JCM Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 I watched most wrestling that came on, but the Flair/Steamboat 89 series took me from casual to obsessed fan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MADCAP Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 I've been watching wrestling since the late 70's, and as a kid, I grew up on WWF and Bob Backlund-era stuff. Snuka eventually became my favorite wrestler, but the guy that got me hooked weekly was Buzz Sawyer. We had just gotten cable tv in central PA around 81', I discovered Georgia Championship Wrestling. I remember Buzz tearing shit up, and brawling with Paul Orndorff as they closed the show. I wasn't used to seeing that, but I wanted to see what happens on next weeks slow. I figure from there, I officially started to become a wrestling geek. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 The Mankind character was very much a super attraction for me. I watched Raw and loved Bret Hart (probably my first, true-blue wrestling hero) but something that dark and fucked up, which I watched evolve from the first segment, was totally hook-in-mouth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clintthecrippler Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 First wrestler I really remember taking notice of - Andre The Giant. Five years old, I'm guessing late 83/early 84ish because I remember the afro. Wrestlers that made me want to watch every week - Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. Was a huge A-Team fan, so yeah, I am one of the kids that started watching every week because of Wrestlemania I. Wrestlers that hooked me in to where wrestling was all I could think about as a kid and set the course to being a fan for life - Dusty, Magnum, the Rock N Roll Express, and the Road Warriors. Came across an episode of NWA Worldwide on local UHF station, and then also put together that there was a show on TBS at 6:05 every Saturday night that had those wrestlers on it. I always remained a Hulkamaniac, but even at eight years old I could tell there was a different energy to it from WWF. The comment I made to JJ Dillon the one opportunity I got to meet him: "The WWF made me like wrestling...the NWA made me love wrestling." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill S. Preston ESQ. Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 From the start, Hogan/Savage/Sting/Flyin' Brian/Bret/Flair/AA/Road Warriors/RnR Express/Warrior/Muta Getting back into it in high school, Austin/Rock/NwO/DX/Hart Foundation/Benoit/Jericho/Malenko/Eddie/Ultimo Dragon/Rey (basically the WCW cruiserweight division)/Undertaker/Mankind 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill S. Preston ESQ. Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 The Savage/DDP street fight? I think from Halloween Havoc?, Austin/Bret at WM13 & Undertaker/Mankind HIAC are probably the three most impactful matches I've witnessed in my lifetime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CastleVania Rey Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Mankind brought me in. That was in 1998. Until that point, I had always thought of wrestlers as these big body-building types with abs of steel and didn't know about guys like Vader. Then I played WWF WarZone on the N64 (my dad sometimes would rent wrestling games from Blockbuster) and I became fascinated with Mankind. He was weird and not at all what I always pictured wrestlers looking like. Thus, I began watching the real thing. Mick Foley is my personal GOAT still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwoy2j Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 First wrestling I remember watching was Crockett Saturday evenings on TBS. Was a huge fan of the Midnights and Arn and Tully. A few years later, Muta came in and my mind was blown. I had never seen anyone like him and had yet to even really become aware of NJPW and AJPW. I rooted more for heels at the time. You had to be kinda dumb to be a babyface in Crockett. The RnR Express and Magnum fell for the same obvious heel moves time and time again and guys like Sting kept doing dumb things. As a teen, I couldn't figure out why Sting tried to beat Flair with submission moves when, by the time he got Flair in position and got the Scorpion Deathlock on him, the other three Horsemen - who Sting knew were at ringside - would just jump in the ring and break up the pin before Flair could give up. Just like they did the previous ten times Sting tried to make Flair submit. Lol, I knew wrestling was fake, but I was basically in denial about how worked it actually was. Kayfabe was still alive and well. Same here. Even as a 7 year old, I thought the faces were the biggest idiots and never rooted for them. I thought, "if they're so pissed that The Horsemen cheat and gang up on them, why don't they just all get together and help each other?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brysynner Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 My earliest memories are cheering for Hulk Hogan against Earthquake during SummerSlam 1990. I remember being a little Hulkamaniac cheering for Hogan through the early 90's, then Hogan stole Bret Hart's moment and I was a lifelong Bret Hart fan. While I'll always love Hulk for the memories I have when I was little, I still hate him for Wrestlemania 9. Of course my other completely rational hate for a wrestler is Owen Hart for lying to his parents to steal the belt from Bret at Survivor Series 1994. I always said he never achieved the success that Bret had because he lied. He was younger, could do more than Bret, has beaten Bret but never won the belt because the Wrestling Gods were upset that he would lie to his parents the way he did. But my favorite era as a child for wrestling was 1995 ECW. Raven, Sandman, Dreamer. I remember channel surfing late at night and finding ECW on SportsChannel Philly (or whatever it was called back then) and it became can't miss TV for me until Paul Heyman showed up as a replacement for Jerry Lawler in 2001. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Dave Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 I can tell you the match: I was about 10 and we were staying w my grandparents for the summer while my mom got her master's degree. I was BORED. There were some kids in the neighborhood, but not many, and Monroe, Louisiana was not exactly an entertainment hotbed (this was pre-DUCK DYNASTY). I was flipping through the channels thinking about how higher education was a waste of time and got transfixed on Bret Hart vs. 1-2-3 Kid on Monday Night Raw. I sat enraptured as this tiny guy went toe-to-toe with the WWF Champion. Never missed a wk after that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin877 Posted April 22, 2015 Share Posted April 22, 2015 Jimmy "Boogie Woogie Man" Valiant! My first exposure to wrestling was watching the Crockett Mid Atlantic on Saturday Nights after the news. My parents let me stay up til my Dad went to bed which basically meant the under card. Then on to one of my all time faves in Dusty Rhodes! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KidKash202 Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Bill S. Preston ESQ., on 22 Apr 2015 - 03:00 AM, said: From the start, Hogan/Savage/Sting/Flyin' Brian/Bret/Flair/AA/Road Warriors/RnR Express/Warrior/Muta Getting back into it in high school, Austin/Rock/NwO/DX/Hart Foundation/Benoit/Jericho/Malenko/Eddie/Ultimo Dragon/Rey (basically the WCW cruiserweight division)/Undertaker/Mankind You sound like me other than what I scratched out. Liger and Muta probably got me hooked into Japanese wrestling. The face paint and mask/costumes always looked cool to me. As for wrestling in general, the earliest memory I have was the NWA. Luger, Sting, Dusty, Flair. Those 4 in particular. Along with Muta and Road Warriors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Sweetser Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 I started watching in July 1991, because my grandmother was a wrestling fan and was living with me and my parents at the time. She paid for SummerSlam '91, I saw Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect, and the rest is history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimo Necro Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Warrior initially, however once I discovered Sting I was hooked, he was like a more mellow Warrior who was up against a group of bullies in the Horsemen, it resonated a lot with 10 year old me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KidKash202 Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Warrior initially, however once I discovered Sting I was hooked, he was like a more mellow Warrior who was up against a group of bullies in the Horsemen, it resonated a lot with 10 year old me. So do you have a deep rooted love for face painted wrestlers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dewar Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 You shoulda seen him mark out when Beefcake was painted up as The Zodiac. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Web Conn Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Booker T during the last days of WCW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakk_Sabbath Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Like, "Booker as TV Champ having great matches with Rick Martel and Voldemort" last days, or "Booker as World Champ after that big, bald piece of shit Hulk Hogan took his memorial belt home" last days? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godfrey Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 The Rockers and Ultimate Warrior were the early draws, but when Bret Hart moved into World Title contention it was all him. (Obviously I'm Canadian.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Web Conn Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Like, "Booker as TV Champ having great matches with Rick Martel and Voldemort" last days, or "Booker as World Champ after that big, bald piece of shit Hulk Hogan took his memorial belt home" last days? The latter I didn't start watching wrestling until the early autumn of 2000. But Booker worked his ass off every match he didn't half ass it when he rightfully could have. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakk_Sabbath Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 No argument there dude. There was a brief period in that era where he was trying to channel a little from The Rock that I didn't care for (the Book End, the "$500 shirts," though it wasn't as egregious as DDP or Juvi could be at times) but his in-ring stuff never suffered. I say this without sarcasm, it's actually been cool to see old Harlem Heat stuff on the Network after having started Nitro from the beginning. I didn't really watch WCW regularly until 97ish so I never saw a lot of that stuff unless it was on home video from Blockbuster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimo Necro Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 You shoulda seen him mark out when Beefcake was painted up as The Zodiac. You know, when I was a kid I loved Beefcake as well, on WWF Wrestling Challenge for the Nintendo he was my go to guy. Regarding my face paint love, I remember around that time stumbling across a regional fed, possibly Memphis, while I was at my Grandmothers house and there was a guy in face paint and I immediatly took to him as well, for the life of me I cant remember who it was though. I'm a face paint guy. (I love the Ascencion). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BurningBeard Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Hulk Hogan was the bright, shiny, larger than life thing that piqued my interest as a kid - my grandad had taped Royal Rumble 91 for me after some Arnie film (WWF ppvs were on Sky Movies only once upon a time) so my first memory is him winning the rumble. To a lesser extent Ultimate Warrior played a similar role but I remember being bored during that match until Macho Man broke the scepter on his head. It wasn't until WM7 that I become interested though - Hulk bleeding in the camel clutch is scorched into my brain as well as Slaughter's brutal looking double stomp. The other thing that caught my attention the show was Jake/Model blindfold match, Macho Man dropping a bazillion elbows and being turned on by Sherri, Demolition's cool look, and the Hart Foundation's colours. There's definitely some visual aspect to getting me to notice wrestlers and I'm only realising this as I type. I was telling my mates all about the show and lent them the tape and we all started collecting the magazine after that. One funny thing sticks out about that - the expose they did on Ricky Steamboat, we were all marking out huge for this firebreathing martial arts guy coming into the WWF. THEN when Summerslam rolled around that's when I turned into a fanatic. The Bret/Perfect match blew me and my dad away in regards to the athleticism and intensity and his insistence that that was 'real wrestling' turned Bret into my favourite (which he still is to this day). My other highlight from that show was Virgil/Dibiase which still holds up to this day IMO. I was also super excited about Sid Justice being the referee of the match made in hell THEN we discovered WCW was on on ITV super late at night on a Monday and despite it looking SO low rent compared to WWF the floodgates were definitely opened. I've always loved westerns so Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes were instant favourites and the Sting v the Dangerous Alliance fued was the bees knees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwoy2j Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 You shoulda seen him mark out when Beefcake was painted up as The Zodiac. You know, when I was a kid I loved Beefcake as well, on WWF Wrestling Challenge for the Nintendo he was my go to guy. Regarding my face paint love, I remember around that time stumbling across a regional fed, possibly Memphis, while I was at my Grandmothers house and there was a guy in face paint and I immediatly took to him as well, for the life of me I cant remember who it was though. I'm a face paint guy. (I love the Ascencion). Thank god I'm not the only one. I thought I was the last sane man which usually means you're crazy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramsey Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 My first "favorite wrestler" was Mr. Wrestling II circa 1981. I am five hundred years old. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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