What got you into wrestling?

[chatty]

I was watching WM7 earlier and it took me back to when I was a kid and that was the first event I remember watching and absolutely loving it. From then on out i was a full on wrestling fan, watching all these crazy characters just enthralled me, most notably Hogan, Bulldog, LOD ad Warrior.

Its funny as well as from my teens onwards I've pretty much been a router for heels, not purposefully but I just find their characters better in the most part yet if I watch old school stuff I still want the faces to win even though I like the heel characters better back then from an adult perspective, weird how you mind sort of puts you in a position of mentality from when you first watched.

I used to love Warrior when I was a kid though and I dont think he had much life left at that point so I am assuming this wasnt the first event I watched but just the first one I remember properly.

[Kyle_242]

It was on before Rollergames.

[VHS]

My dad ordered WM8 for me, and the opening match (El Matador vs. Shawn Michaels) hooked me all the way past Piper vs. Bret and Flair vs. Savage. Didn't care for Hulk Hogan back then, but I did enjoy the energy he created amongst the crowd alongside Ultimate Warrior. As a little guy, I'd never experienced anything like that before.

[Kyle_242]

Side note, the "El Matador" and "The Dragon" gimmicks were the funniest part of that era in retrospect. It's like Vince saw his roster and was like "HOLY FUCK, HOW DO WE HAVE ETHNIC GUYS WITHOUT A GIMMICK, FIX IT NOW!!"

[JP]

Two men; Vader and Sting.

The first episode of WCW Worldwide that was being shown on ITV in the UK. Watched it because my friends were into wrestling at school - though they watched the WWF - and thought I'd see if it was any good.

I enjoyed it, but it was the final segment that just grabbed me. Vader had destroyed Marcus Bagwell for an easy win and was giving him a beatdown after the match was over. Now Vader terrified me immediately. He was huge, the masked looked awesome, he was ridiculously quick and agile for a man of his size and he looked like he was hitting everyone harder than anyone else (turned out, he was, stiff bastard). This beatdown just felt unfair and wrong, so when the crowd started chanting "We want Sting!" so did I, despite having no idea who he was.

And then Sting charged the ring.

The noise and energy from the crowd was incredible and heightened my excitement as this dynamo with brilliant face paint stormed the ring, forcing Vader to retreat and looking after his friend in the process.

Was hooked from that moment.

[VHS]

Side note, the "El Matador" and "The Dragon" gimmicks were the funniest part of that era in retrospect. It's like Vince saw his roster and was like "HOLY FUCK, HOW DO WE HAVE ETHNIC GUYS WITHOUT A GIMMICK, FIX IT NOW!!"

I didn't mind Matador's silly gimmick, as a kid I'd like to think I saw past that shlock and knew talent when I saw it.

[Felonious Punk]

The WCW Cruiserweight division got me into wrestling in general. Seeing Big Show flip a car over onto Hardcore Holly as a kid got me into WWF.

Edit: and The Undertaker.

[mth]

I'm a little hazy on how it all exactly went but I believe it started with playing an old WWF game on Sega at someone's house and thinking it was fun and had interesting characters (Tatanka got my attention, I think it was the red mohawk, he stood out). It was sort of a fighting game and sort of comic book-ish and the crazy/cool thing to me was that it was also a real life thing (so to speak).
Then later on my friend and I rented some games for Sega just to give it a whirl and there was the WrestleMania arcade game that seemed neat (and it may have been that game at the arcade that made me suggest renting the Sega games, perhaps). Oh, and before that my buddy and I found a couple WWF action figures (DiBiase and Bossman) on the playground which sparked a bit of curiosity, as well.
So naturally, I was curious about the actual stuff the games were based on. My buddy had cable and AOL so we looked at stuff on AOL and I managed to watch a bit of RAW once or twice when I spent the night at his house (I remember catching the Ahmed/Goldust mouth-to-mouth bit). I also managed to watch a bit of RAW at a hotel (HBK vs. Yokozuna). I bought a WWF magazine and read and re-read it. This was all around 1995 or something like that. My buddy wasn't as interested as I was but despite my limited access, I was fascinated and swore that if I ever got cable, I'd get back to it.
The mutual interest faded and my interest faded by association but a couple years later in 1998, I got cable and started watching and was hooked. Haven't stopped since.

I have to give credit to The Undertaker for being the guy that drew me in. As a lifelong monster fan, his character stood out and he was immediately my guy. His feud with Mankind was happening when my friend and I were looking up stuff (the boiler room brawl was being previewed in the magazine I bought) and it was a couple of freaky monster-types fighting and that was so awesome to little me.

[G-Fresh]

I'll give the same answer that I gave in the Where It All Begins Again thread.

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

[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:

:)

[Slare]

Strangely, the N64 game WCW/NWO revenge got me into it. I think the first proper match I ever saw was Chris Jericho vs. Kanyon in WCW in 1998 - strange I know. Started watching WWE soon after and been absolutely hooked since.

[Jacknife]

Royal Rumble 1990, seeing the Ultimate Warrior run to the ring, and the moment he had with Hogan. My brother was a big fan, but I took it over from there. He stopped watching after that. I don't know if he's mad or not, but I saved him. Wrestling truly is really stupid to follow.

[takerson]

I'd always had a passing interest while flipping channels, but didn't follow it. In 98/99 EVERYONE was watching wrestling and I kinda had no choice but to start, just because it's all anyone talked about so I had to get in on it. Within 2 years the fad died, but I was so hooked that I'd already memorized/watched most of WWF history back to the early 80's, and was starting to seek foreign/indy stuff. Rest is history. haha. First full match I saw? I think it was the cage match with Hogan & ?Vader? from that episode of Baywatch. haha. Though, my Mother told me she ordered WrestleMania V on PPV, I was 2 at the time. So i probably saw some of that. ha.

[Mr_Nobody]

As a kid, I was always a fan of wrestling. Don't remember what got me started. Being from south Georgia, we had the NWA, which turned into WCW, but I remember going to the civic center to watch Wrestlemania III on the screen, back when you could pay to go see pay per view at arenas on a big screen.

[Kimura Kid]

1 single match!! I remember this being such an important match because my dad who was what we would call a "casual fan" ordered this PPV because of the attention it was receiving. Warrior was being built as the "next guy" and was super over. But Hogan was the measuring stick. Back when the Championship belts meant something. This match was epic!! From then on I was the biggest fan!!

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mat7a1kklk1qzx70zo1_1280.jpg?.jpg

[Cewsh]

I hate to be this simplistic about it, but the only real answer to that can be summed up in one picture:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/p480x480/231012_10151257474561922_695194312_n.jpg

[Kimura Kid]

Am I missing something? Answer to what?

[Jacknife]

I think he's saying the Ultimate Warrior got him into wrestling.

[Cewsh]

Yeah, I'm answering the thread.

[Jacknife]

It seems like the Warrior got many of us into wrestling.

[Cewsh]

And after I left in 96, it was Chris Jericho who got me back into it.

[Kimura Kid]

I think he's saying the Ultimate Warrior got him into wrestling.


Yeah, I'm answering the thread.

:dunce:

[Andy]

And after I left in 96, it was Chris Jericho who got me back into it.

When was that?

[Cewsh]

2000. It was the run up to the Last Man Standing Match with Triple H.

[Jacknife]

Why did you leave in 96?

[Cewsh]

My parents forbade me from watching it after I powerbombed a pillow through my living room window.

[Kimura Kid]

Thought it was a PRP? lol

How bad did you injure yourself?

[Psycho666Soldier]

It was pretty much my Mom being a heavy fan of it and me slowly being corrupted into it. Somewhere between going to my first live event(WCW Halloween Havoc '97) and watching my first live PPV(Degeneration X: In Your House) I started following it. Surprisingly enough, I only remember certain disjointed bits, but I loved watching Nitro and RAW. I imagine being into so many things, I went back and forth from playing video games and actually watching the show, which is why some things are a blur while others I remember vividly. Once I was about 10, in 2000, I started focusing a bit more, and I remember getting much more into it all the way until about 2004, when a mixture of not having cable and losing interest made me fade away.

Late 2010, I got back into it and here I am now, watching every week again, and getting much more into the various companies that wrestling has to offer, even if half of them are failing now.

Apparently Taka Michinoku vs. Brian Christopher was enough to keep me hooked, but that match is still pretty excellent today.

[Cewsh]

Thought it was a PRP? lol

How bad did you injure yourself?

Pearl River Plunge is a powerbomb. :D

It actually happened because I decided that doing a Pearl River Plunge off of the top rope would be the next step in making Ahmed Johnson the World Champion, so I tried it out by standing on the arm of the couch and doing a flying sit out powerbomb onto the rest of the couch. It worked great the first 2 or 3 times, and then the last one got away from me, and I wound up doing a 90 degree turn Super Pearl River Plunge through a window. I still say it's the greatest moment in wrestling history.

[Cewsh]

Late 2010, I got back into it and here I am now, watching every week again, and getting much more into the various companies that wrestling has to offer, even if half of them are failing now.

That reminds me, you need to come to Shimmer in October and hang with me and DDT.

[Kimura Kid]

Pearl River Plunge is a powerbomb. :D

It actually happened because I decided that doing a Pearl River Plunge off of the top rope would be the next step in making Ahmed Johnson the World Champion, so I tried it out by standing on the arm of the couch and doing a flying sit out powerbomb onto the rest of the couch. It worked great the first 2 or 3 times, and then the last one got away from me, and I wound up doing a 90 degree turn Super Pearl River Plunge through a window. I still say it's the greatest moment in wrestling history.


hahaha!! That's Classic stuff! Glad you weren't hurt.

[MikeHunt]

I'm surprised no ones said men in pants.

#bent

[Andy]

Haha that's amazing. So did you not like the product when you back into it or is it just in retrospect that you don't like the Attitude Era?

[Cewsh]

Haha that's amazing. So did you not like the product when you back into it or is it just in retrospect that you don't like the Attitude Era?

Well I came back in in mid 2000, which was the tail end of the Attitude Era. I enjoyed just about everything then, and I still do. Really, the perception that I hate that era has been overblown alot. The years I'm down on are mostly 96-98, the big Russo WWE years, and the NWO and nothing else years. After that, I like alot of things from the time period.

[Andy]

Yeah, Backlash 2000 to WM17 is the absolute peak, it'd be pretty hard to hate that.

[MMH]

Well like a lot of people my age I grew up with the British World of Sport wrestling when I was about 3 years old. Even then I could see that Big Daddy was a knob and I started to like the heels of the day like Mark Rollerball Rocco, Kendo Nagasaki and Adrian Street.

Every couple of weeks World of Sport would show WWF wrestling instead and the guys I remember from back then are quite random, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, The Killer Bees, Dino Bravo, Jake Roberts and Greg Valentine. I always remember a show when I was about 6. I was staying with relatives in Scotland and wrestling had moved to a late night slot about 11pm and I was allowed to stay up and watch it, The New Dream Team wrestled The British Bulldogs.

After this they started showing NWA Worldwide on ITV at 2am which I used to sneakily watch on my black and white dial tuner TV. I remember the likes of Norman the Lunatic, Doom, The Fabulous Freebirds and my faves at the time the Samoan Swat Team. Then SKy started to show WWF shows and I got my auntie to tape a few shows or went round to hers to watch them but I still prefered NWA/WCW until they released the WWF Sticker Album in the Summer of 1990 and I got to know more about Demolition and The Model Rick Martel. By the time that Survivor Series 1990 came around I was hooked on WWF even though they had stole Mean Mark from NWA.

I have watched religiously ever since except a period of time around 1995 and again around 2003-4.

[JP]

Yeah, Backlash 2000 to WM17 is the absolute peak, it'd be pretty hard to hate that.

I'd say Backlash to WM18, but I am an avowed lover of the Invasion and NWO return.

[Tainted Eclipse]

i happened to watch an episode of RAW shortly before KOTR 99, and got really into it right away. became disenchanted during the invasion angle and eventually lost all interest around WM18. then in 2004 a kid i went to school with still watched wrestling, i got to talking to him about wrestling back when i watched, he mentioned that eddie guerrero was world champion now and chris benoit was getting a major push, that struck me as completely unexpected and awesome so i started watching again. since then i've been watching wrestling in one way or another more or less consistently. i may go several months without watching a match, but will eventually get back into a swing where i start watching and even keeping up with the current product. even when i've not been watching at this point i still browse a lot of wrestling boards.

[Andy]

See I'm probably the opposite. I give that time period way too much stick because it did produce good matches, but that last year of the Attitude Era was unbelievable.

[chatty]

I loved 96/97 but I fet it fell away a bit in 98/99 - 99 especially was pretty dire match wise but damn was it great to watch at the time. Its watch back isn't good though, take away the unexpectedness and shock value and its a mediocre wrestling show but when that was fresh it had everyone hooked.

[kdestiny]

HBK for sure. He was so great and then him leaving after WM 14 hurt. I started watching both WCW and WWE. I loved Goldberg, but Jericho switching over to the WWE made me turn back to it.