How did you get into wrestling?

[HumanChessgame]

Professional wrestling is definitely an acquired taste and not always the most easily accessible thing to get into.  So I'm wondering how the rest of you became wrestling fans.  Was it something you got into on your own, or did family/friends expose you to it?  Any interesting stories about your early fandom?

 

I'm not and have never been into any other sports.  Growing up I knew wrestling was a thing, but didn't really have an opinion on it one way or another.  When I was in 5th grade or so the two guys in class that I was friends with were avid WWF fans and spoke about it often.  Challenge and Superstars were on Saturday afternoons at 11 & 12 so I decided to give it a watch one day.  This would have been 1992 and I remember it being between Summerslam and Survivor Series.  I really can't say what about it appealed to me and I can't remember the first few matches I saw, but for some reason I liked it.  Starting then I made sure to catch it every weekend if I could.  We didn't have cable back then so it was years before I could watch Raw live when it came on.  For whatever reason my father hated that I liked wrestling, maybe because he didn't like it and that I didn't have any interest in any "real" sports.  Eventually he quit caring.

 

Despite living firmly in NWA/WCW territory I don't think any WCW programming came on broadcast tv, at least not that I could find.  I was aware it existed but didn't put any effort into following it.  I remember when Hogan signed with WCW I believe Worldwide or something like that started coming on, and I'd catch that from time to time.  I didn't like it as much as WWF but I'd watch any wrestling that came on.  As I got older I started reading all of the Apter magazines the grocery store carried and became a fan of ECW once it started getting big, despite not actually getting to see any of it for quite some time after that.

 

When I started getting online regularly in the late 90s wrestling sites were the first things I went to, mainly following whatever links rspw had up on the main page.  I kept watching the big 3 regularly into college, but once ECW and WCW went under, I pretty much lost interest.  Towards the end of 2001 I went by this local video store next to college that sold all sorts of bootleg foreign, anime, and other obscure stuff and found they had a decent selection of indy wrestling tapes.  I picked up a copy of CZW's Best of the Best 1 and that re-ignited my interest in wrestling and I've been primarily an indy wrestling fan ever since then.  

[jayhawk_in_cny]

I don't really remember when I first got into it.  My mom was a lifelong fan, and she always watched it, and my early childhood coincided with the early days of Hulkamania (I was born in 1982).  I know that my parents took me to the first WWF event in Topeka when I was 4.  I got out of it for a while when I was around 10, but before I was a teen, I was in like crazy, getting into the Apter mags, and then finally getting the Internet at home for the first time when I was 16.  I can't imagine ever not being a fan.  Even though my wife isn't a fan, doesn't like that I watch it, and isn't particularly big on letting the kids watch it, although only one is really a big fan, I've always said, I've been a fan my whole life, and I'll stay a fan, in some form or another, for the rest of my life.

[Brian Fowler]

I know I watched pro wrestling a few times in the very late 80's and early 1990 (I distinctly remember seeing Superstars once in that late 80's window, and I vaguely remember Million Dollar Man and Jake having squashes, but mostly I remember the moment I stopped changing channels at it, my grandmother (we were at her house) telling me it was fake.)

 

But I truly became a fan when my mom and my sister went to the grocery store in 1990, and my sister on a whim told my mom to rent Summerslam 90 because "Brian will probably like it."

 

By the end of the opener (Rockers vs. Power & Glory, but it's really a handicap match because of Shawn's knee injury) I was falling in love.  By the time the Harts had the tag belts, I was hooked for life.

[southofheavy]

First match I ever saw was the Funks stomping on some jobbers. Dory had one in a Boston Crab, then Terry came off the second rope with a knee. Later on, Hogan got on the mic and that was it. I was around four, maybe five at the oldest. My cousin was a fan and had Apter mags laying around. You could barely change the channel without catching some sort of wrasslin' back then, and I became obsessed pretty much immediately. I don't ever see myself not being a fan. It's always been there and it would be weird if it wasn't. 

[Web Conn]

My dad was always into it. I remember TBS being on all Saturday while growing up. My dad & younger brother watched Nitro religiously . Wrestling was always on but I wasnt very interested in it as a young kid. My dad & younger brother watched Nitro. Then one Sunday evening when I was eleven years old I was flipping through the channels was on MTV and saw a video package on the return of Steve Austin. Something about that video I was like yeah I like wrestling. I actually made an announcement at the dinner table that night that I was now a fan. We were still a WCW house so I watched Nitro and Thunder. This was November 200 so WCW was on its last legs but I didnt know any better and still watched. I also would watch the Last hour of Raw and Smackdown then once WCW was Sold to the WWE I made the transition instantly.

[Jenalysis]

The first thing I watched in America was a Midnight Express/Rock N Roll Express match on the Superstation.

 

Very different from the Big Daddy matches I watched in England.

[twiztor]

i had been exposed to it (my uncle was a fan and went to WM3, and my mom's friend's son was a fan), but i wasn't a huge fan.  i remember the Savage/Liz/Hogan stuff going down, and could totally tell that Hogan was in the wrong, and from that day forward was a Macho Man fan. As i didn't watch it much, the next thing i remember is Warrior facing Hogan and how much of a big deal that was. In a holdover from the previous feud, i went against Hogan again and wanted Ultimate Warrior to win.

i remained marginally interested in it and remember a number of things vaguely (being a Shawn Michaels fan, rooting for Diesel, hating Ric Flair) but it wasn't until the nWo that i became a diehard. a buddy called me up and said "you watch wrestling right? Razor Ramon's on Nitro." i didn't know what Nitro was or that it was from a different company, but i watched it the following Monday and was hooked.

 

i would watch everything WCW did at that time. we didn't get USA on my local cable, so i couldn't catch WWF, but i couldn't wait for every Monday night. i'd be home Saturday evenings for WCW Saturday Night, i'd stay up until 11 or 12 for Worldwide, and i'd try to catch Pro on Sunday afternoons. Anything to catch a match with Savage, or Ultimo Dragon, or Super Calo.

in early '98, our town got USA and it was a 100% switch to Raw and the WWF. a group would get together and watch Raw every Monday and talk wrestling all week. WCW was forgotten. I'd check it out occasionally (hey did you hear the Ultimate Warrior's coming back?) but Raw was the important show. been here ever since, although my interest faded through the mid-2000s and hasn't really fully come back.

[Petey]

I was born in 87. I'm both a big pro wrestling fan and a big sports fan, especially football. My parents said that when I was an infant, I would be in my infant seat in front of the TV, my dad would be watching football and my eyes would widen and my hands and feet would start moving, as though I was trying to jump into the TV to join the game. Something about men trying to kill each other that I guess I've always found entertaining.

 

It wasn't long after that I started watching pro wrestling. My mom's dad watched it (he was an NWA/Flair guy), my dad had watched it since he was a kid (Italian-American New Yorker growing up in Bruno Sammartino land). In fact, before I was born (possibly after as well), my parents said that my dad would stay up and watch Saturday Night's Main Event, long after my mom would head to bed. Guess it was in my blood.

 

My first recollection of anything pro wrestling was SummerSlam 91. We were at some lady's house and her kids, who I believe were a couple of years older than me, had it on tape and we watched it. I don't know if that was my first exposure to wrestling or if I had already started watching and that's just the earliest thing I can remember.

 

My first recollection of anything live was Royal Rumble 92. My cousin had one of those illegal cable boxes that could get PPV's and we got together at their house for the show. I remember not understanding how Hogan didn't win. He was the Hulk!

 

I was terrified of Mean Gene as a kid. I have no idea why and looking back, it was quite the irrational fear.

 

I didn't get TBS in my early wrestling watching days, but my mom's parents did. They would tape the Clash of the Champions for me and I'd watch it when I'd go over because even though I grew up in WWF country, I'd watch any wrestling I could.

 

Superstars was on Fox 5 here in New York on Saturdays at noon. My parents said we could never go out until after the show ended. We also recorded a lot of the shows because I'd love to re-watch them. In fact, I still have a lot of 1994/1995 tapes of Superstars sitting around somewhere.

 

My dad scored tickets to WrestleMania 10. I came down with chicken pox four days before the show and my doctor told me I couldn't go. I was (understandably) very upset. I went anyway. It was my first show at MSG. I had been to several Nassau Coliseum house shows before but never the Garden. I remember my dad telling me, "this is Madison Square Garden. This is different.) And it was. I had never seen so many people in my life. It was awesome.

 

My interest started to wane around late 94/95. I still watched all the time but I almost seemed to be growing out of it. Then Nitro started and I was all in. Then in 4th grade (96/97), I met one of my best friends who was also a huge wrestling fan and I reached the peak of my mark fandom. We got our first computer for Christmas 1997 and it wound up being my first exposure to The Internet. I used it almost exclusively for any wrestling news I could find and video game stuff. By 1999, I started reading the NEWZ sites and began to have my first exposure to the inner workings of the business. When the WWF purchased WCW, I was glued to the internet. So much fun trying to find out who the WWF was going to sign, what future plans/matches would be and man, that wound up being such a letdown.

[RandomAct]

I'm too old to remember exactly how I got into it.  The earliest match I recall seeing is Hogan/Andre at Mania III.  Me and my cousins were together all the time, and they were already into wrestling because their dad was a longtime fan.  So it was really just an organic thing because it was already part of our lives.  So from about 87-88 to now, it's been in my life.  I miss the days of renting a wrestling tape for the weekend.  I do love that we have so much at our fingertips now, but kids don't know the excitement of Wrestlemania finally being available to rent, and wearing out the tape for a weekend.

[ivpvideos]

I am always curious as to how many people got Into it as an adult. I got into it because my father loved it and how could you not be a Hulkamaniac as a kid. He was a real life He-Man superhero.

[eikerir]

Here in Venezuela cable/satellite TV wasn't too common when i was a kid, so a local channel used to show lots of "cable" shows from around the world every saturday for most of the day.

 

This included a lot of wrestling content, mostly Superstars but they also showed a lot of PPVs for free, as a 5 year old i was hooked for life. My earliest memories go back to watching WM 5 and 6 there. They showed a lot of free PPVs up until around WM 10.

[Bourdain]

Wrestlemania 6 VHS....wore out the tape watching Hogan/Warrior

[cool arrow]

It's weird, I have some vague memories of some random stuff like the build for the Moolah-Richter match, and I must've been familiar with George Steele as a heel because I remember being surprised when somebody told me he'd turned babyface,  But I didn't start watching regularly until they started the build for WM3.  From then on I was hooked on the WWF.

 

And then I picked up some special anniversary issue of PWI later in '87, and found out about Ric Flair and the Von Erichs and the AWA, and from then on I watched anything that involved a ring.  (Except GLOW.  Gotta draw the line somewhere.)

[piranesi]

There was a chunk of years where I had "outgrown" fakey wrestling.  My renewed interest after leaving it behind in the late 80s, didn't come until the late 90s. 

 

It was a combination of internet stuff, since I didn't have cable during that time.

 

1) randomly reading on the internet about how a match actually happens...this was a huge eye-opener that suddenly made everything way more impressive and interesting to watch and led me to start lycos-ing around.

 

2) Seeing random slow-loading real-player clips of insane attitude-era moments and of Foley's promos

 

3) Searching for more about 1) and 2) leading me here where I quickly learned just how deep the world of wrestling is beyond WWF.  ECW, lucha, Puro, Joshi...it was suddenly this incredibly complex world of magnificent athletes doing things that were boggling...and it wouldn't have been possible to stumble into all of this before INTERNET!!!

 

IWC 4-EVS!!!!

[BurningBeard]

My grandad was the only person who had Sky tv so I'd sometimes ask him to tape me films. WWF PPVs would be shown on the Sky Movie's channel waybackwhen so there'd soetimes be a run over - Royal Rumble 91 was the first time that happened, then Wrestlemania VII. It was all downhill after that, he used to have to tape Superstars and Challenge for me every week then I discovered WCW was shown at stupid o'clock on ITV and so that expanded my love

[SLKerAaron]

Back in 1999 when I was around 7 years old, I saw an issue of WCW Magazine with Sting on the cover at a local supermarket and asked my mom to buy it for me, but we were very poor at the time, so she couldn't afford it. We also couldn't afford cable or satellite at that time either, so I wasn't able to go home, find it and watch. I use to always spend the weekends at either my grandma's or my aunt's house. Fast forward a few weeks later, I was doing just that. I was at my grandma's house flipping through the channels and stumbled across WCW Saturday Night and then I was hooked! i sporadically watched Saturday Night whenever I could. When we were able to afford cable by early to mid 2000 that's when I became a full time fan. I didn't discover WWF until December 2000, but I preferred WCW instead. I didn't really start watching WWF until the last hour of Raw after last Nitro. I also remember not believing that WCW was truly gone until the week after the last Nitro when I tried to watch it, but something else was on. I cried at little and the waited for Raw to come on.

 

On a side note. During this time my local video store use to rent out pretty much every WCW tape ever made. So from when I became a fan, up until the store went out of business, I rented out every single tape they had!

 

To this day I still love watching WCW more than anything else in wrestling.

[Web Conn]

WCW did some fucking stupid shit but when they got it right they got it right. 

[southofheavy]

To this day I still love watching WCW more than anything else in wrestling.

 

Same here. For me, WCW is professional wrestling. It's how it should look, sound and perform, even with all the dumb shit they pulled. 

[offspring515]

I was 8 in 1990 and my Uncle was going through a divorce and came to live with us while finding an apartment. He turned on wrestling one Saturday morning. I saw Ultimate Warrior and I was hooked in.

[RandomAct]

 

To this day I still love watching WCW more than anything else in wrestling.

 

Same here. For me, WCW is professional wrestling. It's how it should look, sound and perform, even with all the dumb shit they pulled. 

 

I agree, even if I didn't know it before.  I've watched almost nothing else but WCW on the Network so far.

[Brisco]

As a 5 or 6 year old I caught Superstars while watching cartoons on Saturday mornings somewhere around Wrestlemania 5. Between finding wrestling tapes at a local video store and the greatness of The Rockers and Ulimate Warrior I was hooked.

[Ultimo Necro]

Royal Rumble 1991, my friend Kevin ordered the Rumble and we went to his house.

 

After that I was hooked, every PWI / The Wrestler I could get, every time any wrestling was on TV, rented every video from the local store a million times, I remember my mom bought me WCW Halloween Havoc Chamber of Horrors from the store because I rented it so much, it was the cheaper option.

[cwoy2j]

My uncle got me into it when I was a kid. I remember one of the first teams I rooted for was JYD/Capt. Redneck. I graduated to liking The Horseman shortly thereafter but I remember seeing a JYD/Murdoch promo and that's initially how I got hooked.

[SLKerAaron]

Royal Rumble 1991, my friend Kevin ordered the Rumble and we went to his house.

 

After that I was hooked, every PWI / The Wrestler I could get, every time any wrestling was on TV, rented every video from the local store a million times, I remember my mom bought me WCW Halloween Havoc Chamber of Horrors from the store because I rented it so much, it was the cheaper option.

 

My mom did the same thing with a few WCW (and horror movie) tapes too, but it was around the time the place was shutting down, so the tapes were mad cheap! I believe wrestling wise she bought me Great American Bash 87, Starrcade 97, Uncensored 98, Bash At The Beach 98, Halloween Havoc 99, Mayhem 99 and Sting Unmasked.

[JustJay]

I don't know exactly when I became a fan that watched every single week, though it was probably around 86-87.

 

Memories I have that stick out are - My uncle and I painting our faces like the Road Warriors and imitating them when I was around 5 or so, so had to be around 1985. Also, remember seeing the replay of Hogan pinning Sheik for the title on one of the weekend shows. Andre turning on Hogan in the build up to Mania 3.

 

The things that stick out that made me a fan for life are - The Road Warriors spiking Dusty, Macho winning the title(first wrestling vhs tape I rented) all the way through the Mega Powers exploding(first ppv I begged my mom to order) Snake and Rude feud over Jake's wife and as well as Andre passing out from Jake's snake. For some reason when Andre fainted from Jake throwing the snake into the ring, I was amazed and was calling all my cousins to turn it on that the Giant was taken down. Also the twin refs I remember having my mom tape that show for me and watching it in amazement the next day.

 

Man, to be a fan like that again. Makes me smile thinking back.