Best live experiences watching wrestling.

[Nineteen]

I went to a House of Glory show right when AEW was getting going. It was after those first 4 shows but before Dynamite started airing. A lot of indy shows in the area were featuring people's goodbye to the indies. That HoG show was The Bucks last indy show and it was a banger against Private Party. That show had a really wild brawl too with Santana and Ortiz against the New York Wrecking Crew. 

It was one of those shows that was really good but the HoG crowd really made it something special. Me and my friends were walking to the train after (it was in Queens) talking about how we had kind of that "concert buzz" which we never get from wrestling shows.

Also, I'd never been in that neighborhood of Queens before so I got a little turned around coming out of the train station. I was wearing an Elite shirt and a dude in a young bucks shirt saw I looked a little lost so we talked for a second and he walked me over to the arena. He went to too sweet me after and I went for the low version but he was like "I don't do that one." Also I was when the security guard checked my bag, I had been reading a Preacher volume on the train ride over so he talked to me and my friends about Preacher for a few minutes too.

Scott Hall did a meet and greet before the show too. Looking back I am kicking myself for not getting a pic with him. He was in really good shape those days and I would loved the chance to tell him that Razor was one of my favorites when I was a kid and that I was glad he was doing so well at the time.

[ka-to]

This wasn't watching wrestling because it was before the show started. This week I went to Shinjuku FACE for The Great Kabuki's festival for his retirement from his restaurant. An announcer and Genki Misae were on the mic welcoming the fans and said someone came from America to the show, said "where's ka-to san?" and I waved to everyone. 

[Go2Sleep]

I could probably recall something special from every show I've been to. Dates would be fuzzy, but wrestling is all about the memories. Here's part 1:

Some WCW House Show in 97 - I was 10, and less than a year into wrestling at this point. I made signs because I didn't know what a house show was. I legitimately thought I might see Sting. I kinda figured out this wasn't gonna be that kind of show when my mom drove through some dingy parts of KCK and we did not end up at Kemper Arena. Oh well. I did see young Goldberg padding his streak against Mongo and Luger beating Scott Hall in the main, which was awesome because when did a WCW guy ever get a clean win?

Nitro 5/98 - Ok, now I made it to the big time. My dad got tickets through work and I got to see the show from a suite. Bret Hart cut a whiny promo and The Giant joined the NWO for the second time.

Raw 9/04 - After a long hiatus of live wrestling, my dad once again came through with tickets (this time aisle seats). Had an up close view of HBK, Gene Snitsky's in-ring debut, and Randy Orton's failed babyface run as he got beat down by Evolution.

SD - 3/06 - This was the first show I bought my own tickets for and went with one of my best friends who you can assume is at every show from here out unless otherwise noted. I got a kick out of Paul Burchill doing his Jack Sparrow gimmick, who also busted out the avalanche C4 which was fun live. This was the last show before Mania 22, and Kurt Angle beat Mysterio in the main. I was obsessively tracking my WWE.com fantasy points because I had a legit shot to win the grand prize which was...

Summer Slam 06 - My knowledge of WWE booking patterns finally paid off, as my first place finish in WWE fantasy netted me 2 front row tickets to Summer Slam with airfare to Boston, hotel (a nice one too), and limo transport from the airport and to the arena. Being 19 at the time, we couldn't enjoy everything Boston had to offer, but we were within walking distance of the city and got to spend a couple days wandering around before the show. The show itself was incredible, mainly because it was my first true front row experience. Absolutely blown away by the size of everyone and the sounds. Seeing the Big Show up close was something. The Flair/Foley I Quit match was super violent and crazy to see up close. I could've probably grabbed a couple tacks if I really wanted to stretch. Safe to say this experience will never be matched, but I can say I "earned" it lol.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Go2Sleep

[SirSmUgly]

I went to a taco truck fair in which every truck, no matter if it was a Mexican food truck or not, made tacos out of whatever their primary dishes were. 

I ate two tacos stuffed with catfish, red beans, rice, and hot sauce while watching two very green (as in had only been wrestling for a few weeks or maybe a handful of months) luchadores run through the same series of spots twice before the finish as the little kids got WAY into it. That was a good time! 

Edited November 8, 2023 by SirSmUgly

[bobholly138]

Got a few,grew up on the Gulf coast part of MS.

First show I rememberr going to was first time Mid South came to Biloxi. All I clearly remember from the show was Duggan coming out and hte crowd went nuts.

Skip ahead a bit and I just finished high school,I'm over in Mobile AL at Peaches record store and see a poster that Beach Blast 92 is in Mobile in a week. So as an early 18th birthday present went to Beach Blast 92 with my dad. We sat next to the entrance ramp about 5 rows baack. Show up often during the Sting/Cactus match.

Since then only ones that have stood out was when my oldest kid was into wrestling. Had him every summer and usually June WWE would come to Beaumont for a house show then Houston for a PPV the next night. It was 2007........

 

Nothing but indie shows and one Impact tv taping for me since then. 

[Nice Guy Eddie]

I don't think I can point one specific show, but I was a regular at ROH shows in NJ, NYC, and Philly during the glory years and had some of the best times of my life. Maybe if I had to point to one show, it would be Death Before Dishonor IV, which had the ROH vs. CZW Cage of Death and a criminally underrated Pure title match with Nigel McGuinness vs. Roderick Strong. 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Nice Guy Eddie

[Zakk_Sabbath]

19 hours ago, bobholly138 said:

Skip ahead a bit and I just finished high school,I'm over in Mobile AL at Peaches record store and see a poster that Beach Blast 92 is in Mobile in a week. So as an early 18th birthday present went to Beach Blast 92 with my dad. We sat next to the entrance ramp about 5 rows baack. Show up often during the Sting/Cactus match.

One of my favorite matches ever! Very cool. I haven't re-watched that one in like ten years since the OG WWEN came out, thanks for reminding me it's time for a revisit.

 

8 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I don't think I can point one specific show, but I was regular at ROH shows in NJ, NYC, and Philly during the glory years and had some of the best times of my life. Maybe if I had to point to one show, it would be Death Before Dishonor IV, which had the ROH vs. CZW Cage of Death and a criminally underrated Pure title match with Nigel McGuinness vs. Roderick Strong. 

Man, unlike a lot of these, I wasn't too young at the time - I was probably in high school for most of it and could've gotten over there if I wanted - but I was just broke as shit. Strongly debating trying to get in to the Hammerstein for the PPV in Dec. depending on whether or not we can get to Worlds End

[Shartnado]

Hard to beat the WWF house show in 2002 with every Ruthless Aggression Era superstar save for Undertaker and Batista who wasn't really a thing yet, and Orton who was still hurt. The main event was Edge & Rey vs Angle & that guy who did that one thing. The first wrestling show in Finland.

But the Over The Top Wrestling Wrestlerama 2017 in Dublin takes the cake for seeing British Strong Style against War Machine and Jeff Cobb live and having been mistaken for a wrestler during the intermission!

That's two out of 3 live wrestling experiences of my life, so I can hardly contribute to this thread, as is.

[Shartnado]

On 11/9/2023 at 12:36 AM, bobholly138 said:

Got a few,grew up on the Gulf coast part of MS.

First show I rememberr going to was first time Mid South came to Biloxi. All I clearly remember from the show was Duggan coming out and hte crowd went nuts.

Skip ahead a bit and I just finished high school,I'm over in Mobile AL at Peaches record store and see a poster that Beach Blast 92 is in Mobile in a week. So as an early 18th birthday present went to Beach Blast 92 with my dad. We sat next to the entrance ramp about 5 rows baack. Show up often during the Sting/Cactus match.

Since then only ones that have stood out was when my oldest kid was into wrestling. Had him every summer and usually June WWE would come to Beaumont for a house show then Houston for a PPV the next night. It was 2007........

 

Nothing but indie shows and one Impact tv taping for me since then. 

Seeing BB'92 live puts you in some elite company, I'll tell you that much!

[bobholly138]

1 hour ago, Shartnado said:

Seeing BB'92 live puts you in some elite company, I'll tell you that much!

Been lucky that was my first PPV live,then hit up BB93 the next year in Biloxi. And from 98 until 2007 hit up any WCW or WWF/WWE ppv that came to Houston. WM 17 was there. Dont remember there being really any true bad PPVS in that area I hit up.

 

Now where I am no PPVs are close. Besides NOLA and not going to WM again.

[Shartnado]

49 minutes ago, bobholly138 said:

Been lucky that was my first PPV live,then hit up BB93 the next year in Biloxi. And from 98 until 2007 hit up any WCW or WWF/WWE ppv that came to Houston. WM 17 was there. Dont remember there being really any true bad PPVS in that area I hit up.

 

Now where I am no PPVs are close. Besides NOLA and not going to WM again.

I was in high school and bought a WCW magazine and '93 Beach Blast looked like the best show ever! I envy your wrestling life so much right now!

[Johnny Sorrow]

My first show was WrestleMania 1 on Closed Circuit movie screens at the Philly Spectrum when I was 15. The best part of that show was when Bruno ran into the ring to clean house, my mom was jumping up and down and cheering because she loved him from when she was a kid. From there, I went to lots of Crockett shows at the Philly Civic Center, WWF shows at the Spectrum, and Pro Wrestling USA shows at the Meadowlands.  I saw Stan Hansen beat Rick Martel for the AWA title at the Meadowlands at one of the PW USA shows, we saw Hogan/ Orndorff in a cage at the Spectrum, and the Crockett shows were always awesome. When my first girlfriend dumped me, my dad and his best friend took me to a day in Philly that wrapped up in a Crockett show at the Civic Center where he and his friend got a contact high from all the weed being smoked in the upper level. That show had a Magnum/ Tully "I Quit" rematch and a Barbarian vs Sam Houston squash that looked so brutal the woman sitting next to us was having a fit screaming that Sam was getting killed while her boyfriend was trying in vain to tell her it was all just a show. The Civic Center also had a superfan, an African American dude who dressed up like Flair and just walked around "WOOOing" all night at every show.  Everyone called him the Black Nature Boy and this was years before Scoot Andrews.

I also went to Starrcade 86 in Greensboro. I convinced my dad to drive me and my pal Joe from Jersey to North Carolina on Thanksgiving to be third row as my favorite wrestler, Jimmy Valiant finally beat Paul Jones and shaved his head in the last match of their three year feud as Manny Fernandez hung above us in a shark cage. Also, when Tully screwed Dusty out of the TV title in that First Blood match some drunk redneck in the third row a section over from us threw his folding chair at the ring. He then drunkenly tried to mimic sitting down on an invisible chair before security dragged him out kicking and screaming. It was the funniest thing I ever saw at a wrestling show.

Years later, my ex and I were at In Your House Mind Games for that Mankind/ HBK match. That was a blast.  Then I started going to lots of ROH and JAPW shows between 2004 and 2006 where I met Pete and Ray. The ROH Rexplex shows were all great. I saw three ROH shows in NYC including Joe vs Kobashi. I got to see Vader at a JAPW show once teaming with Mike Awesome against Joe and Dan Maff. ( I think those were the teams, all four were in the match). I saw Generico and his crew debut at JAPW.  I also got to see a few shows at the Armory including the Generation Next tent show, the night Joe lost the belt to Aires, the start of the CZW feud with the six man and the end of the feud at COD. I also was at the show in upstate NJ where Punk won the belt to kick off The Summer of Punk.

Since I've been in Colorado I've been to a bunch of WWE house shows, a RAW, one TNA show that drew like 185 people with Joe vs AJ on top, two Dynamites, and couple of indy shows. The last WWE house show was in Denver last year and i took my nephew and his friends. It was fantastic and the kids had a blast.

Edit: Sorry to list like almost all the shows I went to, but they were all the best. I never didn't have fun at a show. 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Johnny Sorrow

[Johnny Sorrow]

On 11/9/2023 at 2:37 AM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I don't think I can point one specific show, but I was a regular at ROH shows in NJ, NYC, and Philly during the glory years and had some of the best times of my life. Maybe if I had to point to one show, it would be Death Before Dishonor IV, which had the ROH vs. CZW Cage of Death and a criminally underrated Pure title match with Nigel McGuinness vs. Roderick Strong. 

Dude, I wonder how many shows the both of us were at? I used to wear this bright tye dyed dress shirt to all the shows. I got it from a friend who made it and it was awesome. But Garcia died in 95, the only other place I could wear it was at wrestling.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

1 hour ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

Dude, I wonder how many shows the both of us were at? I used to wear this bright tye dyed dress shirt to all the shows. I got it from a friend who made it and it was awesome. But Garcia died in 95, the only other place I could wear it was at wrestling.

I think I remember the bright tye dye dress shirt. I didn't have one particular shirt I wore to shows and husky guy with glasses doesn't exactly narrow it down at a wrestling show. 

[S.K.o.S.]

The best individual matches I ever saw live were Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka at November to Remember '99, and El Generico vs. Kota Ibushi at ROH in 2008. Both of these were helped by me not having high expectations - for whatever reason, I thought Awesome was nothing special going into that ECW show (?!?) and the Ibushi match was during his first ROH run and was my very first time ever seeing him.

The best show as a whole that I saw live was day 3 of Chikara's King of Trios in 2012. Close runner-up was night 2 of the 2015 BOLA.

[NikoBaltimore]

On 11/1/2023 at 3:59 PM, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I'm so glad to see Grand Slam I make someone else's list. I think my post here the next morning may have been the longest I've ever made.  @Just Davemade a great point above about AEW still being new enough to feel like counterculture at the ATL Dynamite he went to, and in a way, I think Grand Slam I may have been kind of the culmination of that; I imagined it was like what ECW fans must have felt like at Barely Legal, and thought about Paul Heyman's speech in Beyond The Mat about making it to 'the dance.' It's interesting to read you talk about taking in the show with a sense of mindfulness, because I was (coincidentally) the polar opposite, and felt pretty ungrounded in an 'Am I dreaming?' way - I know that sounds hyperbolic, but I really think 20 or 30 years from now when we're talking about this show on the DVDVRMB microchip implant, I'm going to look back on it as every bit as important to my fandom as some of the stuff from when I was a kid.

I thought about this recently and I think what got me to that point was because I was in the upper level with a view that's equivalent to being in front of the 50 yard line if that makes sense.  I look down at the ring directly below me seeing the crowd lose their minds and it felt cinematic in a way.  Plus with the upper level I was not far from the roof so the acoustics were intense.  When Danielson did the kicks the "Yes!" chants had this piercing sound that I felt in my chest.  I think that's why I love seats like that when I know the show's going to be a hot one.  You get an overall sense of how the crowd is which might not be as apparent when sitting on the floor.  And trust me if I was able to get floor seats I'm sure that would have been incredible as well.  But it was so cool to have that perspective and I'm so happy that I allowed myself to take it all in.

Oh, right, two quick ones about recent AEW shows.  I went to Rampage in DC and lucked out with a $65 ticket that was close to front row.  So getting a couple signs on TV didn't hurt plus I had a sweet Godzilla facemask that was shown the whole time.  And the last Baltimore Dynamite was the one where I met @John E. Dynamite  We had a lovely chat and he was king sized for making the Dean sign that was on TV a lot.  The way the main event was laid out I had the biggest smile on my face because I just known Dean would have loved it.  But it was also bittersweet because of his condition.

Edited November 13, 2023 by NikoBaltimore

[zendragon]

One time four guys all wore ref shirts and wildly cheered everytime a ref would come to the ring at an indy show I went to

[Infinit]

The experiences that stick out to me most:

Bret laying out Goldberg with the metal plate at the first Toronto Nitro.

The Flair retirement match at Mania 24.

Omega vs Ospreay at Forbidden Door.

[bobholly138]

On 11/18/2023 at 12:52 AM, zendragon said:

One time four guys all wore ref shirts and wildly cheered everytime a ref would come to the ring at an indy show I went to

Down in MS we got Ref Oscar Boma. AKA Ref O. Boma. Any show he is at he gets a huge cheer and O BOMA O BOMA chant when he comes out. Same with Super Dave Miller aka Pondwater Dave aka the ref that counted the pin in Flair's final match.