Introduction to the Board as a wrestling fan

[goodhelmet]

So...some of the long-term members of the community might remember me, but my name is Steve and I was a founding admin of NMB, which was the message board that served as the initial "home" for the community that would eventually become PWO. Even at the time when NMB was active, I wasn't actually following wrestling at all -- I had mostly been turned off of wrestling by the Katie Vick angle, among other things. With the introduction of the WWE Network, though, I've jumped back into wrestling for the first time in around ten years.

 

I got into wrestling as a kid in the mid-80s, renting every Coliseum Video release I could find for early WWF PPVs. I jumped into online fandom for wrestling in the mid-90s, bouncing around a couple of different communities before settling into the Rantsylvania/Smarks/TSM group, which ended up spinning off the crew that eventually ended up here. My exposure to Puro is a bit limited and it's one of the things I'm interested in potentially fleshing out here. Beyond that, I'm looking forward to revisiting some of these classic North America matches through the Network and other means and bringing a new (and older) pair of eyes to them.

 

Welcome back bud! Nice to see you around!!!

 

Hey guys , Luke from australia . Long time lurker and appreciator of the work done on this site. Started as a fan in the late 90's through til around 2004/05 then had a 8 year or so hiatus . Recently with the help of some excellent podcasts im getting into watching some of the older 70's and 80's library . Really enjoying WCCW , JCP and World of sports. As of late iv gotten hooked on watching some '93/94 ECW aswell.

 

Welcome aboard.

[cheapshot]

I haven't posted in what feels like eons. I miss this place and the debates that take place. I will be making a big effort to get back in to the swing of things.

[oldbirds]

Hi everyone. It wasn't until 2005 that I started watching Smackdown and at the time the talent was great, Finlay, Regal, Booker, Benoit, Rey, Matt Hardy, Undertaker... funny how before I was the only kid in high school who didn't see wrestling, and now here I am.

 

My natural progression was discovering TNA, then ROH - I was lucky to see all the insane talent at his peak like the Dragon title reign and Joe, the ascension of Nigel and Tyler Black, and so on. AJPW and other indies were the next step but I always got back to WWE.

 

I was listening to the Loss podcast and it motivated me to finally join and give my contribution. Loving this board and how everyone looks at so many great matches into great detail.

[VIP Slick]

Greetings all,

 

It is a pleasure indeed to join my fellow wrestling fans on this great forum. A couple weeks ago, I stumbled upon Where the Big Boys Play podcast. I have been hooked ever since, reliving the glory days of my favorite era along with Parv and Chad. WTBBP seemed to mention this site a lot, so I have been lurking the past week or so.

 

I am VIP Slick (real name BA) and I currently reside in Tulsa, Oklahoma. However, I grew up in a small town in Southeast Texas. I remember watching wrestling for as far back as I can remember. My earliest memories are of the "dreaded" Four Horsemen and their feud with Dusty Rhodes. I also recall the Von Erich/Freebirds wars since I grew up in Texas.

 

Back in the 80's thru the 90's I consumed any kind of wrestling I could find. WWF, WCCW, AWA, ECW, a little USWA, etc. But my favorite by far was NWA/JCP/WCW. I loved the realistic characters, the great brawls, just the whole presentation. Like Parv, I was much more attracted to the heels. They were portrayed as more intelligent and cool than the faces. I also much preferred the concept of the NWA heel/tweener touring World Champion than the nonstop Hogan run in the WWF.

 

I continued to follow WCW right until the bitter end in 2001, despite the horrific decline in the product. Many of my friends were ecstatic that WCW was bought out by Vince. But I knew that it was the end of wrestling as I knew it, since Vince now had a monopoly, thus no reason to put on a good show.

 

I slowed down my wrestling consumption in 2005, then pretty much totally stopped watching new product in 2008. Current WWE is much too scripted and homogenized for my liking. Not to mention the kiddie G rated nonsense. If I want that, I will watch cartoons!

 

Thank you for letting me join this forum and I look forward to participating in great classic wrestling discussions! Below I have listed my all time favorite wrestlers and matches.

 

My Top Five Favorite Wrestlers:

1. Ric Flair

2. Tully Blanchard

3. Nick Bockwinkel

4. Arn Anderson

5. Steve Austin

 

My Top Five Favorite Matches:

1. Tully Blanchard vs Magnum TA (Starrcade 1985)

2. Ric Flair vs Terry Funk (Great American Bash 1989)

3. Steve Austin vs Bret Hart (Wrestlemania 13)

4. Ric Flair vs Rick Steamboat (Chi Town Rumble)

5. Ric Flair vs Ron Garvin (Starrcade 1987)

 

VIP Slick (@VIPSlick)

[soup23]

Thanks for joining up Slick, always delighted to hear people finding PWO based off of WTBBP.

[pol]

Hey guys. Used to lurk TheSmartMarks back in the day and from there found DVDVR and then this place when I started getting back into current WWE in January of this year. I got into wrestling in 1999 and pretty quickly became your generic smart mark fan, indie wrestling nerd you'll find in most places on the internet. Lost interest in WWE around 2003-4 but never totally tuned out. Finding this place and DVDVR has been somewhat of a revelation for my enjoyment of wrestling in terms of challenging prevailing smark dogmas and actively looking for things to enjoy in current wrestling rather than just watching to rip on it, which seems to be the attitude of most people on other forums. Currently working on broadening my horizons, exploring the history of Japanese and Mexican wrestling - still remain woefully ignorant on the territories but I'll hopefully get to that at some point too

[Shining Wiz]

Hey folks........Matt from the Canadian Maritimes. I'm 34 and spent the better of that glued to the tv watching wrestling or my nose in an Apter mag reading about all the wrestling I couldn't see on tv.

 

Abbreviated life fandom story:

 

My earliest wrestling memory is Jesse Ventura guest starring on Small Wonder. I must have been a fan before that though, because this was the night before my parents bought me the LJN ring and my first two figures - Ventura and Steamboat. Made it to my first show in early 87 to see one of the Warrior's first WWF shows as he hadn't been on Superstars yet and I think the main event was Billy graham in a cage against someone.....

 

Grew up a WWF fan as it was the only show regularly on tv. Local promotion (Atlantic Grand Prix) when I could find it until it folded, and ICW on Sundays on a pretty inconsistent basis.

 

Was a massive, nerd level hardcore fan until a year or two after the Invasion angle (like a lot of people, I guess) and the filtered out a bit, until I started getting my hands on ROH shows consistently in 2004 or so an met some folks from the old Gregh board. Sucked me back in enough that I've been to Chicago and Orlando for wrestlemania weekend shows.

 

Nowadays, busy life, but watch Raw on dvr (with considerable skipping), and have developed an NJPW addiction. No time to watch G1 during the week, but looking forward to Saturday morning.

 

If you put a gun to my head, my five favourite wrestlers right now would be Cesaro, Steamboat, Nakamura, Misawa and Danielson. This could change on what time of the day you ask me.

 

Best match I've ever seen live is either Danielson/Storm or the first ROH Dragon Gate six man - may not always be my cup of tea, but blew me away live (and still can when I want to be, I guess).

 

That's me in a nutshell.....I assume I'll be mostly a lurker around here, but I may add my two cents from time to time.

[mvc2 sentinel]

Hi, funkdoc mentioned this place to me offhand and I've been reading it from time to time. I share his interest in fighting games.

I'm in my mid-20s, I grew up watching WCW, WWF, and ECW. stopped watching completely after the Invasion until mid-2011. I'm a pretty casual/ignorant fan, mainly here to lurk and read, but I figured having an account wouldn't hurt. I've always liked heels more than faces even as a kid. I mainly enjoy WWE and occasionally watch other promotions. I'm pretty damn ignorant of the territories and whatnot, but interested.

Well, I guess that's me.

[BoneSoldier]

Hey guys, I'm Trae, 26 years old, currently living in the old Memphis territory. When I'm not watching pro wrestling, I'm an aspriing historian. I used to post on TSM, DVDVR, and a dozen other boards under a different name. I chose the name BoneSoldier for this board because I'm a huge Bullet Club mark.

 

My first memory of pro wrestling was playing WWF Royal Rumble for SNES. I remember that I liked Razor Ramon. I didn't actually start watching wrestling until late 1999, having become curious as to who these "Stone Cold" and "The Rock" characters were that the kids at school were talking about. I got the internet in 2002 and got into independents and old wrestling, then started getting into Japan in 2003-2004. My interest waned a bit following the Benoit tragedy, as Benoit was my favorite wrestler of all time. It came back, and then dipped again while I was in college. I started graduate school last year, and got back into wrestling as a way to decompress and keep my sanity.

 

Fun Fact: I went to my first live show in 2005, and attended 10 total live shows from 2004-2013. I've been to 9 shows in 2014 alone (and have tickets for two more).

[jushin muta liger]

I've looked at this thread when I got back on this board and now I've decided to post my story. To start off, I'm in my late 20s and from New Jersey. I started watching wrestling with dad when I was toddler and it was strictly WWF Superstars and MSG house shows. My favorites were obviously Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, Big Bossman and Jake Roberts.

 

But once I found out about WCW, I was hooked. Guys like Ric Flair, Sting, Lex Luger, the Great Muta and Vader got me to watch WCW on are regular basis and it opened me up to watching junior heavyweights like Brian Pillman and Jushin Liger (hence the name). I was amazed by the aerial moves and athleticism so much that I started take more smaller wrestlers like Too Cold Scorpio, Brad Armstrong and even Johnny B Badd. So when WWF started pushing Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, my attention went to them. Once the cruiserweights like Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit and Rey Mysterio; I watched WCW mostly until WWF got better during the Monday Night Wars.

 

Once WCW folded, my interest in wrestling started to dwindle. I kept my eye open on Brock Lesnar and the Smackdown Six but never really got the passion to watch wrestling again until Benoit and Guerrero won the World Titles. That moment got me back into wrestling and I discovered Ring of Honor through reading the Slam Sports website daily. ROH was my favorite promotion from 2005 to 2007 and opened up myself to watch more puroresu online. I joined the puroresufan board, the DVDR board (even participated in the Mid South project) joined this board and subscribed to the Observer once it merged with F4W. However, the ROH style burned me out and the Benoit tragedy bummed me out that I turned into a MMA fan towards the end of the college. Wrestling became very non existent to me because nothing got me hooked. Even when I got out of college, I had friends that tried to get me to watch wrestling again because of Bryan Danielson and CM Punk being in WWE and I just couldn't watch. I thought the product of the WWE got too stale and too corny for my taste.

 

I let my Observer subscription lapse and my fandom for MMA lapsed as cause the factors of real life ( Jobs, family, girlfriend, bills and loans) just overtook my interest for wrestling.

 

It took my brother telling me about the Daniel Bryan push to get me back into wrestling. It got the itch back in me to watch wrestling again and once my girlfriend left me, it gave me even more time to watch wrestling. I started to lurk on this board to see it it changed and I like the discussions that have been going here. The podcasts by the various members of the board help me get through my day and I appreciate your guys work. I used to do radio in college and it's not easy so my hats off to you guys. I enjoy this board cause it's different from other sites as it looks on the history of wrestling in different viewpoints. I might agree with views on certain wrestlers and certain styles but I respect everybody bringing their reasons to the table.

[funkdoc]

funkdoc, don't you post on SRK (or used to) as Josh the Funkdoc? I'm BarrelO over there. I haven't been a regular poster in forever, though.

 

HOLY SHIT HOW DID I NEVER SEE THIS

 

wowwwwwwww, i definitely remember you from the real old days when i actually posted on SRK, but never made that connection! that was indeed me, haha. i haven't played fighting games since my 360 died and i found work and such - all my gaming time now goes to speedrunning the game in my avatar, or netplaying power grid.

 

 

also was totally not expecting to see mvc2 sentinel here, that's a pleasant surprise! fyi this dude helped make a sick mod for street fighter 4 called SF4 Remix, good times~

[scott2k16]

Hi signed up a while ago and now started to use my account

 

Love my BritWres and Other indys

 

Wondered if this was the place to request dvds or not?

[ButchReedMark]

I don't think anywhere on the forum is the place to request them anymore, if I remember correctly. Copyrighted footage isn't to be bandied about willy nilly these days, if I'm right.

 

Anyway, I'm Gareth, I'm 29, I'm damned handsome, and I'm from Wales. I've been watching religiously from 1989, but very little of it was actually British, unless it was Reslo which I'd watch often as a child and mark out for any Welsh babyface. Currently I'll watch pretty much anything except for Japanese stuff as I've never been able to get into it, and try to get to shows around the country as much as I can, as well as working on some myself. My main love is for brawlers and awesome punches, and I don't like my wrestling to be "pretty". Basically I think Wrestling's best when it looks like a fight.

[Venegas]

I've been lurking this board for quite sometime and let me say that it is far and away my favorite website to frequent. Everyone knows what they're talking about and this forum on many occasions has introduced me to stuff I probably wouldn't have been exposed to anywhere else.

 

Pro Wrestling is my one and only true passion in life. I've watched it my entire life and am constantly searching and or reading about it to soak up as much knowledge as I can. In what may be a shock to some, at the age of 16, I'm more than likely by far the youngest poster on here. As previously stated, I've been a fan since as far as my memory serves me via the WWE. Around 2011, that's when I started to dig deeper into it by exploring companies like ROH, PWG, NJPW and even the original ECW, which was actually my gateway to everything non-WWE as odd as that sounds. So, for a couple of years I was pretty much the typical indie fan who collected every DVD and whatnot. Fast forward to about summer of last year, and on the F4W board I read about the wrestling culture podcast. I never really listened to podcasts but I heard that they recorded an episode where Dave and Dylan list their top 50 workers of all time. I'm a pretty big mark for lists so I was intrigued. Halfway through the episode, there were so many names I was unfamiliar with. By that time, I was very familiar with guys like Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Hansen, and even Jumbo, but what in the fuck was a Volk Han?!? I had never heard the name Yuki Ishikawa before. I had heard the term 'Fujiwara armbar' used before, but I'd never seen a Yoshiaki Fujiwara match up until that point. I Google'd and YouTube'd some of the names I was unfamiliar with but even then I knew that I wasn't nearly as intelligent as I thought I was, and if there was so much out there that I wasn't privy to, I wanted to explore it. On a random episode of the DKP show that I was listening to, Rob Naylor mentioned the boards ProWrestlingOnly and DVDVR. Trusting his knowledge, I decided to check those sites out. I was amazed at the quality of discussion and used those sites to expand my knowledge of the thing I love most. Fast forward to now, and my DVD collection ranges anywhere from 80s New Japan, 90s RINGS, BattlArts, and Futen to the glory days of Portland. Guys like Volk Han, Yuki Ishikawa, and Yoshiaki Fujiwara would rank very high on my all time favorite wrestlers list. The Greatest Wrestlers of All Time project is finally what got me to sign up and I cannot wait to participate in it.

[Mike F]

Hey everyone! I'm Mike. I'm from Conshohocken, PA, which is right outside Philadelphia. Grew up in Wilkes-Barre but moved here about six years ago.

 

I'll be 30 on October 1 and been a fan since about 1989 or so. Huge into WWF and NWA/WCW and still am with that 88-94 era today. Also grew up watching ECW from right around it's inception in 1993. So being young and having that as my wrestling alternative is something I'm really grateful for.

 

Currently still as into wrestling as I've ever been. I am a huge US indies fan and keep up with about six promotions or so regularly and I love some of what WWE is doing now. I'm thrilled to finally be on here after hearing good things and looking for a place to chat or read about wrestling.

 

I'm on Twitter as @MikeVSPhilly if you've ever come across me on there. Shout out to the WTBBP podcast for being the final reason I decided to sign up. Love the PWO podcasts that PTBN puts out.

[soup23]

Hey Mike,

 

Glad you finally got registered up here. Could definitely always use more voices on people with a deep knowledge of wrestling history but also a thirst for a lot of the current going-ons.

 

Chad from WTBBP.

[concrete1992]

YAY IT'S MIKE!!!

[Johnny Sorrow]

Love the PWO podcasts that PTBN puts out.

What's your favorite show and why is it Titans of Wrestling?

[GOTNW]

Hello there. I decided to join after months of lurking because of the fact that the focus of the board is on analyzing pro-wres matches and open-minded discussion instead of frivolous nonsense and the only similar board I frequented is now pretty much dead and has/had a narrower span. I'm 17 and from Croatia, got into WWE by accidentally catching it on TV. As soon as my fandom grew and I started youtubeing everything I got into puroresu which fit my stylistic preferences more because I am inclined to like anything with more of a sportive/shooty feel to it as I was a kickboxing/MMA fan primarily before I got into pro-wres. I like contemporary lucha but I have pretty much no clue about its history. My favourite pro wrestling thing is Tenryu punching people in the face.

[DylanZero]

Hey folks.

I'm 22 and from Westernmost Tennessee. I started watching wrestling when I was 3, my first memory is the Undertaker buried alive by Mankind and The Executioner among others and his hand popping out of the grave. I've only been to one major event live and it was a Raw in Nashville in May 1998 where I saw Val Venis debut, and my favorite wrestlers as a kid were TAKA Michinoku, Ultimo Dragon, & The Patriot so in many ways I was destined to be a Japanese wrestling fan. Nowadays though surprisingly my favorite wrestling comes from Mexico. Going back to watch older wrestling has been one of my favorite things about the internet and now I'm well versed in very nearly everything you could imagine outside of deathmatches and such. Like most here I'm not in love with the typical WWE/NJPW that's seemed to take over the internet, but in general I can appreciate different styles for what they are pretty well, from a Destroyer mat-clinic to a Lawler Memphis brawl to a Jumbo US-style affair to even the occasional Marufuji match. (He was in the first Japanese match I ever saw and I admittedly have a soft spot past all of his glaring flaws that I don't for other similar guys).

My favorite wrestling promotion right now is CMLL obviously, though I keep up with as much as possible and very much enjoy NOAH & PROGRESS, some of what AJPW, NJPW, Stardom, IR, EVOLVE lately have had to offer. And even NWA: SAW which is a local promotion I can watch and appreciate all of them. I even watch promotions like WWE, TNA, AAA, though I try not to talk about them much because I usually feel embarrassed to be a human being letalone a wrestling fan after watching their TV programs sad to say.

My main goal in life right now is to get my girlfriend to like wrestling and she watches Lucha with me and I've got her to where she enjoys it pretty well, also always helps me translates as she's from Puerto Rico so she's a good one. Speaking of Puerto Rico that's the one area I haven't seen enough of that I desperately want to, since youtube's pretty barren of current shows, even older shows/matches aren't as prevalent as some areas though I have seen as much as I could of Colon and Invader and Embry (An all time personal favorite and underrated guy btw) and the like. Not holding my breath or anything on that front but the request is there.

I'll finish up with a bit of a rundown of how I found PWO, why I'm here, and just bang out a few personal faves since that seems right. I first stumbled here after seeing the listing for the best of the 2000s project on Ditch's AJPW puro site, and also because PWO kept getting mentioned on Voices of Wrestling, I'll listen to anything talking about Japanese wrestling pretty much. I've lurked and hobknobbed with a couple of folks on twitter but like Venegas above the Greatest Wrestler Ever made me want to sign up and contribute some, offer recommendations and whatnot.

I have a list of my top 100 current wrestlers I made last year actually and decided to pick 8 randomly just to show what diverse tastes I have as well as 8 being my favorite number instead of a generic "My top 5" guys.

Madoka
Aero Star
Rush
Atsushi Kotoge
Jay Briscoe
TJ Perkins
Hirooki Goto
James Mason

Better than I could have hoped for to be honest for the purposes of here. Anyway, hope to have lots of fun here and maybe learn a little somethin' too.

[soup23]

My main goal in life right now is to get my girlfriend to like wrestling and she watches Lucha with me and I've got her to where she enjoys it pretty well, also always helps me translates as she's from Puerto Rico so she's a good one.

 

Marry this woman! In all serious, welcome aboard and I am glad that the GWE project seems to be inflicting some new blood both from a poster standpoint and an age demographic.

[concrete1992]

I'm not the only young cat on PWO it seems. OH HAPPY DAY! GWE seems to be doing work!

[soup23]

Concrete, DylanZero, Marty Sleeze and Venegas can start a young punk stable.

[DylanZero]

 

My main goal in life right now is to get my girlfriend to like wrestling and she watches Lucha with me and I've got her to where she enjoys it pretty well, also always helps me translates as she's from Puerto Rico so she's a good one.

 

Marry this woman! In all serious, welcome aboard and I am glad that the GWE project seems to be inflicting some new blood both from a poster standpoint and an age demographic.

 

 

In all honesty, I'd have to be stupid not to. But yes, thanks. Also a bit off topic but I've gotta give you a bit of a shout out for something you put out awhile ago when I was doing an unrelated top 100 matches for 1990 project, I believe it was your list I used for suggestions, especially for matches I had never seen before like the classic Team Kong/Team Toyota tag from AJW and some of the UWF stuff I was unfamiliar with at the time, I finally get the chance to put that over directly to the horse's mouth. (A horrible misuse of the phrase, I know. But you get the point.)

 

I'm not the only young cat on PWO it seems. OH HAPPY DAY! GWE seems to be doing work!

Yeah, boy. I could be down with a faction of the youngest and best looking guys around here uniting against...you know what.

[concrete1992]

Yeah, boy. I could be down with a faction of the youngest and best looking guys around here uniting against...you know what.

 

 

THE PATRIARCHY!