

Hey everyone, I found PWO from the podcasts around GWE 2016 and I've been a lurker here ever since, but with GWE starting back up I thought it was a good opportunity to finally join the discussions. I’m 26 and live in Atlanta, Georgia. I started watching wrestling in 2012 and really branched out beyond WWE around 2014. The main modern stuff I watch is the American Indies and NJPW and Noah, but with the pandemic happening, i’ve really enjoyed going back and delving through old footage to build a better base of footage that I’m familiar with. 

My favorite three matches are probable Zach Sabre Jr - Roderick Strong from PWG 4/2/2015, Jumbo Tsuruta - Genichiro Tenryu AJPW 6/5/89 and Bret Hard - Steve Austin 3/23/1997. 

I’m in the middle of a big deep dive on Kiyoshi Tamura and going year by year in wrestling for the 2000s. The gaps I’m hoping to fill in the next few years are WoS, Joshi, and peak Ring of Honor. I really look forward to taking part in discussions and learning a lot!

[Clayton Jones]

That ZSJ/Strong match is one of my favorites from the decade. From one mostly lurker over the years to another, welcome!

[LightOne]

Hello,

Long time wrestling fan, happy to find this place.  Came up watching WWF in the 80s and 90s and beyond, but The Monday Night Wars made me go back into early NWA which got me into other territories and have spent the last 20 years discovering what I was missing.

Happy to find so many fans gathered in one place. 

[Brynn]

Hey everyone! I'm your friendly neighborhood nerdy wrestling girl with one leg ... Brynn!

Yeah, I know ... my name is weird. It's pronounced like "Ben" except with an "R" after the "B".

First off, big shout out to Loss for helping fix my registration issues!

I've been a fan of wrestling for as long as I can remember! I don't remember exactly how I came across it but it was WWF Raw sometime in 1995 and the first pay-per-view I remember being hyped was that years Survivor Series. I was an avid WWF watcher through the Attitude Era and beyond. I did watch WCW when it wasn't up against Raw. My first exposure to ECW was the TNN show and I watched that weekly until ECW shut down.

Since WCW and ECW shut down, I watched mostly WWE along with peeking in on TNA here and there. I also borrowed tapes from some friends and I watched mid 2000s NOAH, Ring of Honor, and short lived promotions in the 2000s like World Wrestling All-Stars. I also watched a lot of my hometown group HWA. I've spent a ton of time watching old stuff on Peacock/WWE Network that I missed out on. I also watch a ton of old stuff on Impact Plus and stuff on YouTube that catches my interest (I've been on a Stampede Wrestling binge on YouTube currently).

Fast forward to today ... I still watch tons and tons of wrestling. Dynamite and Rampage from AEW every week plus the majority of their PPVs, NXT on occasion when there's nothing else on or if it's a special episode. I also watch the big shows from Impact and I never miss a WWE "premium live event" (NXT included in that). 

When I'm not watching wrestling, I dig shows like Yellowstone, South Park, Bob's Burgers, Simpsons, Great North, any of the Star Wars specials on Disney Plus and also competition shows like Survivor and Big Brother! In terms of other sports, I'll watch hockey and football. Maybe some baseball if it's a team that interests me but they really lost me after the lockout this past winter.

Anyway, I've babbled on too long. I'm excited to be here and always up for learning more about the wild and wacky world of pro wrestling!

 

[Ricky Jackson]

Welcome to PWO Brynn!

[Bjkdie]

Hi, my name is Cameron. I’m 26 years old living in Charlotte, North Carolina. I started watching wrestling at the end of the Attitude Era and was a HUGE Rock fan back in 02. I took a break from wrestling after from like 2003-2011, but got bored with the WWE programming at the time very quickly and took another break, but still kept up with things through Reddit and social media. Based off a recommendation, I watched Wrestle Kingdom 10 in 2016 and I’ve been back for good ever since. I found this website once I got interested in going back into the New Japan archives for recommendations and I’ve been thankful. This forum is a treasure trove of information for people like me and I’ve even created my own matchlists based off of recommendations from the site. I am now in my 90s New Japan and shoot style faze and look forward to continuing to learn from these forums and try to present what I learn and break it down even further into basically essentials for each era at least for Japanese wrestling. I do realize that this is essentially what Loss does but I want to break it down even further for someone who doesn’t want to go through 1000s of hours of footage and make it simple for all of the Neanderthals over on Reddit and the rest of social media (kidding kind of). 

[Bjkdie]

And my username is pronounced bee- jay- kay- dye. I know it’s stupid, I came up with it when I was 10. 

[RocknWrestling]

Hey y'all, I'm a longtime lurker and ideally want to try posting more these days, although I can't make any promises. Name's Jake and I prefer they/them pronouns. Born in Pittsburgh in 1978, started watching wrestling when I was six or seven years old and have tried to keep up as best I can ever since. Started with the WWF circa 1984-85 and then got into JCP when it showed up on one of the local affiliate stations. Moved to the Bay Area and have lived in the East Bay since 1988. First live event was a WWF house show at the Oakland Coliseum later that year. Attended WrestleMania IX in Las Vegas and managed to spit on Hulk Hogan right after the cameras went off. Got Sabu to break character in public at an indie show during his comeback tour in 2005. Attended the infamous ROH Chaos at the Cow Palace show in 2007 where I was one of only 300 people taking up the floor seats. Saw Jun Akiyama wrestle in a high school gym in San Francisco a few years ago, which I wouldn't have guessed that I would get a chance to experience until it actually happened. I also wrote the Rock 'n' Wrestling column for PORK magazine, a free quarterly out of Portland that ceased production in 2018. 

Favorite matches that I've seen in real time: Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13 and Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk at Clash of the Champions IX.

I watch Raw and Smackdown on Hulu and catch PLEs via Peacock. AEW Dynamite, Rampage, and all their PPVs are viewed via nefarious means. I don't really keep up with many other promotions because I don't have the time, but I'll check out specific matches here and there. That said, I have seen my fair share of old Japanese footage mostly featuring American wrestlers and am one of the people who will occasionally stand up for Bruiser Brody and the Dynamite Kid/Tiger Mask series.

Non-wrestling interests include music (punk/soul/funk/new wave), movies and TV shows, books about the aforementioned subjects, occasionally writing and blogging about the aforementioned subjects, and a bunch of other stuff that shouldn't be mentioned here.

Don't wanna be here all day, but I wanted to say hello and hopefully I'll feel compelled to post somewhat regularly here. If not, I at least enjoy reading all the various discussions and GWE topics! I learn new stuff about wrestling all the time that way and enjoy it immensely.

[Ricky Jackson]

On 2/28/2023 at 12:20 PM, RocknWrestling said:

Attended WrestleMania IX in Las Vegas and managed to spit on Hulk Hogan right after the cameras went off.

If you never post again, you have still contributed one of the greatest things I've ever read on this board

[historyofhwa]

Hi everyone. Adam from the History of HWA project here. I was actually on this board WAY back in like the early 2010s but I have no clue what my username was back then so I just decided to join up with a new account and start from scratch.

I'm currently working on chronicling the history of the Heartland Wrestling Association (HWA) from its early days up in the mid-90s through the final show in 2014. Over the past year, I've put together hundreds and hundreds of results cross-referencing Cagematch, Wrestling Data and the old HWA website via the Wayback Machine. I've also recently put together a directory of any HWA content I've found on YouTube and wanted to join to not only share notes and info about HWA but to also spread the word about great and forgotten matches from there. 

In terms of wrestling fandom, I watch everything ... classics, new, independent stuff and anything "off the radar" (Abrams UWF, AWF Warriors of Wrestling, etc.). Currently, I really enjoy AEW in the mainstream and Revolver, Prestige and GCW in the independent world. Don't watch much lucha or puro, not because I'm not interested in it, just because I don't have time to keep track of all of it but I will check out a match if it interests me.

[tcg91]

Hi everyone, my name is Mark and I'm from the UK.

Started watching wrestling at a very young age in '95, despite my parents hating it, as my uncle/cousin where big WWF/WCW fans and my grandad had lots of Joint Promotions tapes.

WCW was my thing, but I remember becoming a WWF addict after watching a clip of Foley falling from the top of HIAC. Plus, while too young to know who Russo was, his shows felt so dirty and rushed anyway.

Thanks to JP and a few local UK shows I knew what the indies were, but I was a full WWF/E fan until 2006ish, when I just grew tired of it. My cousin went to the ROH Unified show in 2006 and when I watched the DVD, another world opened up for me.

2006-2015ish was just the best time ever for me as a wrestling fan. Apart from watching 'Mania, I completely gave up on WWE and started watching pretty much everything else possible.

My love for wrestling died when indy promoters that I respected (Gabe) or liked personally (a few European ones, but can't disclose much) sold their soul and dreams to WWE for a miserable dollar. The indy scene, but especially the UK indy scene that I loved and I supported (with my wallet as well) for years, completely died. It hasn't recovered and will never recover, not in my lifetime at least.

Since 2017, I have watched little to no current pro wrestling. AEW killed it definitely for me, as they hired lots of great wrestlers and just can't get their stuff together, being a proof that great wrestlers are not necessarily good bookers and that sometimes they should be told what not to do. Furthermore, while I appreciate Tony for saving ROH from HHH's claws as Levesque has done more harm than good, the best company of the last 20 years is now a premium development territory for a TV company that can't write a good show to save their lives. 

Wrestling to me is a woman I used to be with and still love very much, even though we are not meant to be. I can't look at her anymore, because realising I don't love her today hurts, but I like to look back at pictures of us when we were happy together.

After a few years without watching a thing, I restarted in 2020 as Covid gave me lots of free time. In the last 4 years, I have rewatched peak ROH, ECW, Joint Promotions and found out that I still love it very much. Then, gradually, I did watch a Wrestlemania, whatever AEW PPV it was and a bit of New Japan and it's just not for me.

For the time being I'm sticking with the good old stuff. I have recently started rewatching lots of the stuff from the 80s, I have a list of 1000 matches and have currently seen about 100 of them. This forum definitely helped with the list and I'm looking forward to share my thoughts with you all!