Split Topic: Your Pro-Wrestling Journey

[JerryvonKramer]

On Where the Big Boys Play, I would estimate half the guests mention getting out of wrestling during the HHH reign of terror era. I don't think anyone's done more damage to US pro wrestling in the last 15 years except maybe Vince Russo.

 

HHH wouldn't make a top 500 list of US workers for me. I can't think of a single HHH match I've ever watched that I've liked because of his performance.

Not trying to defend Trips, but could it be that most of our guests are around the same age as me -- 32 -- and that if you follow the life trajectory of any fan, the period you stop watching kind of coincides with other big life things like getting married or starting a career or something else?

 

If you assume that of these people most would have been about 8 or 9 around 1990, and 16-18 around the time of the attitude era. The "dark period" falls when most are in their early 20s and sorting a lot of that real-life shit out.

 

Once you're a bit older and more settled in your late 20s and into your 30s, time can start opening up again to watch wrestling.

 

It's just a thought.

 

So many of us have a similar "journey". It's interesting when I've talked to guys like Will and Johnny who are a bit older and have a really different path. They were teenagers and tapping out at WWF cartoon shit many of us have fondness for at a time when many of us were younger. Their "dark periods" are different.

 

So I just wonder if some of it is just generational and non-wrestling related.

[Tim Cooke]

I think JVK's post above should be split off because it is an interesting topic that should have its own discussion - your pro wrestling journey.

 

I could care less about 2002-2010 WWE yet ROH from Dec '02-July '06 will always be special since I was able to witness a lot of it live and in real time even if a lot of it contains aspects of wrestling that annoy me today.

 

Japan in the early 2000's was a dark spot for a long time because I was still catching up on all the 80's and 90's classics at the time. Revisiting 2002-2004 in 2014 has given me a greater understanding and appreciation for things I may have written off in real time. It'so also why I can't and will not buy Meltzer's argument about not being able to analyze or criticise a match that happened 5, 10, or 50 years ago.

[funkdoc]

i think there's something to parv's post. i'm a bit younger than the majority here and haven't started a family or anything, but i also left wrestling in 2003. for me, katie vick was the straw that broke the camel's back. i also couldn't stand HHH beating booker & RVD when they were crazy over. RVD in particular was *the* favorite of all my brother's friends who watched at the time, and it seemed like the time to run with him.

 

all that being said, i think a lot of this may not have been on HHH necessarily. rather, to some degree, i'd say this was inevitable burnout after years of a hot product that was a far bigger timesink than 80s WWF. more PPVs and more meaningful TV to keep up with every week meant the boom just wasn't sustainable. right at the peak of it all, i remember bill simmons saying "I see more of the McMahon family than my own family these days!", which makes me wonder if that oversaturation didn't play a role as well.

 

EDIT: 29 here!

[Exposer]

I'm much younger than a lot of people here. I still watch WWE programming regularly. It's more out of habit than enjoyment currently. I've been pretty negative towards the product in the last year. As a little kid during the latter half of the Attitude Era and early 2000s, nothing was more important to me than pro wrestling as entertainment goes. Then I became a huge football fan, both college and pro, played sports, and went to college. I've missed many Monday Night Raw's for an NFL game or spent most of the time during WWE TV viewing studying. I have way more interests now outside of wrestling that I like to prioritize over it sometimes. I'm not sure it has anything to do with the product being stale though. It's just more things to enjoy and talk about. One thing that has changed remarkably with me over time is being able to miss a Raw, SD, or even a PPV and not give a shit. I don't care all that much if I miss a show. The internet exist.

 

EDIT: Turned 22 this week.

[anarchistxx]

Not got the time to write the long post that the topic justifies. But my journey is around this:

 

1999-2001: Wrestling is an insanely popular fad. I get into it at school like most of my friends. I don't even know WCW exists. Get so excited about WWF and talk about it every day with friends, watch Raw at sleepovers etc, stay up late watching the PPVs on Channel 4 that I can get in my room, having headphones on so my parents don't know.

 

2001-2003: Start to go on the internet, buy tons of old [official] WWF/E tapes, starting high school and my friends have all stopped watching. I am a huge superfan, eagerly reading about backstage stuff like Montreal and educating myself, but still confined to mainstream US wrestling.

 

2003-2006: It becomes something of an obsession, start posting on forums like Smarkschoice and finding out about Joshi and Puro, spend cash on tons of discs off traders because DVDs are suddenly this cheap format that is easy to post and you can acquire loads of footage. Follow ROH religiously, still a WWE fan, also watching a lot of 90s AJPW, NOAH, the classic Joshi shows and comps, buying big comps of WCW and basically whatever is pimped that I can get my hands on. Backyard wrestling with people becomes a big part of my life.

 

Then suddenly in 2006/2007, I burn out. Probably for a lot of reasons. Footage overload being one - I still have stacks of unwatched discs, it probably became too much, I couldn't keep pace with my interests. Also I was growing up, 16-17 and going to parties and starting to go to clubs and drinking most weekends and still playing soccer and tennis and just hanging out, added to a part time job and college work. Wrestling had to take a back seat. ROH was going downhill and had lost all the talent I loved, WWE was fairly skippable, modern Puro wasn't amazing, the buzz had gone online and on the product.

 

2007-2011: Didn't watch anything, outside of maybe one or two sporadic attempts to rekindle the flame, buying Goodhelmet's MOTY set in 2009. Go traveling and live in Australia/Asia for a year where you don't even think about wrestling anymore, went to University, got really into music and film and those became my passions in terms of entertainment consumption. Got majorly into dance music and spent a lot of my spare time and money going to Tomorowland and Global Gathering and just general clubbing, especially in Europe. Most of my discs got thrown out, a few spindles remained in the attic at home. Didn't even check results. Occasionally read forums, just to keep up with the scene. Strangely went to a Dragon Gate event in 2010 after a friend who was into Puro asked me to go with him, we had a good time.

 

2011-2014: Randomly watched Money In The Bank 2011 after hearing about Punk's 'pipe bomb' promo. Marked out for the first time in a decade watching Danielson and Punk win. My interest soon lapsed as the product became stagnant. Got cable again in late 2012 so started watching again mainly out of habit as I Sky +'d Raw and would spin through it every Tuesday morning with breakfast. My interest is nowhere near what it was in 2005 - I would never dream of sitting down and putting a wrestling DVD on, or writing a review with star ratings or buying a thirty disc comp. But I love reading this forum, and all the knowledge here, and discussing stuff, and contributing with the perspective of a 2004-2006 smark. My opinions are probably a bit dated now - nobody talks about control segments or thinks having a huge moveset is important.

 

So wrestling will never be an important part of my life again but I wouldn't rule out going to indy shows or buying discs of something that intrigues me. I'd quite like to watch the pimped Puro matches but never get round to it really - it is enough keeping up with the other art that I like and getting time for reading/listening/watching things in between having a social life and playing sport etc. Suppose I was your typical fan who grew out of it in his mid-late teens, although I've hung on to the extent where I still take an interest and watch some WWE and post here. I take much more of an analytical approach to the product now, from a standpoint of booking and merchandising and presentation.

 

Edit: Yeah, famous last words - this is a pretty long ass post!

[khawk20]

My journey is pretty long and will require me more writing than I have time to do right now. It began officially in around 1978, but evidence presented to me suggests my initial attraction began around 1971-72. In either case, the AWA was central at the beginning of the journey, and continues to be to a point even today.

 

More later if I have time.

 

EDIT: I'm 45.

[JerryvonKramer]

People probably need to include their current ages to make patterns easier to spot.

[fxnj]

 

2007-2009 (13-15): Start watching with literally a week before Benoit kills himself. Really dig it but watch a bit sporadically because school and not sure about going all the way into this carny shit.

 

2009-2010 (15-16): Find out about puro and decide to go all the way into this carny shit. Pretty much drop everything to watch 24/7.

 

2010-2011 (16-17): Concussion shit comes and I rethink going all the way into this carny shit. Get other interests and barely watch.

 

2011-2014(17-20): Find 90s AJPW and it is just the fucking greatest thing I've ever seen. I kind of put away the guilt and start watching again, though it's again very sporadic with me going through periods watching tons or barely any. Haven't followed WWE much during this period (though they've recently got me interested by pushing the shield and signing KENTA), but love seeing both old and recent matches from all the puro promotions.

 

I think I enjoy wrestling now more than I ever have, even though me having other things to do kind of stops me from watching as much as before. I think there's something to the claim that a points where a demographic seems to quit watching have as much to do with what's going on elsewhere as it does with the product itself.

[bradhindsight]

I probably fit your hypothesis pretty well Parv:

 

35 years old

 

Ages 19-23 - hardcore into the product, the video games, everything. Was in college for most of this (with my buddy Rob Naylor). Stopped watching after Mania in 2002.

 

Ages 26-27 - end of 2004 into summer of 2006 (left after the ECW split off fizzled after RVD's bust) - waxed nostalgic, desperately wanted to get back into the product. Ordered a lot of PPVs, didn't converse online though. Bought my first DVDs

 

Met my wife during that summer also - fast forward two years later - married in summer of 2008:

 

Ages 29-today - have free time again late in 2008, hugely back into the product. Re-find SK's old blog, which leads me to PTB and PWO. Go to a couple Wrestlemanias (having local friends into the product is nice), start hardcore collecting DVDs, and exploring other territories.

[Grimmas]

Ok, here we go.

 

34 years old.

 

Starting in 87-88, first because my older sister watched GLOW and after seeing that and finding WWF I was hooked. First major angle I remember was Ron Bass cutting up Brutus Beefcake.

 

HUGE into WWF till the fall of 1993, when we moved into the country and had no cable.

 

In late 95-96 we got a US Satelite and after flipping through the channels saw Sunny and started to pay attention again. In late 96/97 was full insane into it again, this time was different though. Besides WWF, I had come across ECW late night (first saw Sandman-Raven in a barbed wire match) and started watched that on and off too. Also found lucha in the summer, I remember seeing Olimpico and Felino and being into those guys.

 

From there the internet, tape trading and it was all down hill from there.

 

Since then i have watched in one form or the other. I gave up watching Raw every week in about 2002, partially due to no WCW, partially due to the product stinking, and partially do to graduate work.

 

Generally I watch a lot, but ignore Raw until January where I watch through Mania and longer if it is good. Then I usually drop that and only watch major shows and hyped stuff to go along with other viewing.

 

Now I do a podcast, so I can't lapsed on everything like I would in the past.

[TRMD]

Started watching in '98 when I was 4. Yes, 4. And I have a great memory of a lot of it. I can remember renting PPV's like Wrestlemania 13 and 14. Summerslam '98, and a lot of the IYH's.

 

Wrestling was just so hot back then. I can remember people having Stone Cold bumper stickers and wearing NWO tees. You ever go to the carnival and play the game where you throw darts through balloons? You get a little picture with a glass frame for winning? You better get yours quick, because the wrestling pictures would be all gone in an hour.

 

I can remember vacationing in Panama City, FL in '99. I can remember pretty much every guest in the Motel with their doors open watching Raw. It was this episode http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/29140-vince-mcmahon-steve-austin-and-jim-ross-wwf-monday-night-raw-072699/

 

I watched a little bit of WCW, too. My brother is actually more nostalgic for WCW than he is for WWF. Because that's what my Pap watched (Who at more than 80 years old, still watches every single Raw, Smackdown, and (Impact) every single week. Literally since 98 or so. Even when he's in the hospital, he watches it.

 

I can remember in 2001, the day after Wrestlemania x7, I didn't watch the PPV, so I was sitting in school so nervous to see who won the Austin/Rock match that I was puking. Literally puking from being so nervous.

 

I watched religiously until 2004. That's when I realized Austin was done. The last PPV I watched as a young die hard was Wrestlemania XX. And yes, I stopped watching because of HHH. But not in a bad way. I just hated him so much. So fucking much. And there was no more Austin. No more Goldberg. No more Rock. No more Foley. No more ABA Taker. I didn't give a shit about Benoit or Guerrero. Didn't care about Michaels, RVD or Rey. So, I just drifted out of wrestling.

 

Keep in mind, when I stopped watching, I still thought wrestling was real..or not scripted. I used to legitimately beat the shit out of kids my age who said wrestling wasn't real.

 

I never completely put wresting out of my life. I think I watched very rarely as a casual viewer from 2004 to 2010.. But very, very, rarely. I did keep in touch with some storylines because of YWC guys.

 

In 2008 I was actually going through the DirecTV guide and saw that Wrestlemania XXIV was on. My mom was rolling in the benjies at the time, so I just ordered it and watched it on a whim. Was very weird.

 

Then, in 2011...Rock came back. I didn't see it live, but I watched it on Youtube the second I heard he did. And It gave me chills and I almost teared up. The pop was so special. Rock's promo was so awesome. I remembered how much I loved wrestling. And I was back.

 

And here we are today..

[thebrainfollower]

35 years old.

 

My dad watched during the Bob Backlund era and he tells me I watched with him but don't remember it. I watched Hogan's rock and wrestling and definitely remember a Championship Wrestling episode in 86 giving WM 2 results.

 

Was watching WWF regularly from then on, and also renting Coliseum Video's starting in 1987 when we bought a VCR. Without cable it was just Superstars, Challenge and the occasional Spotlight from the Worcester based TV station. Talked wrestling with my friends. Favorites were Tito, Ricky and the Bulldogs, then loved Savage. And no, was not a "smart kid" as I also liked the Undertaker and the Bushwhackers later on.

 

Bought tons of the Hasbros and stayed interested in the product during the dark ages. We got cable in the summer of 93 allowing me to get PPV (one week of newspaper deliveries) and watch Raw. Watched WCW a bit and gained interest in it when Heenan defected as by then he was my favorite wrestling performer. Still is.

 

Stayed around during the entire MNW and began to watch older stuff in the early youtube days, branching out to JCP and the territories. Gave up on WWE in 2002 during the endless HHH reign of terror though I watched off and on when I had cable until 2005.

 

Still watched older stuff and played the wrestling card game a lot, video games as well. Have watched a lot more stuff since finding PWO two years ago (through the Observer write ups initially)

[Exposer]

Okay, I was way too brief in my original post.

 

2000-2001 (7-8) - I got into wrestling just as it was ending it's peak during the Monday Night Wars/late 90s boom. It took me a couple of months of sporadic viewing before I really got invested. The build to WM 16 had me really excited. My Dad ordered the PPV, and it just sort of clicked from there. I'll never forget the night after that Mania my Mom demanded my brother Dustin and I go to bed at 9:30. That was a one night failed attempt. I pretended I couldn't fall asleep and tried to get a few glimpses of Raw in my parents room. I whined and complained. Simply put, my brother and I got to watch all of Raw every week after that. Anyways, in my earliest days of viewing I liked HHH. I thought his entrance was cool. It didn't take me long to get into the swing of hating the heels and cheering the faces though. I despised HHH so much as a kid. Dustin and I fucking cried when he beat Rikishi that one time on Raw or whatever. As far as WCW goes, it was digging its grave pretty deep by that point. When Dylan would come over, he'd flip back and forth between Raw and Nitro. I thought that was blasphemous and bitched about it. The only WCW PPV I ever saw live was Bash at the Beach 2000 that my Uncle ordered for me. I dug Booker T. I thought the Russo-Hogan stuff didn't make any sense at all as a seven year old. It still doesn't today. The PPV, as much as it sucked, still inspired me to watch Thunder every week for a while. I never watched Nitro, but Thunder was something different. ECW was on Tuesday night's I believe. We watched it sometimes. It was on pretty late though where we were. When it came to internet fandom or inside rumors I didn't get much of that at all. That's of course due to my age, but Dylan did call some number and let me listen to some dude rant about rumors for ten minutes. I didn't get it at the time though. I pretty much knew it was fake, but I didn't care to think about that. As 2000 went on, I got totally into the Rock-HHH feud, Austin's return, and so on. The build to Mania 17 was awesome as a kid. Holy shit that show was even better then too. We watched it in my brother Drew's room. Then the Alliance angle happened and I was fully engrossed in it. Kurt Angle was my hero pretty much. Sometime in 2001, my uncle and cousin started inviting Dustin and I to go to some local indie feds in the Chattanooga area. We went to this place named UEW for years every Saturday night. It gave me a taste of old school wrestling and a little bit of the indie excitement that was starting to build. By this point, I was a kid who loved the hell out of some wrestling.

 

2002-2005 (9-12) - This period was crazy for me as a wrestling fan. I had random Japanese footage, ROH footage, and old tapes bought at indie shows to watch at home, UEW on Saturdays through the summer of 04 and random local weekend shows for a year after that. My uncle and cousin were as invested in WWE as we were. We would have big parties, invite friends over, eat huge meals, and have a blast watching the big shows and PPVs. TNA started up and we got really into that as well. My uncle ordered one of their weekly PPVs every few months. Samoa Joe was a huge deal and we all marked out for him in TNA. I had only heard things about him in ROH and hadn't seen the matches at the time. Unfortunately, from 02-03 we only got Raw which was garbage in hindsight. At the time, it was awesome. Smackdown starting airing on Saturday nights on the local Fox affiliate at 11:35 pm in 04. My cousin would tape it and we'd watch it the next week or weekend. We also went to every house show WWE had in Chattanooga during this period as well. I met Shelton Benjamin, John Cena, and Matt Hardy and thought it was the greatest thing ever. It was a blast being a wrestling fan as a kid.

 

2006-2007 (13-14) - Here's where sports comes in. I was completely into everything college and pro football by this point. I would skip Raw several weeks in a row to see big Monday Night Football games. I would turn down chances to go see local indie shows because my South Carolina Gamecocks had a game on Saturday night. I got REALLY into movies at this point too. I was going to Blockbuster every weekend to rent four or five movies and binge watch them. It was insane. Wrestling was almost taking a backseat. But not quite. I was still really into WWE. My friends were watching at the time in school so it was something to talk about. I dug the ECW One Night Stand 2 stuff, the Cena-Edge feud, pretty much the entire year of TNA in 2006, and Smackdown was fucking awesome to watch on Saturday nights late. Meanwhile, there was a local indie red running in Cleveland, TN called ARW that I would go to with my uncle and cousin whenever the Gamecocks didn't have a night game. That was a GREAT indie fed. I saw some of the best matches I've ever seen live there. There was an INCREDIBLE Naturals vs. Shaun Tempers/Ace Rockwell tag that I saw there. It ruled. Also during this time Dustin's best friend starting eating at Hooter's for the PPV's so we thought "what the hell? Why not?" and joined him every month. That was a blast too. As a 14 year old, wings, hot women, and wrestling was tremendous and maybe the greatest thing in the world. Of course, the Benoit stuff was horrifying for me. I couldn't believe it. It made me sick for a few weeks. This sounds bad, but I was able to shrug it off eventually and get back into the product. Another great live match I saw from 2007 in Chattanooga was Cena-Orton at a house show. The match was better than there Summerslam match that year and probably the best Cena-Orton match I've ever seen. My uncle and cousin had pretty much completely stopped watching WWE and TNA programming by the end of 2007. We still had some fun family wrestling parties for the big four PPVs in future years but they were few and far between.

 

2008-2011 (15-18) - Man did I get into everything professional wrestling during my high school years. I turned into a mega fan pretty quickly into high school. The WWF and WCW Smarkschoice polls introduced me to older wrestling. Youtube and Dailymotion exploded with copious amounts of footage. I got the motherfucking Buddy Rose set as a graduation present. Whenever I visited Dylan he was always working on 80s projects or something of the like so I got to see a good bit of that stuff as well. I was fully into WWE again. I was still watching some shows at Hooter's, I started to not care about MNF games that didn't have the Cowboys playing because Raw was on, SD came on during it's regular time for the first time in year's in my town, my uncle, cousin, and I were still going to local indie feds. Completely random ones at this point which was a blast. By the end of this period we were attending shows in Rossville, GA at a place called Empire where a ton of UEW veterans work. The Nexus angle was awesome (at first), the summer of Punk was the greatest thing ever, and so on. And who can forget about WWECW kicking ass every week. It was great. Wrestling was becoming fun again and I loved the hell out of it.

 

2012-2014 (19-21) - Then college happened. "Hey want to go hang out? Do this? That? Time to study!" I've missed a lot of wrestling since being in school, but a good bit of it I don't care about. I was going to Empire and DSCW (another localish indie fed) into 2013, but more sporadically. I watch WWE programming regularly, but it's out of habit. I still get really into at times like with the Daniel Bryan stuff, the Shield's debut, the Rhodes stuff last fall, Cesaro in 2013, etc. WWE doesn't do it for me as much anymore. However, I've really gotten into watching everything all over the world over many years. I've watched some stuff for the 80s sets, participated in a few of the 80s sets rankings, watched most of everything from 2012 and 2013 of pimping importance and dished out top 100s for the WKO site, and generally watch random stuff whenever I get the chance. I don't care about wrestling that much anymore which is sad. I have some great memories as a kid. I still love wrestling, but I watch because I like good matches. Good characters, angles, and promos can still happen and I love them, but the lack of those things makes me not care as much anymore. I still love me some wrestling though. Hell, I'm going to an Empire show tomorrow night!

[Witlon]

29 years old...

Age 3 through 7: Remember always liking pro wrestling. Don't exactly know how I got into it, but I'd watch it when it was on TV (WWF only, because WCW wasn't in syndication where I lived.)

Age 7 through 12: Got cable in 92 for the first time, and started watching Prime Time relgiously over the Summer and recording everything I could. Shortly after I moved, we dropped cable and I started renting tapes as often as possible.

Age 13-18: Got DirecTV for the first time, started watching Raw religously, and Nitro sometimes on the replays. Eventually picked up any old WWF PPV footage I could to rewatch everything I missed.

Age 19-25: Got married and started working crazy amounts of hours. Would check Raw/Smackdown results every week to see if I missed anything important, and just kind of followed along that way. First introduced to Joshi and Indy stuff in this era which took up most of my free time.

Age 26-current: Got divorced, immerced myself in a ton of Japan stuff to pass the time, catching up on previous stuff through downloads and torrenting. Got back in to monthly PPV watching around the time of the MITB '11 and haven't missed one since. Rewatching a ton of Japan and Joshi, trying to get in to Lucha and WOS for GWE at this point.

[cowboy hats]

Born in '81...

 

1990-1993. Regular viewer of WWF syndicated programming. Not sure I saw a ppv live other than attending (Summerslam 91 - still never asked my dad what the hell he thought after attending a professional wrestling wedding with his ten year old son). Probably watched a bunch of ppvs on tape from Captain Video.

 

1993-1998. No wrestling for no real reason, just grew out of it. My big mid 90s pop culture regrets are missing out on ECW and Mr. Show. For as much tv as I watched in the 90s, I just never came across them or, if I did, they didn't grab me.

 

1998-2000. High school friends had wcw vs. nwo: world tour for n64. Played that a lot in the spring of 1998. A ton of wrestlers I grew up watching were in it and we started watching Nitro. Soon started watching Raw, flipped between the two for a few months, and then was exclusive WWF viewer beginning in early '99. Continued watching with new friends when I went to college in fall of '99. We attended the ppv in Philly in September 2000, but Raw moved to TNN the following night, our college didn't get the channel and I was out.

 

2000-?? My regular message board was wrestling-based, so I knew generally what was going on through about 2004. Spent the first half of 2005 in school in London by myself and watched a lot of Smackdown. After that, though, 2005-10 is a complete blur, with just a few random memories/insights (brand split was still horrible, HBK/Hogan at Summerslam, Umaga and Khali were things, CM Punk was probably worth watching). Since Punk's promo I've been more engaged, but never a regular viewer. Subscribed to the network on day one for nostalgia's sake and have never watched more wrestling in my life (though even that's just limited to a little bit a week, nothing too intense).

[goodhelmet]

Christ, I am old enough to be the father of some of you.

[TRMD]

Christ, I am old enough to be the father of some of you.

 

......Dad?

[goodhelmet]

Depends how old you are and where you were born. 21 or 20 and from Alaska? Maybe. 25 to 22 from Texas? Not likely but maybe.

[goc]

I'm 29 here. My Dad liked wrestling so I ALWAYS watched wrestling as long as I can remember. I grew up a hardcore WWF fan, even though my Dad was a WCW guy and grew up going to Greensboro Coliseum shows. I was obsessed as a kid, I got every wrestling magazine, wrestling action figure, PPV, that I could talk my parents into buying. Had a very elaborate action figure federation that I kept a notebook of title changes and big cards for. After high school I started to get out of wrestling, especially after Brock Lesnar left and I only really followed wrestling through reading results. Around 2006 I moved into an apartment where I could get the old WWE 24/7 On Demand service and that got me back into wrestling as I started watching the PPVs on the 3 month delay they would have with 24/7.

 

It's funny, with so many people saying that they stopped watching because of John Cena, he is actually the guy that got me interested again after a 3-4 year hiatus. I remembered reading long arguments about him on DVDVR so I thought I'd check him out and see what the big deal was, and I really liked the stuff he was doing in that time period. I think I started somewhere around the Umaga matches and I was a huge Cena fan. I started watching Smackdown and ECW (never Raw though) and was still watching WWE regularly until they killed off the ECW brand and ended the brand split at which point my interest took a huge nose dive and now I pretty much exclusively watch old footage.

 

As for watching old footage, I'd pretty much never seen anything outside of WWF/WCW/ECW until getting the DVDVR Mid-South set at which point I became hooked and have acquired a stupidly large collection of old territory stuff.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

I'm 30 and pretty much fit, as well. I'm from AWA country and my dad was probably a nostalgic fan like we are now (he tells a story of drinking at a local bar with Curt Hennig and Bock) and we would watch it together. I always pretty much knew it wasn't on the up and up but absolutely loved it. I remember watching SNME's, etc. with dad during the Mega Powers stuff. My earliest vivid memories involve a house show in Green Bay that featured my mom yelling at Mr. Perfect, as well as me scoring a foam Hacksaw Jim Duggan 2" x 4" and a Bushwackers foam finger thing. I was so hooked. Mania VI was a big deal as my friends and I were all big Warrior kids. Then, I fell out of it the first time in '95 or so. I think it just wasn't very cool anymore, even as a 10 year old. Hogan was gone, there was the standard "you know it's fake, right?" stuff, and "they are all on steroids." Plus I was obsessed with baseball and other sports.

 

I got back in at the time when probably everyone who fell out at the same time as me did: the nWo. "What, Hulk Hogan is a BAD GUY now?!?!" Instantly obsessed, and had really never watched much WCW aside from knowing Flyin' Brian and Sting thanks to a kid who I went to school with that had their shirts and told me about them. Anyhow, another buddy was like "WWF has this guy called Stone Cold and he swears all the time." His high school aged brother and his friends were ordering PPVs and wrestling was cool. Borderline cutting edge, even. Another friend's older brother gave me a PPV copy of Uncensored '97 and I was over the moon. I still really wasn't watching much WWF until a guy that worked for my dad gave him a tape of Badd Blood IYH. All along this journey was my dad, too. We started ordering every WCW PPV from Spring Stampede '97 on, and I taped them all and watched them over and over. We started doing the same with WWF with Royal Rumble '98. Everyone I knew fucking LOVED Stone Cold. Even my mom got into him, which is when I knew wrestling was a pretty huge deal again. It was the talk of the playgrounds, the lunchrooms, the hallways, everywhere. The new video games were awesome and if we weren't watching tapes we were pulling all nighters playing World Tour and drinking Mtn. Dew by the Cube. These were THE DAYS. Somewhere in here, my dad finds ECW somewhere late at night on the C-Band satellitle dish, and we're staying up late on Saturdays watching that like we were with SNME 10 years prior. It was so fucking badass and edgy and we loved it and started ordering all of those shows, too.

 

I'd like to say something that makes me sound like I am such a smart fan, booking ruined it for me, blah blah blah, but I quit watching in 2000 because I was 16 and had a car and a job and was interested in the opposite sex, etc. Surely it had become less enjoyable in the '99-00 time period, but the other stuff was a bigger reason. Plus I imagine I was burnt out a bit, as much as that happens to a 16 year old. I would have brief dalliances with watching again (watching the last Nitro, Mania 17 on VHS, etc.), but went mostly dark from '00 until 2010 or so, when I started watching a little for no real reason. I went and watched all the first few years of Nitro and the PPV's after downloading a torrent of them. I tried getting into WWE but it was a struggle.

 

Then The Rock came back for Mania 27 and I started watching the current show again, at least the PPV's. I dabbled in TNA for a while, too, because my old WCW faves were there. I had a car accident in '11 that knocked me out of commission for a few months, and I watched tons and tons of wrestling, listening to podcasts, learning, etc. I have always been drawn to history, be it sports, the world, politics, or even wrestling, so I wanted to learn as much about it as I could because I prefer to have informed opinions of things that I enjoy. Now, since this past summer, I am pretty much out on the current WWE show, though I follow PWG and other indies, as well as keep up with NJPW. I realize I have started to become "I hate new wrestling" guy, which makes me slightly sad, but so it goes. I still love the shit out of wrestling, but it's Eric Embry or Billy Joe Travis or Gary Young rather than Seth Rollins, Fandango, or Adam Rose. I'm sure I'll get back in again at some point, but I don't miss it. Not to mention the fans/hate-watchers that do nothing but complain about it.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to ramble so much.

[Johnny Guitar]

I'm 37.

 

I don't remember how old I was when I first started watching wrestling. My dad watched World of Sport every week and I was there to watch it too. I loved Pat Roach, because he was in Auf Wiedersehen pet and hated Fit Finlay and Miss Paula. Me and my dad met Giant Haystacks in a supermarket in Selby once. I started crying, and in hindsight he broke character to make me stop. So i always cheered for him over Big daddy.

 

Like alot of people in the Uk. My first exposure to american wrestling was when they showed WWF in the World of Sport time slot in 1987. I was completely blown away by it. 20000 strong going ape for Savage/Hogan in MSG was a world away from wrestling in Preston town hall.

 

My Aunt & Uncle moved to Bruni that year. Which showed WWF, so my cousin would tape all of it and bring it back with them when they came home to visit. I saw Survivor Series 1987 about 3 weeks after it happened. Which is probably more than alot of people in the UK could say at the time.

 

I picked up my first copy of PWI in 1988 . I couldn't believe that there were all these other wrestling companies. I had to know more about wrestling. The Apter mags really shaped my views on wrestling as a kid.

 

We got Sky in 1989 so I was able to watch whatever WWF they were showing and my ITV region, which was TVS, started showing WCW that year. The first episode i saw was a post GAB episode that showed the highlights including the Flair/Funk post match.

 

From there until 1993 I was a die hard fan. Watched anything I could. Brought the mags. The lot. Went to SummerSlam at Wembly with my cousin and we nearly got our heads kicked in for cheering Bret.

 

Summer 1993 I'd read a copy of Superstars of Wrestling, which in hindsight gotten its info from the observer. So when it was obvious that Bret wasn't going to wasn't going to get the belt back. The Blondes were being split up, Cactus was going to get his revenge. (Basically my favorites were going nowhere). I tuned out. Although turning 16 and being a teenager that year and all the stuff that goes with it played a part in my growing disinterest it.

 

I came back with a vengance in 1994. I discovered Powerslam, which basically opened up my world to tape trading and I was finally able to get hold of stuff I'd been reading about for years like Mid South, Memphis, New Japan plus ECW. From there on out I was your typical tape trading smart mark until 1998.

 

As wrestling exploded in popularity I just wasn't really feeling it. ECW had peaked the year before. Memphis had closed. WCW was going of the rails, as was Japan and the WWF was succumbing to Russo's vision. What i had envisioned as wrestling wasn't really happening.

 

1999. I'd saved up for years to travel the US and this was the year I went. You all know what wrestling was like that year. Don't get me wrong. it was cool to finally go to MSG, the ECW arena etc, but I felt years too late.

 

Watching WCW go down the tubes was depressing, as was ECW going out of business. Not that I hated the WWF, because they've done loads of stuff that i've liked. But when they did stuff I hated there was always something else to turn too. I finally turned out as a regular viewer in 2002.

 

My fandom today consists of reading this board and watching old stuff on youtube and dailymotion. mainly JCP/WCW and the territories.

[JerryvonKramer]

until 1993

till the fall of 1993

1990-1993. Regular viewer of WWF syndicated programming. Not sure I saw a ppv live other than attending (Summerslam 91 - still never asked my dad what the hell he thought after attending a professional wrestling wedding with his ten year old son). Probably watched a bunch of ppvs on tape from Captain Video.

 

1993-1998. No wrestling for no real reason, just grew out of it.

Always find this interesting. So many of my friends stopped watching in 93. So many of the guests we had on stopped in 93.

 

I was hoping some of these patterns would emerge ...

[Exposer]

More patterns include stopping in 2002 and coming back in 2011 (which tells me how huge the Punk angle was in hindsight).

[Johnny Guitar]

 

until 1993

till the fall of 1993

1990-1993. Regular viewer of WWF syndicated programming. Not sure I saw a ppv live other than attending (Summerslam 91 - still never asked my dad what the hell he thought after attending a professional wrestling wedding with his ten year old son). Probably watched a bunch of ppvs on tape from Captain Video.

 

1993-1998. No wrestling for no real reason, just grew out of it.

Always find this interesting. So many of my friends stopped watching in 93. So many of the guests we had on stopped in 93.

 

I was hoping some of these patterns would emerge ...

 

 

 

Wrestling was so out of tune with popular culture in 1993.

 

Hip hop was massive with stuff like Cypress Hill, Wu Tang Clan and Snoop. And the WWF's answer was Men on a Mission.

 

Vince was pushing the superman Lex Express, when superman Arnold was having his first box office bomb with Last Action Hero. Meanwhile The X Files was on the rise with anti authority every man Fox Mulder.

 

Wrestling just wasn't providing anything that would really appeal to a teen/twenty something demographic, despite having the people/talent to do so.

[Tim Evans]

I'm 29.

 

I started watching wrestling on accident. I remember I was watching the preview channel and they were talking about the 1995 Royal Rumble with Bret Hart/Diesel and HBK in the rumble. I was hooked so I started watching Raw weekly. A couple months later I found WCW Saturday night and started watching that. That's pretty much all I watched until around my birthday in 1997 when I got my first computer and found wrestling websites. Around this time I found ECW thanks to the WWF invasion and started watching that in 1998 after staying up till 2 am to watch when my mother was asleep. I was around 14 at the time. 1998/1999 is when I started getting into lucha by watching CMLL on Galavision and Los super Astros. I started going to shows around 1999 with Monday night Raw. That was around May 1999 the week before Over the Edge.

 

In November 1999, My grandfather died and he was the only one that would watch wrestling with me in my family. He wasn't a hardcore fan but he hated Hulk Hogan and WCW so he would watch sometimes with me. I also had a friend that was almost as big into wrestling as I was and we would go to WWE shows and even backyard wrestle with other friend. By this time, I was watching anything I could get on cable and buying magazines like the Apter mags and even the C level magazines that promoted apartment wrestling and Tommy Morrison fights. I remember being pissed when I couldn't go to the ECW ppv in Orlando. Hell I even watched XPW, NWA Wildside and WWE Metal when it was on the old America One web feed on Saturday Nights.

 

Around the time WCW died and after the invasion, my interest started to fade. I was still a fan but I had lost cable so I couldn't watch Raw or the PPVs anymore. Got cable back in 04 but Raw was awful with HHH running the show and I started watching promotions like MLW and even TNA. Eddie Guerrero winning the title got me back into WWE in a positive way and that lasted till the Benoit murders. I remember when Eddie died and everyone in college was asking me about what happened since they knew I was the big wrestling fan. After the Benoit murders, I still watched but felt dirty doing so. That lasted a couple months and then went back to normal.

 

I started going to local shows in the area around 2008 when Mania and ROH ran the arena. ROH was my first indie show and I was amazed seeing the Dragon gate guys. I started getting into Puro around that time. I knew about it but never really watched it. From 2008-2013 I would watch anything that was posted on the internet. In 2013, I started going to NXT shows and these days I'm more into wrestling since probably 1999. It's funny since my enjoyment of the current WWE product is at a all time low. I hate to say this but I kinda hate watch Raw these days. It's gotten better since Steph left but I"m still not enjoying it especially compared to last year. I doubt I'll ever stop watching though.