JaymeFuture Posted May 30, 2016 Report Share Posted May 30, 2016 So, for this week's podcast, we're looking to discuss different people's first memories of pro wrestling, and would like to get some feedback to hear yours.The question being not only what your first ever memory of exposure to wrestling, but what was your first impression, how did you feel about it at the time, how did it influence you as a fan, and in hindsight, how do you feel about that same first moment?As always, the best contributions will be read on the air and we'll be crediting you accordingly. So what was it for you? EDIT - Our show talking all about First Memories of Pro Wrestling, featuring many of your contributions, is now online and available to listen to at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/pgx7qk/SCG_Radio_86_-_First_Memories_of_Pro_Wrestling.mp3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MojoJsyn Posted May 30, 2016 Report Share Posted May 30, 2016 Two events that stand out. I know I was a fan for a long while before this but the first vivid memories was the Road Warriors driving a spike in Dusty's eye. Also I can recall before that renting my first wrestling video which was Mania 4 and watching the religiously over the next couple days. Road Warriors were always my team growing up in the 80s. My uncle who is a few years older than me would paint our faces up as the Road Warriors and we'd terrorize my other cousins. Looking back, Mania 4 is really weak but the Road Warriors still kick ass and that angle is still great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
...TG Posted May 30, 2016 Report Share Posted May 30, 2016 I have a highly distinct memory of watching the Killer Bees do their mask-switching thing. Looking it up, it probably would have been 1985 or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted May 30, 2016 Report Share Posted May 30, 2016 My first memory is being aware of the impending match between Roddy Piper and Mr. T at Mania 2, and then watching the highlights of the event on the local sports news. They showed highlights of the Hogan vs Bundy cage match and I was pretty much hooked. By the summer of 86 I was watching all the wrestling I could plus collecting the mags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeF Posted May 30, 2016 Report Share Posted May 30, 2016 Hard to pinpoint exactly, but sometime in the mid 70's. My grandfather and all my uncles were obsessed with wrestling. Being the youngest (smallest), I always got a spot right in front of the big box television on the floor. Also, there were always wrestling magazines around. Pretty sure I learned to read with wrestling magazines. To the horror of my elementary school teachers, I used to always bring them with me to school. Back then, the covers always featured wrestlers wearing a crimson mask. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strummer Posted May 30, 2016 Report Share Posted May 30, 2016 Paul Orndorff turning on Hulk Hogan in 1986 and the Midnight Rockers/Summers + Rose feud in the AWA the same year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted May 30, 2016 Report Share Posted May 30, 2016 I didn't start watching until I was 16 years old and picked up WCW in 1997. I do remember the Hasbro action figure commercials for the WWF. That was probably my first real exposure to the WWF. I also remember Ultimate Warrior beating Hulk Hogan was a big deal around school at the time it happened. My first real exposure to the culture of wrestling was probably the Ren and Stimpy cartoon where they're wrestlers. Their opponents just beat the shit out of them for the entire cartoon and then lay down because they were supposed to job that night. I think that episode was from the first season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeg Posted May 30, 2016 Report Share Posted May 30, 2016 Two of my uncles taking me to a WWF house show. I was probably 4 or 5. Main Event was Hogan vs Bossman. So it was probably in 89ish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted May 31, 2016 Report Share Posted May 31, 2016 My grandfather was a big wrestling fan, and when he'd go to Florida for the winter he'd watch shows there and became a fan of Dusty Rhodes. I would spend summers at my grandparents' house, and the only thing he'd watch on TV besides baseball and Jeopardy would be NWA wrestling on TBS. I'd watch it with him and got hooked. It didn't hurt that it was around 1986 and it was really really good. I started watching it at home and my mom didn't like it and just figured it was a phase I would grow out of. That obviously never happened. When I started watching the WWF it was right when they were hitting their peak too, right between WM 2 and 3. So I guess starting to watch when the biggest two companies were on a roll played a big part in me still watching today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted May 31, 2016 Report Share Posted May 31, 2016 First show I ever watched was the first SNME on Fox. WrestleMania VIII was in Indianapolis and I remember there was some state-wide buzz about it. My brother was already a fan, so my curiosity was doubly piqued. We got the PPV in lieu of actually going, which I don't remember it occurring us to ask to go but I'm glad we didn't. Not that the show wasn't bad but we were 7 and 8 and probably wouldn't have stood to be too patient with watching it like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordi Posted May 31, 2016 Report Share Posted May 31, 2016 In the early-to-mid 1970s, as a little kid, seeing Big Thunder Gene Kiniski on the local Vancouver All Star Wrestling show call himself Canada's Greatest Athlete. I went to get my dad, to ask him if that was true. Dad's opinion was that Bobby Orr was more likely Canada's Greatest Athlete at that time. Nonetheless, I was intrigued. All Star had guys like Kiniski, Don Leo Jonathan, Dutch Savage, Jimmy Snuka... and, though I didn't know it at the time, they were cross-promoting with Don Owens, so guys like Piper and Buddy Rose were probably around then too. At that age, I think I was mainly just trying to figure out for myself what was going on with those guys, but it kept me tuning in. My dad, bless him, never told me, "It's fake" or anything like that. Never dreamed that I might actually be on the show myself some day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyin' Brian Posted May 31, 2016 Report Share Posted May 31, 2016 Pretty sure it was a late 80's episode of one of the NWA Saturday morning shows with sting and eddie gilbert after Crockett purchased the UWF. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gutenberger Posted May 31, 2016 Report Share Posted May 31, 2016 No real, substantial memories, but I remember beeing interested in wrestling pretty much forever. I had an Undertaker T-Shirt at the age of like 5 or 6. Then came a period where I wasn't watching at all, I don't know its because of lack of TV time or something else. Although watching many shows from the earl ti Mid-90's WWF, oftentimes I think I remember a lot of what's happening. Though it could be that I read about it, because I had LOTS of WWF magazines. The first time I actively remember watching something was Bash at the Beach 1998, which aired for whatever reasons on free TV, and the following Raw. And I was SO hooked from that moment on, I never stopped watching or reading or discussing about pro wrestling again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
concrete1992 Posted May 31, 2016 Report Share Posted May 31, 2016 I have a terrible time telling the timeline of my life but I remember making signs for a house show when I was like 9 or something. My dad told me RVD pointed at my sign but I was holding it so I couldn't see. I trusted him. Hopefully he didn't betray that trust at that age. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted May 31, 2016 Report Share Posted May 31, 2016 Watching GLOW with my older sister. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Evans Posted June 1, 2016 Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 I remember turning into the preview channel one Saturday afternoon and seeing the preview to Royal Rumble 1995 with Bret Hart vs Diesel. That got my intrest and then I saw some footage of HBK and I was hooked. The match I remember vividly getting me hooked was Shawn vs Tanaka. I think it was from like Febuary 1995. I got into WCW around the time of the first Nitro. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChuckScumm Posted June 1, 2016 Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 Humongous destroying Dick Murdoch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted June 1, 2016 Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 My first vivid WWF memory is Andre getting his hair cut by Studd and Patera (and getting raped of his dignity) My first NWA memory is Magnum beating Wahoo in a cage for the US title on Worldwide. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap Posted June 1, 2016 Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 Being terrified of the Road warriors during the late 80s. I have a vague memory of watching them throw pumpkins off the scaffold in that promo, but I would have been like 2, so I doubt I remember it from when it actually happened. I might have seen a replay later. I do remember that being one of the first things in wrestling I thought was really awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrainfollower Posted June 1, 2016 Report Share Posted June 1, 2016 First memory is seeing a replay of Valentine breaking Tito's leg. Then seeing Tito laid up in the hospital vowing revenge. Oddly my memory is that he wore sunglasses during that promo, but that doesn't make much sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricR Posted June 2, 2016 Report Share Posted June 2, 2016 We were usually at church on Saturday mornings, so my dad would set a tape to record cartoons on Fox, NBC or CBS (we only had an antennae so only got a few channels). Since he would just let the tape run on one channel for the 6 hours of tape, I just had to figure out what channel had the best cartoon lineup. I must have chosen Fox one week as at the end of the tape was WWF (I think it aired at 10 or 11 AM in our area) and I vividly remember seeing Jake Roberts rip off Rick Rude's tights and drag him around the ring by his torn tights. I was horrified. The idea of someone pantsing me and dragging me around had never occurred to me as something that could happen. But, for whatever reason I was hooked. This must have been towards the end of 1988, when I was 7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zenjo Posted June 5, 2016 Report Share Posted June 5, 2016 The first wrestling that I can recall watching was from the dying days of World of Sport. Literally the only memory I have of it was Big Daddy belly butting people. That's it. Amazingly I wasn't hooked and would have to wait a few years for my fandom to begin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted June 5, 2016 Report Share Posted June 5, 2016 Mine is some WWWF Saturday TV from the Seventies where the dreaded red X was used over a guy's face. And that's all I remember . I do recall it was during the Summer cause we were at the beach staying at the family's beach house in Harvey Ceders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaymeFuture Posted June 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2016 I want to thank everybody for the contributions, we got to read many of them on the show, which is now available at the following link:http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/pgx7qk/SCG_Radio_86_-_First_Memories_of_Pro_Wrestling.mp3Join us for our show looking at First Memories of Pro Wrestling! We take a trip down memory lane with you, the listeners as we talk about the moments that introduced you to the wonderful world of wrestling, the impressions it left on you, how it shaped you as fans, and much more. Taking your first memories, we talk everything from Hasbro figures, sticker books, video stores, awesome ring attire, video games and landmark shows, to iconic voices like Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura, Gene Okerlund, Howard Finkel, as well as the larger than life personalities that hooked you life, such as Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage and...Arachnaman? An absolute blast of a show to do, hope you enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CFTV Posted June 5, 2016 Report Share Posted June 5, 2016 My first memory of graps was Spring of 1985 after the first Mania. My buddy had the first series of WWF trading cards and that piqued my interest. That weekend I found out what channel WWF was on and I became hooked. I was 8 years old at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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