NintendoLogic Posted July 27, 2014 Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 So as I'm sure a few of you have noticed, I haven't really been around in a while. Part of that is due to my return to gainful employment, which has afforded me less time to dick around on the Internet. But the bigger reason is that I just haven't been that interested in wrestling lately. Then again, I tend to be hot-and-cold with my interests. One day I'm borderline obsessed with something, the next day I hardly care about it at all. But there's always been this voice in the back of my head reminding me "You know, this wrestling shit is pretty fucking cool", and I've started to listen to it. I recently watched some matches on my computer for the first time in months, and I definitely feel my interest returning. So I was just curious. Do any of you ever feel the need to take a break from wrestling? If so, is there anything in particular that sucks you back in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 27, 2014 Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 Personally, I think the big thing is to pick a project and ride it for a while and then find another one. If I'm just watching matches, then it's harder for me to keep interested than if there's some purpose behind it all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stiva Posted July 27, 2014 Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 So as I'm sure a few of you have noticed, I haven't really been around in a while. Part of that is due to my return to gainful employment, which has afforded me less time to dick around on the Internet. But the bigger reason is that I just haven't been that interested in wrestling lately. Then again, I tend to be hot-and-cold with my interests. One day I'm borderline obsessed with something, the next day I hardly care about it at all. But there's always been this voice in the back of my head reminding me "You know, this wrestling shit is pretty fucking cool", and I've started to listen to it. I recently watched some matches on my computer for the first time in months, and I definitely feel my interest returning. So I was just curious. Do any of you ever feel the need to take a break from wrestling? If so, is there anything in particular that sucks you back in? Yeah, this happens to me once a year or so. A lot of it is due to there being no current promotion offering me something I enjoy but I'll get wind of a series between guys in WWE or an indy card that looks particularly promising and I'll be right in again. I often find, as Matt says, that binge watching something you haven't seen can get you back into things. Around Christmas, right when it looked like the Bryan stuff in WWE was being killed off, I went and watched a ton of old SMW that I had never seen before and all those angles and the general feel of the fed got me remembering why I love pro wrestling in the first place. so, in short, it's normal to get burned out but take a month or so away from it and something, whether it be current or old, will get the juices flowing again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted July 27, 2014 Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 Personally, I think the big thing is to pick a project and ride it for a while and then find another one. If I'm just watching matches, then it's harder for me to keep interested than if there's some purpose behind it all. This is me. I hated watching wrestling for a while after Benoit killed his family and himself, and this approach is what finally got me back into it. Every time I tried before that, I quickly lost interest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 It doesn't really matter how good the matches are, watching random matches doesn't keep me interested for long either. I really like watching things in context and enjoyed watching 1986 Continental and have been watching a lot of 1990 USWA Texas lately too. Just pick a starting point for a promotion and a time period that interests you and go from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I also usually have a couple things going on at once. Recently I had the Remedial wrestling thing and Lucha all the same time, plus obviously some current things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I have about 6 or 7 obsessive interests: films, music, board games, video games, football ("soccer") and pro wrestling. It's almost like they are on a wheel or a loop. I am always into all of them, but each month one of them will "come into focus" and be featured more, it'll be in the main event slot. Sometimes some interests take a back seat. Football just had a major run over the world cup to the point where I wasn't going to social engagements or leaving the house to try to watch every game -- a special case. Board games had a big run in May which happened to coincide with the UK Games Expo and a big trip a group of us did there. Films and video games have both been in recess for the past few months, but video games had a big run around Xmas 2013 sort of time, and films around February-March in the middle of Oscar season. Music had a biggish run around the time I wrote the first Wu-Tang article. Wrestling is currently in the middle of a major run, after the semester has ended and I've got more time to watch stuff. I've been like that for as long as I can remember, although I will say that being part of various projects has helped keep wrestling from drifting too far "into recess". Even during periods where wrestling is in number 5 or 6 slot, I've had stuff to watch and talk about for podcasts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artDDP Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I spent nine years not really paying any attention to the product unless something got pimped here. I just got back into it last summer when WWE started the Bryan build. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 After the Benoit murders, I fell off from wresting for a good 5 years. I did watch some old stuff but I didn't consume wrestling like I used to. In 2012 I started watching NXT on a weekly basis and other WWE tv. They eventually chased me off but it was the longest I had stuck to wrestling in a long time. Then I had my gall bladder removed in April. I watched the first 6 months of 1993 Raw, the Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania IX and King of the Ring during the week I was trapped at home. That just opened the floodgates. Next thing I knew I was watching SMW, ECW, Crockett and Chikara on a weekly basis. Next thing I knew I was buying DVDs again for the first time in years. Now I'm probably watching 4-8 hours of wrestling a week. It's not a ton but for the amount of time I have that's significant. I got that DVD set of 1985 World Wide Wrestling and I feel the passion again. It's sucked me in like nothing else has in a really long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoo Enthusiast Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I was out for the most part from mid-'00 til Mania 27. Only saw the occasional thing here and there, though I always had the pull of nostalgia for stuff that I loved from before. The most recent time I got in a major funk, PWG pulled me out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Programs like Plex on Roku box has also really helped me get back into watching wrestling because I can watch all the stuff on my hard drives on the tv with little effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoo Enthusiast Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Programs like Plex on Roku box has also really helped me get back into watching wrestling because I can watch all the stuff on my hard drives on the tv with little effort. I do the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilTLL Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Plex probably handles more formats, but Roku Media Player can handle H.264 without transcoding load on your computer. I've gotten .mp4 and .mkv to serve from XBMC, and just .mp4 through Windows library sharing (WMP). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I dropped out for 15 years.....then about a year back I was browsing the web and decided to see what was happening in wrestling. I had done this a number of times over the years but it had never lead to anything and I would go back to my other interests and pay it no mind. The difference last summer was the rave reviews G1 was getting. Japan had always been my preference with regards to wrestling and the level of praise coming from the tournament piqued my interest and one thing lead to another and here I am spending more time watching, listening and reading about wrestling than I do combined on any of my other interests. Cant bring myself to watch current WWE mind...that's the total shits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Ridge Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Had my times growing up where I wasn't following as close. Then around 2002-03, I cut back on watching the current stuff and began to focus on older material. There has been so much I had never seen that it keeps my entertained. So while not following current product as much as I still watching a ton of other stuff. Got burned out in the last few months though. Have also noticed I am not reading any books for past couple months and am always reading something. I was watching more WWE, trying to watch other current stuff. Network had me watching Superstars, Main Event and NXT. Then I was doing other projects and just got overwhelmed. Part of it was a total lack of focus on my viewing but I just didn't want to write about or read other's thoughts on wrestling. A break was in order. So I just stuck to watching certain stuff on the Network like Countdown, Legends of Wrestling and WrestleMania Rewind (would actually skip the actual match). My main thing was through the old Raws starting in 1993. Yeah, you weren't getting a whole lot of great matches or must see angles but I found these shows to be fun. Didn't have to worry about analyzing or putting my thoughts together. Just sat back and watched and got plenty of laughs out of some of the stuff and especially the commentary. Am slowly getting back right now. Went to MITB and had a good time. The other fans can be annoying but thought people were well behaved at that show and didn't have to listen to WWE commentary team. Even got a ticket to a house show for September. Haven't been to one of those since 2004. Catching up on Titans shows which are always a blast and getting ready to tackle 1998 stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I've been watching wrestling for as long as I could remember. I was obviously a huge fan during the boom but I had been watching as a real little kid for a few years before that. Right after the boom ended is when my wrestling tastes started to evolve, as I reached high school and the like. I remember actively disliking the Alliance angle, HHH's run in 2002-2003, but still watching Raw every week because my best buddy was also a huge wrestling fan. But by the end of 04/05, he started to fall out of it, I graduated HS, started working full time and going to college, so I kinda tuned out of WWE at the end of 2005/2006. At this time though, I was a huge ROH fan and attended virtually every NY-area show, so while I was no longer watching WWE, I wasn't completely out of wrestling. I was on and off with WWE for a while, more off once the Benoit stuff occurred. The first time I tuned in was right after the Nexus angle on Raw but when the followup was pretty bad, I tuned out again. Tuned back in for Punk after my Facebook blew up with the pipe bomb promo but again tuned out after the followup. I tried to get back into it when TNA went to Mondays because I was hoping it'd kinda rekindle the Monday Night War magic, but that obviously didn't last. Once Daniel Bryan started getting pushed, I found myself watching more regularly. I generally don't watch during football season unless the Monday Night Football game is a blowout. I was really getting back into things around WrestleMania but have started to drift away again. I guess the key is to just not watch if you're not being entertained. When I wasn't watching, I subscribed to Classics on Demand and got my fix that way. I remember when I would randomly check in on WWE, there was so much I hated about Raw. The 50/50 booking, constantly having PPV rematches on free TV and/or having PPV matches on Raw only for them to be a rematch on the PPV itself. Everyone having a generic rock entrance theme, everyone looking like the same cookie cutter person (I'm generalizing, I know). Eventually, I just sorta learned to accept that this is the new reality for wrestling and no matter how much I might want it to be different, it's not gonna be 1985 Jim Crockett Promotions. Once I accepted that, I found watching Raw to be slightly more appealing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 There are certain things I like that I've loved for years, but it waivers between loving them but not having the time to really follow and centering my free time on them. Boxing and pro wrestling are those. Certain things, usually a different sport each year or so, I'll get super into then follow not so much for a few years then get really back into it. There have been a couple of multi-year stretches where I basically never watched pro wrestling and that might happen in the future, though as I get older (relatively, being only 25 and all) I do find my interests stabilizing compared to as a teen or when I was an undergrad. Free time becomes more and more limited so I hone it down to 2-3 things that I'm super into and leave it at that. I can hold a conversation on basically any of the major American sports (including soccer) but whenever people talk about new movies I might as well be my 80 year old Polish grandma. Same with non-sports TV. Except for a few bands, new albums are Greek to me. Right now pro-wrestling is on a two year hot streak after about 3 years of boxing being king. Who knows, maybe next year I'll watch almost no wrestling, but I can't imagine it'll go away forever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzombie1988 Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 I have about 6 or 7 obsessive interests: films, music, board games, video games, football ("soccer") and pro wrestling. It's almost like they are on a wheel or a loop. I am always into all of them, but each month one of them will "come into focus" and be featured more, it'll be in the main event slot. Sometimes some interests take a back seat. Football just had a major run over the world cup to the point where I wasn't going to social engagements or leaving the house to try to watch every game -- a special case. Board games had a big run in May which happened to coincide with the UK Games Expo and a big trip a group of us did there. Films and video games have both been in recess for the past few months, but video games had a big run around Xmas 2013 sort of time, and films around February-March in the middle of Oscar season. Music had a biggish run around the time I wrote the first Wu-Tang article. Wrestling is currently in the middle of a major run, after the semester has ended and I've got more time to watch stuff. I've been like that for as long as I can remember, although I will say that being part of various projects has helped keep wrestling from drifting too far "into recess". Even during periods where wrestling is in number 5 or 6 slot, I've had stuff to watch and talk about for podcasts. Finally, someone else who can understand the insanity of my life! I get really into things(whether it be food, interests, even girls, etc) and get out of them just as badly. Obsessively watched wrestling when I was blogging and now haven't watched it in months. Shoot, I wasn't even looking on the boards much for a few weeks. My year was like this: - Super into playing basketball obsessively for about 6 months. Still enjoy playing but all the bs and people thinking they are chasing the title at the local gym killed it. - Was really into wrestling podcasts as well after mania season. Barely have time for any now. - Got really into Baywatch for a while. No idea why. Got a good 2 weeks out of that. - Got rid of that and was hooked on GoT for months. Then it ended. - Switched over to League of Legends, which has been going strong for 3-4 months. - Got into listening to Kiss records for a while. - Now have some interest again in cycling and sumo(as they both just had big events). It's way worse with food. We have an area that has been deemed "snack heaven", as snacks go to die there when I don't want to eat them anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 You sound like me. Wrestling is kind of the only thing I ALWAYS come back to. In some form or fashion, whether it be watching, TEW or just message boards I'm always somehow interested in wrestling but stuff like music, books and video games don't last. Usually they are just things I'm obsessed with for a short time until one day I just have absolutely no interest in it any more and just forget about it and move on. Or on the rarest of occasions I do actually finish a book or video game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 Lately I've been having trouble finding time to watch RAW and SD because of me still getting used to not having cable and doing the Hulu thing, added to me being in The Producers every Friday and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. I'm still digging the current stuff but time is a factor. That's why I can't wrap my head around people complaining about lack of content on the Network, Ive barely scratched the surface of what they have on. Are you people in an iron lung? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dawho5 Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 You do outgrow that obsessive starting and stopping of games/books eventually. Or at least I did. It took me until 35 or 36, but I finally got to the point where what I do is dominated by two things and nothing else really ever gets done in my "me" time. I try to find energy when I'm not working or in class to work on the martial arts, but that got hard. Not that I don't anymore, but it's not everyday like it used to be. Wrestling gets the lion's share of my time, be it watching or making KoC2 edits and trying to balance them. I believe I am on my 5th complete restructuring of one major aspect of all the juniors I've made. The more wrestling I watch, the more I see things that I like or dislike and edit accordingly. Oddly enough, this ends up being my music time when I'm not testing them out. TEW is something I'd like to make the time for, but my next project is definitely not going to allow that for a while. I do agree that having a project to work on really helps keep the focus going on wrestling. That way when I take maybe a week with a lot less wrestling time, I have something to go back to that keeps me from getting too far away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 You should compile a History of TNA. It would keep you busy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dawho5 Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 It would also make my head explode. Depending on your opinion of me, that may be considered a good thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 I was thinking about it before and perhaps I have only one interest, which is to develop knowledge and interest in stuff to the point of being a "connoisseur" of the said thing. It's terribly bourgeois, and I didn't mention my other obsessions like finding the best burger in London or fine dining, etc. But virtually all my interests entail sampling a range of stuff, learning about their history, analysing and rating them, and then drawing conclusions. So in essence the real interests / activities are: - breadth of research (i.e. wideness of range, could entail seeking out a 1930s blues record, a match from the 1970s no one talks about, an obscure indie game etc.) - history or "depth of research" - analysis - comparison - judgement That's the central throughline to everything I do, including work. I've often thought that there's no real difference to how I approach work or "pleasure". I make notes even when I play video games (stuff like Football Manager, or TEW, or whatever). What an incredibly boring guy I am ... no fun at parties! Ha ha ha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Face Chicken Wing Posted July 29, 2014 Report Share Posted July 29, 2014 I didn't mention my other obsessions like finding the best burger in London If you're ever in the United States, make your way up to Minnesota and I'll introduce you to the Jiffy Burger at the Blue Door Pub in St. Paul. Nothing you find in London will even come close to topping this masterpiece. http://thebdp.com/pdfs/BDP_MENU_2014.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.