Where it all begins... again!

[BullyRayStoleMyLunch]

Todays Newbie Nosiness is pretty basic: Tell the moment you became a wrestling fan, and why.

Summerslam 91 - Liked Hogan, thought Warrior was a bit silly, but LOVED Jake. I was 7.
I'd like to say I got kinder with age, but... ;)

And you guys?

[Ringo]

Had been kind of watching for a while at this point... but for me it would be the night X-Pac and Kane won the tag titles after Mania XV. Obviously Jarrett and Owen were dicks so when these two radically different wrestlers (who had both been treated like shit by the Corporation and betrayed by Trips and Chyna) aligned to defeat them I was so into it.

[Cewsh]

When I was a little kid, I went to the video store with my friend and his mom to find something to watch for that night. It was like 1992, and we were looking at action movies and all, and at the very end of the section, I saw this VHS tape with these wild looking guys on it. It actually looked like some kind of wedding thing was going on, but I had no idea what it was about. My friend said he watched wrestling all the time, and that this was a good one, so we rented it:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-urva65cujm4/ToY2c4ZkGqI/AAAAAAAAAhE/IsjWmuNFS38/s1600/wwf-summerslam-1991-ppv-dvd-w-countdown-show-123c5.jpg

I fell completely in love with wrestling before the show was even over. It was completely incredible, and unlike anything I had ever seen. And then I saw the Ultimate Warrior, and later Tatanka, and I was hooked.

[G-Fresh]

I don't remember bro. I was raised on wrestling. I guess the first thing I remember in the WWF was Hogans 2nd reign as champ. Warrior beating him is probably the first big moment I remember. Lex Luger beating Barry Windham for the WCW belt is the first big thing I remember for WCW. Taker beating Hogan for the WWF belt at the 1991 Survivor Series is when I fell in love with wrestling.

[Kdestiny]

The first thing that I remember watching is HBK's title win at WM 12, from then on I went to watch older stuff to see what I had missed

[Mills]

The first match I ever remember seeing was King Harley Race vs. The Ultimate Warrior. I was 4 at the time and was hooked. I was living in Germany at the time, and with my dad in the army we had to move a lot. A lot of the TV shows and cartoons always changed channels so I couldn't always find them, but I could always find WWF. It was Stabilizing

[Kimura Kid]

1st and last time my dad ever bought a PPV.



http://www.pwtorch.com/articleImages/wrestlemaniaposters/06b.jpg

[OD50]

There was a segment here on television on how big the wrestling industry was becoming in the US.. They talked about the t-shirts, action figures etc and the segment ended with highlights from a Randy Savage/Hulk Hogan match, this was in 1986. That was my first time ever seeing pro-wrestling. I was ten at the time and was like; "Damn, that was awesome''. :eek:

Later (early 1987) there was this show called "Fönster mot TV-världen'' (Window towards the Television World) that basically just showed clips of television programming from around the world. One week they showed highlights of the Hogan/Andre match from Mania III and I'd say I was completely hooked after seeing that.

Then in early summer of 1987 we got cable television and I could watch the WWF on Sky Channel, NWA/JCP, Stampede and World Class on Screen Sport, and GLOW, POWW and some indie feds on The Lifestyle Channel. Good times. :heart:


1st and last time my dad ever bought a PPV.



http://www.pwtorch.com/articleImages/wrestlemaniaposters/06b.jpg

Man, I remember buying that official WrestleMania VI PPV programme. Still have it somewhere.

[BullyRayStoleMyLunch]

I also remember being about 8, and dreaming Earthquake was robbing my house.
Liked him before that, as well.

[Newf]

I don't know that it was a specific moment, more of a gradual thing... I remember occasionally catching Superstars in 1995ish (and a little bit prior) and though my parents didn't discourage or forbid me from watching wrestling there was something kind of taboo about it. I would've only been 9 at the time so wasn't quite sure of all the channels and times it was on, it was just one of those things I'd sometimes catch while changing the channels to find cartoons and I'd sometimes stop and wonder "What is this? How do I see more of it?"... I think that little bit of mystery, even if only in my mind, added to the intrigue.

By 1996 I had moved across country and changed schools and a lot of the kids my age were big wrestling fans. Around the time Shawn beat Bret for the title at WM12 was when I think I became hooked. I was watching it much more often and I remember someone brought WWF Magazine to school back when it would recap PPVs and include plenty of event photos. I remember looking at the snapshots from the Iron Match... the stare down, every key moment in between, the final superkick and Shawn's victory celebration. That sealed it for me.

[wardy]

I got a loan of my cousin's D-Generation X In Your House video after playing Warzone and was hooked as soon as Austin showed up and set about the Nation on his truck.

[Peter Griffin]

I actually cant remember how I got into it in all honesty. I *think* it may have just been a case of randomly renting a WWF video and going from there, the earliest shows I remember seeing were Summerslam 91, Royal Rumble 93 and WMIX.

[Hero!]

Well, all the kids at my school were into wrestling, but I wasn't allowed to watch, as RAW started at 9:00 - my bed time! I'd see my school friends with toys of all these crazy looking characters from Vader to Undertaker to the Bulldog and especially Dude Love. Just after second grade, my mom got sick and started spending a lot of time at the hospital. As my dad worked all day and then we'd go to the hospital in the evenings, hed go to bed early at night and there was no one to enforce my bedtime, so my sister and I were flipping the channels one might and came across wrestling. It was the night Mankind was given the hardcore title. I remember seeing guys like Taker and Kane and being terrified. DX showed up and they were awesome. Mankind was such a fascinatingly nice guy that I just loved the dude. And Stone Cold...man, what a tough SOB. That night, I watched all these living characters and went to bed wanting more. From that day on, I didn't miss a single RAW until 2004.

[Newf]

As a follow-up to my earlier post, am I thinking of the wrong show? Cuz the Superstars theme I remember is not the one I'm finding on YouTube. On YouTube it's this cheesy rock number that named some of the superstars at the time... "Are you ready?" The one I'm thinking off was an upbeat instrumental 90s dance/techno bit.

[MMH]

Been watching since I was about 3 years old round 1980 during the World of Sport days in the UK where my favourite guys were the likes of Rollerball Mark Rocco and Adrian Street. Every so often they would put on a WWF show and that must have been around 1986 as Dino Bravo was one of my faves back then and he still had the brown hair and was part of the Dream Team.

The first PPV I can remember watching and loving was the 1990 Survivor Series though I did catch Rumble 90 as well as WM6 and Summerslam that year. Actually come to think of it the first show I watched was probably this one...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugoNZmYuhOI

[mr sabu]

3 days ago when i saw aj's ass

[The_Mike]

3 days ago when i saw aj's ass

Am I the only one who first thought of the Phenomenal AJ Styles?

Anyway, in late 1991 we got satellite television. I remember the night we hooked it up, flipping through the dozens... and dozens of channels (possibly three whole dozen in all), and coming across TNT. TNT was airing something from WCW, some kind of American wrestling contest between who I later came to recognise as Ric Flair and Sting. My dad was immensely impressed to be getting something on his TV from America, and my brother and I were excited because somehow we had heard of American wrestling already and kind of thought it was cool, but had never really experienced it before. In the ensuing weeks we were watching Superstars and Prime Time as they hawked the Royal Rumble, live on what my young mind thought was "paper view". My brother and I made a date to see the Rumble, and this Ric Flair guy we had seen a month or two before showed up and won the damn belt. The undercard was pretty great too, and both of us were hooked. We watched faithfully until mid to late 1994, when our wrestling interest just kind of petered out.

Later, in 1999, the Royal Rumble again played a part in reigniting my interest in wrestling. The same brother I had watched with almost a decade earlier was now encouraged by friends at school to give the new WWF a shot, and I happened to be passing through the living room to get a snack when I saw this shabby, bedraggled looking man in a mask and a white shirt being pulverized with a steel chair by some kind of Greek god in a shell suit. It was the 1999 Royal Rumble, and it was the I Quit match between The Rock and Mankind. Being on the cusp of my teenage years, I could not simply let this opportunity to enjoy some violence pass me by, and I sat down to watch what turned out to be a wild, chaotic and utterly compelling show. We started watching RAW, and in 1999 and 2000 it was just as crazy as the Rumble every damn week, and was very different from our 90s wrestling. Jack Tunney never would have stood for Stone Cold's shenanigans.

I was a loyal viewer, despite questionable angles, constant insults and a lot of just plain bad television. When it was good, wrestling was very good to me. In 2010 though, my interest started to dwindle as I realised I was spending more time complaining than paying any attention, and more energy on noting the negatives than on enjoying the good parts. I don't think that's all me, I do think the WWE dropped its quality and its magnetic chaos factor significantly from about 2002 onwards. By mid 2011 I had essentially stopped watching RAW, had long abandoned Smackdown and ECW, and only checked out big PPVs. Now I might catch a mania match that seems super important if I can find somebody willing to show it to me. A sad end, but a hell of a journey.

[Anaconda Sniper]

I became a fan in 1996 just watching a random raw. I was 8 years old and Taker and HBK both made appearances on there and had me hooked like no other. Loved them then and love them now. Became a mission around that summer to rent pretty much any wrestling tape I could get at video stores. It was perfect timing as a man named Stone Cold was growing into a star.

[takerson]

I had always been vaguely familiar with wrestling, in that I knew of the really famous guys like Hulk Hogan & The Macho Man, and always had an interest in the back of my mind. I'd catch an odd 10-20 minutes of it here or there while flipping channels at a young age. Wasn't even close to knowing the stories or who was who outside of the Hogan-level guys.

In 1998 EVERY KID on my block started watching. They all got the toys and games and would talk about it non stop. So I finally said, in about January 1999, "I gotta start watching this, just so I can be included in the conversations!" Because it was all anybody talked about. I'd catch bits and pieces of Raw. My Mom found out I was getting into it and regaled me with stories of when SHE was into wrestling, how her & my grandmother would go to Madison Square Garden every month to see Bruno Sammartino when she was little, and how great it was when Andre The Giant fought Hulk Hogan. Thus began my interest also in wrestling's PAST, as my mother made it sound like the best stuff ever. To more directly answer the question posed at the beginning of the thread...

The moment I fell in love with wrestling was, believe it or not, the huge (at the time) Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Big Show Paul Wight, Raw Main Event a week before WrestleMania 15. My mom was watching it with me, into it as well, and convinced that Big Show was Andre's son (thus having me convinced at the time too, lol). And just the all-out craziness of that match, such a SPECTACLE, that's when I fell in love with pro wrestling.

And it went from there. The fad died in 2000'ish, but my love kept growing. Expanded very slightly into TNA in 2004, and ROH in 2005, before becoming hooked on TNA in 2005, and ROH in 2007. By 2006 I watched everything I could. And now I'm pretty much an encyclopedia of wrestling, it's pretty bad. haha.

[Andy]

I remember the first PPV I watched was Royal Rumble 1998 when I was 9. I think it was on Channel 4 too, complete with adverts. If I remember correctly a few kids at school liked it and in 1998 it really got huge in our school. I think my cousin had told me to watch the Rumble. WCW was also on Channel 5 in those days.

I watched religiously until around King of the Ring 2001. I couldn't deal with no Rock, Trips and Austin as a bad guy at age 12. Plus the Invasion was complete shit to me then, probably cos I couldn't appreciate a good wrestling match back then.

I watched every Rumble and Mania still but didn't start watching regularly again until around mid 2003. Smackdown was awesome then with Lesnar, Angle, Taker, Show and Eddie.

I think I went back off it around mid 2005 which is when I joined this place. Probably to bitch about it.

Got back into it again for a bit then took a long hiatus until the 2011 Rumble which is when I started watching regularly again.

[wardy]

The first PPV to be shown on channel 4 was the 2000 rumble. But I had sky so cooncil telly was of no importance to me.

[Dream-Evil]

I remember watching episodes of Nitro when it was on free to air at like 2am.. But the first PPV I saw was WM 2000 (or XVI), that triangle ladder match with E&C/Hardys/Dudleys totally sold me.

[Badger]

The first PPV to be shown on channel 4 was the 2000 rumble. But I had sky so cooncil telly was of no importance to me.

The dark days of Mae Young getting her baps out.

The following year, Show returns after a 6 month lay-off and then Channel 4 decided to cut to the ads. Wtf?

[BullyRayStoleMyLunch]

Loving the fact there's a lot of love for 91 here!

Apologies for lack of replies... got caught up laughing heartily at the Asylum Banned Commentary thrwad... may have to dip a toe in there, sometime... ;)

[G-Fresh]

You mean the What did DVDA do now thread.

[Rip]

I always watched wrestling (British Wrestling) with my Dad on Saturdays as a kid before we went to the rugby, it's been part of my life forever, I sort of stopped for a while then came back around the Monday Night Wars, drifted away a little until about twelve years ago since when I've never missed a Raw or a Smackdown, and now I guess I'm born again through the eyes of my boys.

[BullyRayStoleMyLunch]

You mean the What did DVDA do now thread.

Well, I was gonna be kind... ;)

[Dreyski]

Like Rip and MMH, I also remember watching British Wrestling as a kid. One day in the mid-80's my dad brought me a video tape containing a British Bulldogs/Hart Foundation match. Still don't know where he got it from, but wrestling news from USA was few and far between back then.
Fast foward to late 1990, and my newsagent was stocking WWF magazine. Inside was a preview of Survivor Series 1990. I was hooked. All the characters, the storylines between the team leaders, I'd never seen anything like it before. But, it was on satellite tv and my parents (to my pre-teen eyes) were being ridiculously cheap.
Fast foward again, and there was new from kids whose families did have Sky, Summerslam 92 came and went, and my younger brother got into wrestling. Had the ring, the figures and all that. Time for cooler older brother to bow out.
Fast foward to 2000. Channel 4 was showing the Royal Rumble (!) on terrestrial TV. A friend and I at uni watched Bubba Ray Dudley take some of the stiffest chairshots ever, Mick Foley get faceplanted onto thumbtacks (and Mae Young get her baps out, but the less said the better). Instantly hooked, again.

[Bert]

I don't remember bro. I was raised on wrestling.

This. My earliest memories are the Monday Night Wars stuff though.

[LOCONUT]

Crockett Cup, Ric Flair, Hogan and the early WCCW stuff were my first memories. Hulk Hogan was the shiny nickel that got me into it but the Horsemen were what got me absolutely hooked.

[lotjx]

I think it was Bruno and his son vs. Savage and Lenny Poffo in a cage. I am not sure about Savage's partner, but it was pretty amazing. I remember watching the hell out of WMIII with my friends.

[Simmo Fortyone]

Wide World of Sports on Saturday afternoons was staple viewing for me as a kid. Occasionally they would show a WWF match from a big event and I had a passing interest in it. However when I was sick once, my dad rented me a couple of videos to watch and one of them was the 1992 Royal Rumble. Hooked for life after that, but couldn't watch much as it was either catching a match on WWoS, or convincing my dad to let me rent a PPV video. Around 98 they started showing WWF Superstars on free to air on Saturday nights which meant I could follow most of it, but didn't start watching Raw week to week until right before WM17. First PPV I got was Royal Rumble 2002 with some friends and we watched Raw religiously for about 18 months until Triple H's reign bored the shit out of us. Since then been on and off, but always watch January - April for "Wrestlemania season".

[OD50]

I think it was Bruno and his son vs. Savage and Lenny Poffo in a cage. I am not sure about Savage's partner, but it was pretty amazing. I remember watching the hell out of WMIII with my friends.

Guessing this is the match you're thinking of..


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xwiacn_randy-savage-adrian-adonis-vs-bruno-sammartino-tito-santana_sport?search_algo=2

Randy Savage/Adrian Adonis vs. Bruno Sammartino/Tito Santana

As far as I know Randy and Lanny never teamed in the WWF.

[Mills]

DIdnt Bruno team with David a lot in 86?

[OD50]

No, I can't find one single occasion that they teamed up on between 1984-1986. Bruno managed David once or twice though.