Most promotions you've followed at one time

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

Growing up in a rural area, my family didn't have cable until I was a junior in high school. This meant my wrestling options were limited to the WWF on Saturday mornings and the AWA on Sunday mornings. Around the mid-90s, I started getting VHS tapes of WCW pay-per-views from one of my father's co-workers. However, I still didn't have access to their weekly TV shows, so I don't count myself as "following" WCW at that time.

 

In the later 90s, I finally got cable, which allowed me to follow both the WWF and WCW on a weekly basis. A couple of the regional sports networks would run ECW sporadically late on Saturday nights, so I guess I could claim to have followed WWF, WCW and ECW at the same time.

 

So my question to you is this: What's the highest number of promotions you've followed at one time?

 

By "followed," I don't mean kept up to date with what's going on by reading the dirt sheets, magazines or internet. I mean regularly watching the promotion's TV (either as it aired or taping it for later viewing). If I had one of those giant old school satellites as a kid and was able to pick up WWF, AWA, NWA and other promotions depending on where I pointed the thing, I might have never left the house. I'm curious to know how many promotions some of you regularly were able to follow back in the day.

[soup23]

Guessing 2002 actually:

 

1. ROH

2. WWE

3. CZW

4. IWA-MS

5. NOAH

 

I received almost everything from those five promotions for that year, by the next year WWE was off the grid and NOAH was more sporadic. By 2004, it was down to ROH almost exclusively as I went through my longest lull as a fan.

 

Will be nice to hear some of the older fans in the heyday of the territory days. I vaguely remember the huge Saturday night Pedicino time slot but only really was watching WCW and WWF as a kid that I can recollect.

[Dewar]

Mid 80's we got Stampede, AWA, WWF, UWF and the JCP shows on television here (Winnipeg), so that would have been the most for me. TSN also aired Pro Wrestling Plus, which aired matches/angles from other territories (9 year old me had nightmares about the funeral for the Continental mascot where someone ended up putting on the suit and jumping in the coffin).

[ButchReedMark]

When The Wrestling Channel on Sky first started up in 2004 I was watching everything they showed religiously, so I was watching WWE, NWA:TNA, NWA Wildside, ROH, MLW, 3PW, CZW, NJPW, FWA, WOS, GAEA, Memphis (Home of Rhythm and Bruise vintage) NOAH, and CMLL. Probably a few more too, it's been years so I forget. In hindisght there were far better things I should have been doing with my time as a 19 year old.

 

Mind you though, I was able to do similar on the satellite as a 6 year old, taking in WCW, WWF, AWA, old WCCW which I thought was recent, GLOW, Global and USWA.

[Death From Above]

In terms of keeping up to date with weekly TV through traditional TV? Never more than three at a time. We might have been the last white people in North America to get cable (actually never had cable, we have satellite now, but whatever).

 

Internet was my main way of following wrestling basically from high school (late 90's) onwards.

[Jingus]

If we count "following" as in "watching every single show that a promotion puts out, recording most of it on home video", I'd say late 2000 to early 2001 was my zenith. WWF was running hot; WCW and ECW, well, they still existed. Women Of Wrestling was a thing which was televised weekly, I'll say that much for it. And by then I was deeply into the largest of the local indies, Bert Prentice's promotion with occasional co-promoter Mike Porter, at the time it was called "NWA Worldwide". And I sometimes found NWA Wildside as well, on the occasions that I could get the footage from wherever. Reno Riggins also briefly promoted a flash-in-the-pan superindy at the Nashville Faigrounds; sadly it's been lost to history and I can't even remember its name, but they had a pretty good local TV slot, along with weird side notes like "one of Yokozuna's last-ever matches" and "head booker: Dutch Mantel". And then for some damn reason I was actually buying all of Combat Zone's shows on tape for a little while too; man, remember when RF's horrible ringside fancam footage was actually considered to be acceptable production value?

 

...man, in retrospect, that is just an insane amount of rassling to be consuming on a regular basis. That's not even all of it, I was buying every shoot interview I could get my hands on and discovering all kinds of random shit on an individual tape-by-tape basis. Nowadays I can barely get through two matches in a row on Youtube without getting bored and wanting to do something else. Oh, to be twenty-one years old again...

[Gregor]

Two - what a terrible wrestling fan I am. I kept tabs on WCW's results for the first few months of 1999 and would even switch to Nitro when RAW was boring me (I distinctly remember doing this when Undertaker was harassing Sable). For whatever reason WCW felt more real, with their metal guardrails and longer matches, and I could never tell if that made it interesting or too intimidating. Switching away from RAW always made me feel guilty for turning my back on the promotion that had introduced me to wrestling, but by the summer I didn't care about WCW results anymore and felt guilty for that. I was a weird little kid.

[MikeF]

As a kid, I was able to watch WWWF/WWF, Georgia Championship, and Mid-Atlantic. A few years later, I could watch WWF, WCW, AWA, UWF on a regular basis.

[Mad Dog]

2005:

 

WWE

TNA

CMLL

RoH

IWA: MS

New Japan

NWA Anarchy

CAPW

OVW

[joeg]

I would say right around 2000/2001 when everything was turning to shit. I was watching WWF and WCW. I had just started on ECW like in 99 when it finally got to my area so I was watching that die a slow agonizing death. I had just started following Japan and was diving head first into AJPW, NOAH, Toryumon, and FMW. I would venture to guess that if you ask anybody what year did you watch the most wrestling, it would be whatever year they in 8th or 9th grade.

[victory]

I watched the following every weekend in 1986/1987:

 

WWF

JCP

AWA

World Class

UWF

GLOW

POWW

Pro Wrestling this Week

 

It was actually pretty easy to keep up with. I would never be able to watch all of that now.

[thebrainfollower]

From 97 to early 2001 I followed WWF/WCW and ECW. That's about it for me.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Let's see. In 1985-87 I watched NWA (TBS Shows, Worldwide and the other syndicated Mid Atlantic show), WWF (Superstars, Challenge, Prime Time, the monthly MSG shows on MSG network, and SNME), AWA and Pro Wrestling USA, World Class and Classic World Class, Mid South/ UWF, and some lousy California promotion.

[Dylan Waco]

At various points over the last few years I have regularly watched ROH, TNA, WWE, CMLL, AAA, NWA SAW, Anarchy and probably some others on a weekly or near weekly basis. This year I've started off the year doing about the same, but with NWA Smoky Mountain and CWF Mid-Atlantic in the spots of SAW and Anarchy. That said that schedule rarely lasts for a whole year.

 

As a kid the peak would have been when I was real little, probably in 86 or 87. I think it was around that time when Charleston got WWF, NWA, World Class, AWA, UWF, and Florida for a brief period.

[JMFabianoRPL]

Since I watched anything I could spot on TV by later 1986 (30th anniversary as a fan BTW, yay me!), I'd say around fall of that year to, say, 1989. There was WWF, JCP (NWA), AWA, WCCW, and I think GLOW was a thing then? Later, I'd see the aforementioned crappy California promotion (something to do with Victor Rivera, no?), Crockett-owned UWF for the few months we got it in NY, WWC (Colon) on Univision, POWW, and of course the changeover from WCCW to USWA. I think Wild West Wrestling too?

 

The early 90s can also be mentioned, as we had WWF, WCW, then the GWF, and over on Sportschannel they had like a different indy a day (more GWF, IWCCW, I think they got NAWA northeast US version too...Abrams UWF as well...)

 

Actually, I can name 2002 as well, there was WWE and TNA, and the few months I got Urban America TV, which would feature: NWA Wildside, NWA Southwest, the Savoldi "Best of" hours (GWF/USWA matches), and another "best of" program that had SAPW matches (Ken Shamrock started here) and matches from this Latin "supershow" with lots of former WWF names.

[grapplin' apple]

I'm guessing 1988 for me.

 

I regularly watched WWF Primetime, Superstars, Sunday Morning show, and SNME. I also watched NWA Saturday Night and NWA Main Event. We had AWA locally and on ESPN, and I would watch World Class after school on ESPN. I also watched Chicago Championship Wrestling that aired on the Chicago sports channel.

[Infinit]

86/87

 

WWF

NWA

AWA

All Star Wrestling (BC/Tomko)

International Wrestling (Montreal)

Stampede

Pro Wrestling Plus

[thebrainfollower]

I WOULD have watched all that in the 80's but lived in MA without cable. We got WWF and the occasional IWCCW show.

[BlueGuy]

Not counting classic airings, I think the most promotions I ever watched simultaneously was the following five in 1995:

WCW

WWF

ECW

USWA

SMW

 

It seems I've watched at least three at a time since the late 1980s (and I would have watched more had it been available in my area). The number only dropped to two promotions at a time in 2005.

[pantherwagner]

From 1993 to 1999 I watched:

weekly and religiously

WWF

WCW

AAA

CMLL

UWFI (for the short period of time when it was on European TV)

Herb Abrams UWF (we continuously got runs and re-runs of old episodes and I'd watch them all)

buying tapes every 4-6 weeks:

AJPW

NJPW (and also weekly TV for a couple of years when they were on Eurosport)

all big events but no TV:

ECW (from 1996 on) I was not all that hot on the promotion but these were my most valuable tapes to set up trades in Europe

most big events, but not all of them, and most TV:

AJW

FMW

 

For a while I also watched a Florida indy called IWF from an Israeli TV channel I'd sometimes (but not always) get on satellite and I'd try to get my hands on tons of random Japanese or territory tapes while trading. I could easily say that there were points in time where I'd watch at least 4 hours of wrestling every day, and sometimes 8 or 10 hours on Saturday. A lot of these were tapes I'd rewatch time and time again, of course. Then I went to college and I HAD A GIRLFRIEND so that was that.

[Strummer]

86-88 or so

 

WWF

NWA

AWA

World Class

GLOW

[pantherwagner]

Funny that a lot of people mention GLOW. That was the only promotion that I had on Spanish TV that I didn't care to watch. For a few months we had the LPWA and another ladies promotion called FLAIR (Fabulous Ladies in International Rings... yep) and I liked those.

[Coffey]

I guess it's never really been more than three at one time. Although I'll check out matches & whatnot from various promotions nowadays because of the power of the internet, I don't really follow more than three at a time.

 

I watched WWF, WCW & ECW in the late 90's. Around 2005 or so, I was big into ROH, was still watching WWE & would occasionally check out some Japanese stuff or some TNA stuff. Nowadays, I follow WWE still, NXT (if that counts), an occasional ROH PPV and the NJPW PPVs. Waiting on Lucha Underground to start-up again next week.

 

I would follow ROH more closely but their roster leaves a lot to be desired. At least to me. They have a couple guys that I enjoy, like Jay Briscoe, but for the most part, I'm not a fan of their roster or the people that they're using. I gave TNA another chance when they got the new POP TV show but I wasn't a fan of what I saw. New Japan I only check out the PPVs, I can't really follow them weekly, and after losing Nakamura & Styles, not sure what their future is going to look like. I've certainly had my fill of Okada & Tanahashi on top. And now I feel like NXT is to the point where I read the spoilers & wait for the next Takeover show. Lucha Underground, I don't even get the El Rey network, to my knowledge, so I'll have to watch the shows online. I wish they were on Netflix.

[CFTV]

From 1985 to 1987 I was watching the following promotions pretty regularly from Detroit where I grew up: WWF, NWA, AWA, World Class, UWF, GLOW, IWA from Montreal, California Championship Wrestling, & Dick the Bruiser's WWA.

 

I was always jealous of places like Atlanta that had that crazy long block of TV on Saturdays.

[Sidebottom]

I've never followed multiple promotions in real time outside of WWF, ECW and WCW from 97 - 01. Even when I used to get tapes off Rob Butcher, Bob Barnett and Glen Radford of SMW, WOS / Reslo, Japan, Mexico etc, it was always either shows out of sync based on match interest or comps.

 

EDIT: tell a lie, WWE and TNA from 06 - 2010, but I haven't watched TNA (outside of maybe 5 shows at best) since that Aces and Eights storyline was literally unbearable for me to watch.