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35 years ago today, Friday, May 4, 1979, my parents let my brother and I stay up late to watch Johnny Carson. We watched the monologue and the next skit and then my brother changed the channel. What I saw was something that I thought was the most ridiculous and stupidest thing my 5-year old self had ever seen. Who would have expected that over the next 35 years other than the “four necessities” of family, friends, faith and office that professional wrestling would be the most important thing in my life. Wrestling has certainly changed dramatically since then and it has changed often. With the exception of the last 10 years, you could never look at wrestling from 3 years prior and think “yep, it’s the same thing”. And I love wrestling for that. Not every change has been great and it definitely doesn’t always get better, but it has kept me in the game, so to speak. We all have our complaints about the current state of the business, but every so often a new character will come along or a storyline will develop that ties me in, that keeps me thinking about wrestling in the middle of the day, and that keeps me emotionally invested in this crazy world. I’m a sentimental guy. I’ve spent most of this weekend watching the WWE Network and reminiscing about the past 35 years and all of the joy that pro wrestling has brought me. Some random thoughts… - Don’t ask me why I know the date of the first time I watched wrestling. Let’s suffice to say that it probably really isn’t May 4, but it is close. I used to think it was the Moondogs that I saw that first time we watched it, but now that I look back at history sites I realize it must have been the Valiant Brothers. I still think they were ridiculous. In turn, I would go on to become a big fan of the Moondogs. - I didn’t really start watching wrestling regularly for another year or two later. The first big angle that really sticks out to me is the Sgt. Slaughter-Pat Patterson angle. - My neighbor was a widow who also happened to love wrestling. She took me and my brother to our first live wrestling show at the Scranton (PA) Catholic Youth Center on August 18, 1982. Andre The Giant beat Blackjack Mulligan in the main event. Later that year we went to see Bob Backlund defend the WWF title against Playboy Buddy Rose. I also remember her taking us to a show involving George Steele…who frightened me greatly. She was a Jimmy Snuka fan, so I also got to see classics with him against Ray Stevens and Magnificent Muraco. - S.D. Jones was my first favorite wrestler. To this day, I believe that if he had just not rushed the corner after throwing his opponent into the turnbuckles he would have won a lot of matches. They always moved when he did that. He should have stopped doing that. - My neighbor also owned a satellite dish, while we did not even have cable back then. Every Saturday night, I would walk over to her house at 11:00 pm and we’d watch Championship Sports on Channel 11 out of Dallas, Texas (World Class). She grew raspberries and I’d get either shortcake or ice cream with her awesome raspberry sauce each week. The wrestling was awesome, too. - She was also the first in the community to get a VCR. When we finally got ours, she would tape wrestling from territories across the country and let me watch it. I’d return the tape and get a new one each week. She didn’t tape the same shows each and every week, so there were a lot of holes, but I was very lucky to get to see some great action from pretty much every territory in a day and age where the only other means for me to follow wrestling would have been the magazines. - I didn’t attend my first tv taping until I was in college. It was one of those 4-hour Wrestling Challenge marathons and took place in Binghamton, New York. Nothing of note ever took place at any of those tapings that I would end up attending…I think three in total, although my friends and I sat in a great seat for getting on camera at a taping in Wilkes-Barre, PA that included great shots of me waving my flag for Hacksaw Duggan, waving a fist at Ludvig Borga, and wearing a clown wig during a Doink the Clown match. - As mentioned, I’m a sentimental guy. I remember fondly attending my first live Mania…24 in Orlando. I got to my seat pretty early. I sat down, looked around at the magnitude of the stage and realized that I had made it to a Mania. I’m pretty sure I shed a tear. - I don’t know if its my short-term memory starting to go or a note on the quality of the shows lately, but I can’t recall the main events of the last seven WrestleManias even though I’ve attended them all in person. However, I can probably tell you about 95% of all of the matches that happened on the first seven. - I’m starting to finally get accustomed to the idea that pro wrestlers die and many die young. It used to really bother me. My family was on vacation in Virginia when I heard that Adrian Adonis had died. We were staying in a hotel that has since been torn down. Adrian was one of those wrestlers that to me at the time, personified what was wrong with the cartoon era of wrestling. I always wanted to see him return to his old style and make a comeback. For years after, any time I was in Virginia - which was frequently - I would stand outside the door to that room and say a prayer for Adrian. - One thing that for me that has not changed in 35 years, is that I am easily amused by new characters. My favorite part of watching the WWF as a kid was the end of the show and watching them say who would be wrestling next week to see if there were any new names. Even today, new wrestlers come up to the main roster and I am quick to jump on their bandwagon. Currently, it is Adam Rose. - My favorite non-televised match I ever saw in person was a Scranton house show match between Ron Garvin and Greg Valentine. My favorite overall match ever was the Chi Town Rumble match between Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat where Steamboat won the title. My favorite televised match I saw in person was the first Mania matchup between Undertaker and Shawn Michaels. Just a classic, as far as I’m concerned. Interesting side story, I was sitting next to a guy and his significant other. He was like me, not saying a word through most of the show while the girlfriend read a book. However, again like me, he became quite vocal during this match. The girlfriend at least watched it. He was clearly rooting for Michaels…me for the Undertaker. After the match he put his hand on my shoulder, breathed a deep breath and said, “That was awesome.” We both sat down and didn’t say another word to each other for the rest of the show. - Ron Garvin was my favorite wrestler for some time. Growing up in Northeastern PA, most of my friends never heard of him. I will always remember the day I got off the school bus, my neighbor opened her door and yelled for me to come over. She gave me a tape and said I should watch it. It was the match where Garvin had won the NWA title from Flair. At the age of 14, I celebrated like I hadn’t before or since, running from room to room, jumping up and down on my parents’ bed and generally acting like a fool. My father returned home from work shortly after, and I put the tape back on to shortly before the finish acting like I hadn’t seen the ending yet. When Garvin won, I recreated my dramatic reaction for my father. - I used to enjoy bringing wrestling into my schoolwork. I wrote a paper on the 1988 stock market crash and included as a reference an article from one of the Apter mags that had a quote from Paul Ellering. My teacher called it the most creative use of a reference she had ever seen. I don’t recall the specifics, but I had a computer course of some kind in the 10th grade where the teacher was doing some programming that required a phrase that would be repeated throughout the process. He asked for a simple one to use and I shouted out, “Hogan Cheats”. He liked it enough to use it for the rest of the week and used it for every class, not just mine. People I didn’t even know were coming up to me asking if the phrase came from me. Apparently, I had a reputation for not being a fan of Mr. Hogan. I had one professor in college I did not like at all. She gave us a project to write a journal that she would read “but feel free to make it as personal as you want.” We argued a lot and I knew she thought wrestling was the stupidest thing ever…so each and every journal entry I wrote was about wrestling. - I don’t follow the indies all that closely; however, my biggest live mark-out moment came at the Chikara World Tag Grand Prix where C.P. Munk revealed himself to be Necro Butcher. I leapt from my seat. So awesome. - I was in Hershey the night Jim Ross introduced fake Diesel and Razor Ramon. I think that’s the closest I ever came to saying I was done watching the WWF and to me is its low point. - I was in Wilkes-Barre the night Vince McMahon blew up. Every time I drive past the arena, I point to it and say, “That’s where Vince McMahon blew up”. I do that even if nobody is in the car with me. - I have a tendency to not show emotion while watching wrestling at a live show. I used to attend Afa’s WXW promotion in PA quite a bit. At one show Afa walked over to me, shook his fist at me (in a playful manner) and yelled, “Cheer!” - I do, however, tend to react vocally while watching at home. In addition to the Ron Garvin title win mentioned earlier, I remember cheering loudly when the Godfather won the Intercontinental title, when Cena returned for the Royal Rumble at MSG, and during Occupy Raw. If anyone reading this ever saw the Bill Murray movie Scrooged, the ending has the Alfre Woodard character doing this great single clap where she’s so emotional but doesn‘t want to really show it. That was me when Daniel Bryan told Triple H that the match between the two wasn’t the only thing he wanted at WrestleMania. - This past Mania weekend was a notable exception to my stoic live reactions. I Yessed myself silly. - I am currently the Chief Compliance Officer of a small financial group. I am one of those people who doesn't take much time away from the office, so I get great joy from telling people that I will be out for a few days because I'm away for Wrestlemania Weekend. The reactions are priceless. - I think today’s WWE is fantastic. The Shield, the Wyatts, Bryan, Bad News Barrett, Cesaro, Emma and Paige are all examples of people I could watch over and over. I’m also still holding out hope that Damien Sandow’s best days are ahead of him. If anybody actually took the time to read all of this…thanks.

That, or after Slater decides to embark on his carbohydrate, sequined-jumpsuit, young-girls-in-white-cotton-panties, waking-up-in-a-pool-of-your-own-vomit, bloated-purple-dead-on-a-toilet phase, he takes over the group and they become Sandow Ballet.

In case anyone was curious, Tomoaki Honma is still crazy.

I guess Little Johnny gave up on becoming Cam Newton's Mom's new favorite player.

Well it was a Catch 22, either the Spurs won or RandomAct got banned. We like RandomAct around here. That would be a travesty of justice.

I'm not going to DEFEND the cage match and how it was worked, but it does sort of show how the Wyatt family is one mind, one unit. There's no distance between Bray and his followers, so the fact that they were basically extensions of his will worked for me. Also, the fact that the fans voted against Cena a few weeks ago seemed to open the door for this, to me. I don't know that Wyatt looked weak so much as the Wyatt family looked strong. Yeah, Cena overcame the odds at the end, but that's what he does. He's Cena. It's part of his narrative. The whole match they basically dominated him and then they broke the Cena narrative with a cunning plan. Works for me.

I was more surprised Bryan got the actual ACTUAL main event slot on the show. Haha, like fuck you, CM Punk

I feel like if you guys looked a little deeper into the NXT roster and saw the talented people they aren't using, you'd start to think it was bullshit a green doughy motherfucker who does diva moves gets so much TV time, especially now that they're having people from the main roster take whole segments (Layla vs Natalya)

@NOTSportsCenter: The 3 key people that helped seal the #Thunder's series win:-Kevin Durant -Whoever wrote the Mr. Unreliable headline -Adam Silver

Westbrook had an amazing game, but I'm gonna be that guy and say that the league practically handed OKC this series with that bullshit Z-Bo suspension.

My youngest daughter's soccer team just finished their season undefeated. She's nine and just now dipping her toes into athletics. The game has been over for three and half hours. She's still in full gear, shin guards, cleats, and of course, the medal around her neck. I may have been the dad roaring from the sidelines and running down the field cheering.

Are you insane? YouTube Sleep's Dopesmoker and check back in an hour.

You ought to see my wife when I hit him with the shooting star press.

There was a little color. I took it and wrote "Die" on my chest. but in like a size 4 point font.

The whole point is whether or not the kids, the last bastion of the people who still care for cena, might turn on him. It's like cutting sampson's hair. It's cutting his power. It's okay if you don't like it, but Cena's all about Hustle Loyalty Respect, etc. It's like cracking the Three Demandments on Hogan and introducing doubt. Can Cena be Cena if the other half of the crowd turns on him, etc. Ideally, he cracks on Raw and tries to do one of his "let me make fun of my opponent" promo and then sells this, being unable to. That'd make what happened over the last few weeks when he just shrugged shit off worth it. we'll see though.

Okay, here is my review on Wyatt/Cena -- This match wasn't structured like a traditional wrestling match, obviously. This was a classic story format than anything else. It had an introduction, rising action (the villain can't beat Cena on his own so his goons get involved slowly over the match), the superhero who has overcome everything before fighting for his legacy like never before digging down deep, only to get me with the physical manifestation of everything he is fighting for turned against him, leading to his downfall. Then there's the denoument afterwards with the Little Johnny sheep mask promo.

I thought everything on this PPV was great except for the cage match which was awful. Gregg and I are already fighting about it on twitter. Both guys look worse than they did before the match, and the story they told was mind numbing.

It's an intriguing idea, although I have an immediate sense of pity for the poor, poor copy editors.

It's similar to Stephen Colbert talking about the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.

Awesome read, fellow old dude. It kinda makes me sad that I've drifted from wrestling. Occasionally when I drift back, it amazes me at how well it seems to be going, in spots, these days. I think Daniel Bryan, the Shield and the Wyatts are great examples of wrestling still working. You would've loved Garvin before WCW neutered him. See if you can find some stuff of him in Southeastern or ICW (Poffo's promotion in Kentucky). I was lucky to grow up as a Southern boy so I got to see lots of "The One-Man Gang" Ronnie Garvin (kind of a Canadian old-school version of Stone Cold) instead of "The Man with the Hands of Stone." I also got to see a decent amount of Smoky Mountain Wrestling live, with many people who knew it was still real to them, dammit. And the true highlight of my week for ages was ECW tv coming on at like 2 a.m. on Friday night before they got on TNN. There are some great characters now, but a lot of "filler" characters, a lot of people I can't get interested in. I love the Shield, but damn, I literally couldn't care less about the reunited Evolution. And there's not a lot of compelling characters in the mid/lower cards. 3MB? No thanks. Santino? Would rather not. WWE needs another Boogie Woogie Man.

Ok, the crowd that was there killed the show. Not looking forward to the rest of the taping cycle.

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/05/01/greg-oden-waits-for-lucky-break-that-may-not-come/related/ How tragic is Greg Oden's NBA career? Enough that I feel sorry for an Ohio State Buckeye.

I think Garfield is very good when he has the costume on. When he's Peter Parker, I have no idea what he's doing. He's unlike Peter Parker in every way. Like casually causing a traffic accident without caring about it at all.

I really don't get people who think that. Andrew Garfield is perfect for Peter Parker and especially Spider-Man. Then again, I would have been interested in socially awkward/antisocial Jesse Eisenberg in the same role. I'm weird like that, I guess. Tobey McGuire is just awful. In fact, the entire trilogy, to me, is a cruel parody of the entire franchise. Literally the only thing I liked about all three movies was Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus.

(Also, I guess I should mention I thought Tobey was a much better Peter Parker than Garfield is, for whatever that is worth.)

I don't know, I'm not surprised Captain America has surpassed Spider-Man in popularity. The whole Avengers/MCU is something Sony isn't really going to be able to duplicate (even though they are trying). If Captain America is on its on, as good as Winter Soldier was, it probably does Green Lantern numbers.

Amir Khan was tonight's big loser. He couldn't finish off Colozzo, almost got himself in huge trouble, looked ok but not great against an average opponent and now has to wait for Mayweather and Maidana to settle things with a rematch. NOT MENTIONED YET: Mayweather had a bunch of clowns in his entourage. Also, there were clowns.

(Also, the only reason Spider-Man 2 didn't get an opening weekend record is that it opened on a Wednesday, and set a since shattered single day record.)

The prediction of "Mayweather by decision via playing matador for 12 rounds" seems SO simple and SO obvious that I wonder what's going to happen to prevent it.

Every single time RDR comes up I become your avatar because I'm still waiting on that PC release.

Blackpool safe by 2 points.

I agree with a lot of what you said except the idea that Marvel tells solid solo stories that lead into the "big event". They really don't. The Thor movies are there. The Iron Man sequels were blah. Only Captain America has a great sequel with a story that stood by itself.

The thunderdome cage caught on fire not the Chamber. AAA uses the domed cage and had to get a Brazo out of it. That's a fucking ordeal right there.

I think Rippa's going to need to reinstate the "Small Members" title for y'all.

It's Bryan Alvarez, he's incapable of understanding anything unless it's implicitly laid out for him.

I suspect we're fortunate that this pic is not in color. On that subject, did no one have any taste in the 1970's? I know fashion trends change, but yikes. Grown men proudly wore suits with patterns that would be to loud for couches. . . The only reasonable explanation I can think of is massive quantities of drugs. I know I've done some fucked up things under the influence, but nothing as bad as those suits.

*Click to Enlarge

....I would too. He can see the other twin get married whereas the chance to dance with a Xenomorph and Yautja will possibly never come again.

Swagger has an uncanny ability to always get a haircut that is the exact wrong haircut for him. At this point, I'm expecting him to show up on Raw with a bowl cut or a devil lock or something.

It's never surprising to me when the dudes who lived through the 80's (and even the 90's, to a slightly lesser degree) drop dead while relatively young. Dynamite Kid talked about the drug abuse in his book, saying that Dr. Zahorian was basically just giving them bags full of gear, Valium, barbituates, opiates, amphetamine pills (I believe something like Dexedrine) etc. On top of that there was all the drinking and doing coke and who knows what else. They also weren't to up on cycling steroids back then either, and it's obvious those guys were on ridiculous amounts of Test, deca, dianabol, winstrol and who knows what else.

I thought it was fairly implied to not test me this week. Clearly it wasn't See ya in a month