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Favorite Wrestling Cards You Attended


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12 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

I want to have a cooler pick, but nothing was more formative for me than CZW Cage of Death 6.

That show was awesome live. My friend and I had brought some weapons for the main event. I had brought the Cymbal Of Death (an old ride cymbal I had) that I'd smothered in a rock salt/Gorilla glue mixture and decorated with longer than usual thumbtacks. If someone bumped on that it really would've fucked them up. Unfortunately, it sat in the corner the whole time.

But, my other weapon, this beat up acoustic guitar that I spray painted black and yellow and covered in tacks was actually used! And by used I mean it sort of worked. Nick Gage picks the thing up and their battling at the top of the Cage. He rears back with my guitar, imagine how excited I am, and when he went to swing, the damn thing semi broke in half at the neck joint. I believe he grabbed the body and just bashed the guy. 

I've never seen footage of it and can't find it, but yeah, that was awesome.

---

I'll try and think up a couple of meaningful or memorable shows I've been to and add to the discussion a little later. I like reading these, btw.

Edited by PetrolCB
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1 minute ago, PetrolCB said:

That show was awesome live. My friend and I had brought some weapons for the main event. I had brought the Cymbal Of Death (an old ride cymbal I had) that I'd smothered in a rock salt/Gorilla glue mixture and decorated with longer than usual thumbtacks. If someone bumped on that it really would've fucked them up. Unfortunately, it sat in the corner the whole time.

That is double-funny because I brought a thumbtack-covered snare drum. One of the managers was bangin' on it on the way to the ring. I think the trick to getting your stuff actually used in a FBTW match is to bring something that looks and sounds painful without actually being that bad. Something that follows the cookie sheet ideal.

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After some Googling, I found the full show uploaded somewhere. So I went to check and I had misremembered. Gage actually connects with the guitar shot to Robby Mireno! I wish I could make a gif from it. So here is a screenshot of Gage with my guitar...

20201209-135355.jpg

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There was also the bit during Nate Webb's entrance, where my friend John hands him a cig and goes "Let's go to flavor country!" and proceeds to light one up for him. That was awesome.

Edited by PetrolCB
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1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

I guess we have more CZW fans on here than I thought (see: Documentary thread in Movies and TV). Cool.

I havent really kept up with it since Moxley was there, but even then it was years. From 2002-2005 I was way into it. I used to go to shows every month at the arena.

Edited by PetrolCB
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I haven't been to many shows, no friends who like wrestling. Of the few I've been to i think the show i enjoyed most was probably ROH Throwdown, main event was Kenta vs Roderick Strong. I was first in line to get Kenta's autograph after the show.

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My dad used to take me to see Portland wrestling shows a couple of times a year between 1989 and 1991. Mostly when Piper was advertised to be there, but I have a very vivid memory of seeing Scott Norton in person when I was a six-year-old kid and thinking he was the largest man on the entire planet Earth. 

I also had the pleasure of going to No Mercy '08 here in town, which had the HBK vs Jericho ladder match for the world title and that was absolutely amazing to see live.

I was at WM19 in Seattle as well, and in hindsight it's really very cool that I get to say I was at Steve Austin's last ever wrestling match and as an added bonus I got to see Brock Lesnar attempt to murder Brock Lesnar. 

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I grew up in Kansas so I didn't have a lot of options outside of the occasional WWF house show.  My dad knew someone at the Kansas Coliseum so at least I could get front row seats to watch some very dire wrestling.

So by process of elimination my favorite was the ECW house show I went to in 2000 since I at least got Kid Kash vs EZ Money and got to see Tajiri wrestle.

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G1 Supercard is an easy choice and I don't think anything really needs to be said about except yaknow...  Fuck an Enzo.

I went to an ICW show that wasn't that solid top to bottom but it had Eddie Kingston vs. Daisuke Sekimoto on it and Orange Cassidy vs. Kikutaro.  OC/Kikutaro was 2/3 falls and Kiku kept forgetting how many falls there were.  Marko Stunt was on that show too and I think it one of his last dates before being locked into AEW.

Not too long after that I went to a House of Glory show that was the Bucks farewell, they wrestled Private Party that night.  Santana and Ortiz had this totally bonkers street fight on that show too, I think their opponents were New York Wrecking Crew.  Scott Hall did a meet and greet before the show I kind of regret not taking advantage of as I flippin loved Razor when I was a kid and would have been cool to meet one of my heroes.  The show itself was pretty good but it was the best crowd I was ever a part of, they were so into everything and had this great energy that I don't think I've ever seen at a wrestling show, at least in person (more on that in a second).  Also, the show as in Queens and it was my first time in that neighborhood.  I got there before my friends did and I wasn't sure exactly where the venue was from the train station.  I saw a dude in Young Bucks shirt and he spotted my Elite shirt.  I asked him if he knew where it was and we walked over together.  He went to too sweet me but I went for the low version and he just went "yeah I don't do that one."

I used to go Ring of Honor shows on the regular when they ran Edison, NJ.  I was at Rutgers at the time so it was  an easy enough trip too.  The two stand out there were Final Battle '05 and Ring of Homicide.  Final Battle had KENTA and Marufuji's US debuts with KENTA vs. Low Ki which is one of the best matches I've seen live and Marufuji vs. Danielson.  Ring of Homicide had the chair riot after Homicide faced Necro which was pretty dope.  A buddy I went with did get to chuck a chair too.  I forget what show it was but I dislocated my shoulder a few weeks before and my arm was in a sling.  So we're leaving and Rhett Titus is asking people if they want to hang out and help take the ring down and he asks me but he didn't see since I had my jacket covering my arm.  I move my jacket and he just starts apologizing his ass off.  Compared to the HoG show I mentioned, I usually had fun at RoH but the Edison shows did have some pretty crappy crowds.  Speaking of RoH getting to see Misawa was great and Glory By Honor '06 with Nigel/Marufuji and KENTA/Danielson.  I think that show had Joe/Homicide vs. The Briscoes and Aries/Strong vs. Kings of Wrestling too.

WWE division:  The first NXT Brooklyn.  Getting to see Liger, and Bayley vs. Sasha is another candidate for best match I've ever seen live.

Edited by Nineteen
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I'd say, the top or memorable (historic or because I had a great time) shows I went to in no order were NJPW/ROH War of the Worlds 2015 (both nights), IYH: Mind Games, the previously mentioned CZW COD VI, CZW Best of the Best '02 (Fleisch/Storm ruled), CZW BOTB '04 (Bobby Quance was awesome) and a WWF house show I went to a few days after Survivor Series 1995. My grandfather had surprised me with 4 ringside first row tickets, so I picked two other friends to go. Chimmel let me hold a tag title, as I was sat next to the time keeper. A lot of names on that card, which I'll paste below. Highlight was Bret Hart high fiving, half hugging me and touching the Winged Eagle as I reached my arm out after the match as he made his rounds. My friend Raff almost got his glasses, but some older guy stiff armed him away as he ran to his right to hopefully get them. Oh well.

Spectrum '95...

Spoiler

WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - CoreStates Spectrum - November 24, 1995 (4,300)
Included a segment in which Ted Dibiase paid several fans $100 apiece to do as he ordered
Barry Horowitz, Hakushi, & Fatu defeated Skip, Isaac Yankem DDS, & Kama when Fatu pinned Kama with a roll up
Ahmed Johnson pinned Rad Radford with the Pearl River Plunge; after the bout, Ahmed fought off an interfering Skip
The 1-2-3 Kid pinned Aldo Montoya with a tornado DDT
Goldust pinned Bob Holly with the Curtain Call
Psycho Sid defeated WWF IC Champion Razor Ramon via count-out after the champion was attacked by the 1-2-3 Kid on the floor
Hunter Hearst Helmsley pinned Henry Godwinn in a slop bucket match with his feet on the ropes
Savio Vega pinned Dean Douglas
Davey Boy Smith defeated Diesel via disqualification after Diesel dropped Smith headfirst onto an unprotected turnbuckle
WWF Tag Team Champions the Smoking Gunns defeated Owen Hart & Yokozuna when Billy Gunn pinned Owen with a roll up
WWF World Champion Bret Hart defeated the Undertaker via disqualification when Diesel interfered as the challenger had Bret up for the tombstone; after the bout, Diesel and Taker teamed up to clear the ring of Helmsley, Bulldog, and Owen before Diesel powerbombed the champion; several faces - including Godwinn, the Gunns, and Savio - made the save for Bret

I've been to a ton of other shows, but those stick out.

Edited by PetrolCB
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I've been to a good amount of shows and have various levels of fun over the years.  Some were fun due to cool moments or matches.  Others were because of those with me and the experiences we had.  But three stand out with two of them having a common theme to it.

When ROH used to be at the Du Burns Arena I managed to convince my friends to go to a taping.  I'm blanking on the date and other details but you can't beat seeing them enjoy acts like the Briscoes for the first time.  Maybe the redneck vibe spoke to them.  So when they had the after part at Della Rose's we did the short walk over and one helluva time.  We drank Wild Turkey with the Briscoes and Papa just adored my wife who drank it without issue.  I made the mistake of telling Mark I drove a Honda and we had some super fun drunken shenanigans.  I've had fun at ROH shows since then but nothing will ever top that.

But for actual shows I would say the first Dynamite in DC and Full Gear in Baltimore.  it's part recency bias and part feeling like there was something historic to them.  With Dynamite it hit like a ton of bricks that these indy dudes I saw all this time were now going to be on fucking TNT of all places.  And my post in that topic indicated as such.  The show was a blast and what also made it special was how much my wife was into it.  She's liked wrestling all this time but seeing fangirl over damn near everything just did my heart good.

As for Full Gear we've been to many shows at Baltimore (not Royal Farms to us) Arena and it's been a mixed bag as far as crowds went.  But there was something different about this one.  Maybe we lucked out with the people around us but they couldn't have been nicer.  And I swear I never heard the arena get as loud as when Ricky Morton did the rope-assisted Destroyer.  They lost their minds over that!  Also, while the cruise was the first time you could clearly hear people singing to Jericho's theme it definitely happened on that show.  It was one of things that people were catching on to that was super audible live but didn't make TV.  But the show itself was also super fun and it makes me sad we couldn't go again this year.

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For my 30th birthday, 6th March 2015, my Little Sis’ bought tickets for me and Dad to go to WWE Live the next month. My first time at any wrestling show, a fan of wrestling since I was five and Daniel Bryan was there making it even better! The Greatest of All Time.

Daniel Bryan/Dolph Ziggler/Erick Rowan vs. Bray Wyatt/Sheamus/Wade Barrett. The opening match so my first at a live show was Adrian Neville vs. Finn Balor. Roman Reigns vs. The Big Show in a Street Fight for the main event. Cesaro/Tyson Kidd, the WWE Tag Team Champions. I'll never forget that day.

Two days later, Bryan had a tag team match with John Cena vs. Cesaro/Tyson Kidd on Smackdown and was pulled off the European Tour afterwards. It would be his last match as he had to retire. However Daniel Bryan was cleared to in-ring competition in 2018!

Edited by The Natural
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November 2016 is another for two reasons. Sasha Banks was called up from the main roster in Summer 2015 but wouldn't be on the house shows I attended in November 2015 and April 2016. At the third time of asking I got to see Sasha Banks, my favourite women's wrestler by far. At the interval I found her shirt sold at a different stand to the others there so bought one. The other reason? Chris Jericho having watched him for years flicking the finger and doing the job to Sami Zayn's Blue Thunder Bomb. Turns out that was Chris Jericho's last match in England!

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On 12/9/2020 at 9:05 PM, Sammo~! said:

I also had the pleasure of going to No Mercy '08 here in town, which had the HBK vs Jericho ladder match for the world title and that was absolutely amazing to see live.

I was at WM19 in Seattle as well, and in hindsight it's really very cool that I get to say I was at Steve Austin's last ever wrestling match and as an added bonus I got to see Brock Lesnar attempt to murder Brock Lesnar. 

Two of the best WWE shows ever. I have WrestleMania XIX as a top three WrestleMania. WrestleMania XXIV in my second to WrestleMania X-Seven.

On 12/10/2020 at 12:08 AM, PetrolCB said:

I'd say, the top or memorable (historic or because I had a great time) shows I went to in no order were NJPW/ROH War of the Worlds 2015 (both nights), IYH: Mind Games, the previously mentioned CZW COD VI, CZW Best of the Best '02 (Fleisch/Storm ruled), CZW BOTB '04 (Bobby Quance was awesome) and a WWF house show I went to a few days after Survivor Series 1995. My grandfather had surprised me with 4 ringside first row tickets, so I picked two other friends to go. Chimmel let me hold a tag title, as I was sat next to the time keeper. A lot of names on that card, which I'll paste below. Highlight was Bret Hart high fiving, half hugging me and touching the Winged Eagle as I reached my arm out after the match as he made his rounds. My friend Raff almost got his glasses, but some older guy stiff armed him away as he ran to his right to hopefully get them. Oh well.

Spectrum '95...

  Reveal hidden contents

WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - CoreStates Spectrum - November 24, 1995 (4,300)
Included a segment in which Ted Dibiase paid several fans $100 apiece to do as he ordered
Barry Horowitz, Hakushi, & Fatu defeated Skip, Isaac Yankem DDS, & Kama when Fatu pinned Kama with a roll up
Ahmed Johnson pinned Rad Radford with the Pearl River Plunge; after the bout, Ahmed fought off an interfering Skip
The 1-2-3 Kid pinned Aldo Montoya with a tornado DDT
Goldust pinned Bob Holly with the Curtain Call
Psycho Sid defeated WWF IC Champion Razor Ramon via count-out after the champion was attacked by the 1-2-3 Kid on the floor
Hunter Hearst Helmsley pinned Henry Godwinn in a slop bucket match with his feet on the ropes
Savio Vega pinned Dean Douglas
Davey Boy Smith defeated Diesel via disqualification after Diesel dropped Smith headfirst onto an unprotected turnbuckle
WWF Tag Team Champions the Smoking Gunns defeated Owen Hart & Yokozuna when Billy Gunn pinned Owen with a roll up
WWF World Champion Bret Hart defeated the Undertaker via disqualification when Diesel interfered as the challenger had Bret up for the tombstone; after the bout, Diesel and Taker teamed up to clear the ring of Helmsley, Bulldog, and Owen before Diesel powerbombed the champion; several faces - including Godwinn, the Gunns, and Savio - made the save for Bret

I've been to a ton of other shows, but those stick out.

Oh man, you got to see Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind at WWF In Your House 10: Mind Games! Loved that match since an 11 year old. A ***** match. Mick Foley's greatest and one of Shawn Michaels as well. High five from Bret Hart after Survivor Series 1995!

Edited by The Natural
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Haven't been to a huge amount of shows, but these are the 3 that are the most special for me so far:

Wrestle Kingdom 2020 Night 1: My first Wrestle Kingdom, I had attended random New Japan cards including the Australian tours and that Power Struggle that had Okada v Anderson in the main, but I was so emotionally invested in this one, especially the Hiromu return match. Went with a bunch of friends from home which made it more special.

MCW Clash of the Titans 2019: In terms of wrestling, I'd say i had been to better MCW shows (i.e. November Rain with Okada, the one with Gambino/Eagles), but being a huge Slex fan and finally seeing him top Gambino was huge. Being front row my friend and I also got into the post match celebrations which was really cool.

Some random Korean Indy in Incheon in 2016: I THINK it was a PLA show but I can't confirm, the wrestling was so indy sleaze, the venue had crap aircon and it was so humid inside, probably around 50 people in the crowd, but what made this one special was that they never really had many foreigners attend their show and I got to go drink with the owner and some of the wrestlers after. Despite the language barrier, it was my first real interaction outside a show with any wrestlers so I'll always  have this as one of my best wrestling shows.

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I am amazed when I read on this board (not on this thread, obviously) and elsewhere that many wrestling fans posting on the interWebs don't go/haven't gone to many live shows. I will get all Christopher Nolan and say that the pro wrestling form was meant to be viewed live and in person. It is uniquely suited to TV, video and to a lesser extent on-line as well but these are lesser versions of it. I certainly have consumed much resslin' on my TV and computer, and have a whole lot of tapes and DVDs but nothing compares to the real thing. I was always one to jump at seeing movies I dig in the theater as well -  there is a difference.

what a world,

RAF

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10 hours ago, thee Reverend Axl Future said:

I am amazed when I read on this board (not on this thread, obviously) and elsewhere that many wrestling fans posting on the interWebs don't go/haven't gone to many live shows. I will get all Christopher Nolan and say that the pro wrestling form was meant to be viewed live and in person. It is uniquely suited to TV, video and to a lesser extent on-line as well but these are lesser versions of it. I certainly have consumed much resslin' on my TV and computer, and have a whole lot of tapes and DVDs but nothing compares to the real thing. I was always one to jump at seeing movies I dig in the theater as well -  there is a difference.

what a world,

RAF

Yes!  I have taken quite a few non-fans to live wrestling and the have always had a great time, no matter the quality of the show itself.  

Once things return to somewhat normal, I'm hitting up more wrestling shows.

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I'll just go with my first show:

Quote

WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - August 4, 1984 (12,908)
Bob Backlund pinned Salvatore Bellomo at 10:56 (Backlund's last WWF match for 8 years)
Gama Singh pinned Dave Barbie at 5:46
Mr. Fuji pinned Tiger Chung Lee at 14:33
Andre the Giant defeated Big John Studd via count-out at 9:47
WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan pinned Greg Valentine with a clothesline and the legdrop at 11:18
Michael Hayes/Terry Gordy/Buddy Roberts (w/ David Wolff & Cyndi Lauper) defeated Ron Shaw/Rene Goulet/Charlie Fulton at 5:12; (the Freebirds' debut)
The Haiti Kid pinned Dana Carpenter at 3:51
Iron Mike Sharpe pinned Jose Luis Rivera at 5:11
Jesse Ventura defeated Rocky Johnson via count-out at 4:46
Kamala (w/ Freddie Blassie & Friday) pinned Fred Marzino at 3:10 with a splash to the back
Ken Patera pinned Steve Lombardi at 5:43
WWF IC Champion Tito Santana pinned the Iron Sheik at 7:51 with a small package; Freddie Blassie was the special referee for the bout

 

 

 

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Revolution Pro (California) Spirit of the Revolution Finals for the one-two punch of first the retirement of plucky babyface and put-upon Ultrataro Jr. (which was the birth of TARO) and the 2/3 falls match in the main event of Rising Son vs. Super Dragon. 

 

Night 2 of G1 Special in the USA featuring Kenny Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii for the inaugural U.S. title.

 

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Hard to narrow down on my end, but here's an attempt at five, with a few stories I've told a few times here but here goes again:

1. My First-Ever Wrestling Show

Estimating around July/August 1987. I was a few months away from my ninth birthday, living in a small Northern Michigan town called Oscoda. On Saturdays I was glued to the TV watching WWF Wrestling Challenge, NWA Worldwide, World Championship Wrestling on TBS, and so on. But our town was a couple of hours drive minimum from the closest place the big leagues were touring.
 
When my father wanted to talk to me about serious stuff, or just needed to get out of the house to sort some things out, he would go for a drive and take me with him. The slang term he used to describe these drives was "going crazy". One Sunday evening he pulled me out of my bedroom to go for one of these drives, and he picked up a couple of his drinking buddies that lived down the street.
 
He drove to a town that was about an hour away from ours. The drive seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, until he pulls into the parking lot of Ogemaw Heights High School in West Branch, MI, a school off of Michigan Highway #33 surrounded by nothing but trees and fields. The letters on the sign of the high school simply said "WRESTLING". I got super-excited, and at first my father and his friends joked around saying "nah, that's tomorrow night, we're going to bingo tonight!" But sure enough, once we're inside the school we head into the gym and there's a wrestling ring in there. My dad frigging surprised me on a random summer night by taking me to a wrestling show.
 
I don't remember a lot of specifics. I think the league was called Michigan Championship Wrestling. It had some of the guys that I found out years later were part of the final days of the Sheik's Detroit territory, guys like Irish Micky Doyle and Ricky Cortez. And a young Al Snow was part of a heel tag team calling itself the Fantastics (which confused me a little since I had seen the Fulton/Rogers version on UWF and World Class TV by that point) against a tag team called The Flying Tigers. The Fantastics cheated to win their match, but sure enough there was a battle royal at the end of the night, with the final four being the Al Snow version of the Fantastics and The Flying Tigers, and the Tigers got their revenge by winning the battle royale.
 
But the biggest actual name of the show was future WWE Hall of Famer Bobo Brazil, once again defending the "The United States Championship." Bobo was into his sixties by then, but I had read his name in grocery store magazines enough to know that I was seeing a legend in the ring that night.
 
But the biggest smile of the night came when Bobo Brazil came down to the ring. My dad never watched WWF wrestling with me, and would always joke about how phony Hulk Hogan was. He never did it in a mean way because he knew it was something I loved watching, would always be more in a joking manner. But that night, when Bobo came to the ring, my Dad pulled me aside and said the following words..."I used to watch him wrestle when it was real!"
 
2. ECW's first-ever Detroit-area show
 
One of the rare ECW shows where no RF fancam exists. A year before they started doing TV tapings at the Michigan State Fairgrounds Arena, ECW did a show at the Inkster Recreation Center. This was actually my first live wrestling show since the above small-town show ten years earlier. Me and a friend did not have advance tickets, and only really knew about the show from a one-item line listing on 1Wrestling.com. We were still living in our small town at the time, about a four-hour drive north of Detroit. We decided to make a day trip out of it, and left our town around 10AM and got to Inkster around 2PM. We figured if the show was sold out, we had a day trip in Detroit. We roll up to the rec center lobby and see a woman working a check-in booth. We ask if tickets are available and she said "we don't have any tickets!" We asked if the show as sold out, and she clarified that they don't have tickets because no one from ECW had given them tickets to distribute yet. My friend sees a man walking around wearing an NJPW King of Sports jacket, and assumes he must be with ECW. We ask the jacket-wearing man if he knows when tickets are going to arrive, and he says "I got them, come with me". He leads us to his car in the parking lot, and opens up his trunk. He takes out a batch of tickets, and says they are $20 each. I start rifling through my wallet but am fumbling around through a bunch of 5's and 1's, but he thinks I am fumbling because I may not have the money. And it was at that moment that Pee Wee Moore asked if we had any weed and offered up tickets in exchange for that. We did not have any weed on us though, but the cash ended up in Pee Wee Moore's hands, and I would not be shocked if that money never made its way to HHG Corp's books.
 
Main event was Sabu vs Sandman which was as nuts as expected, including Sandman jumping off the apron to put Sabu through a table only to bounce off of him into the front row when the table didn't break. We also got a good and bloody New Jack/Kronus vs Dudley Boyz match, and to this day I still have my ticket that I had dipped in New Jack's blood on the floor.
 
3. "R.A.W. COMES TO TOWN!" (R.A.W. = "Renegades Alliance of Wrestling") and Terry Funk makes an indie date on the same night as a WCW PPV booking two hours later and 700 miles away.
 
I went to college in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a small city called Marquette, home to Northern Michigan University. The local celebrity was Mike Shaw (Bastion Booger/Norman The Lunatic), who was a native to the region and retired there to raise his family once his WWF days were over. He would work at a local copper mine during the summer, and while school was in session, he would work nights/weekends as a doorman/bouncer at one of the more popular college bars in town.
 
About once a year, a money mark would try to promote a wrestling show in the area using Shaw as a draw, but would never be more than a one-off. I recall there was one with a local casino that brought in Brooklyn Brawler to work Shaw, and there was another one at one of the area hockey arenas that had a fake Doink and a fake La Parka but somehow had real Meng while he was still under WCW contract. But the most notorious of these one-offs was when "R.A.W." came to town. And when I say "R.A.W.", I mean the Renegades Alliance of Wrestling.
 
The main event was Typhoon vs Tatanka, the semi-main was a tag team match of Sabu/Bruce Hart vs. Brutus Beefcake/Greg Valentine. The promoters rented a frigging BOXING ring from a local gym, which would have been bad enough if it just meant guys bumping on a hard boxing canvas, but they used the boxing ROPES as well, so damn near anything involving running the ropes or climbing the ropes looked like shit, though god bless him that didn't stop Sabu from making three attempts at a springboard bodypress to the outside onto Beefcake, who didn't make any effort to protect Sabu when the rope sagged forward and he went splat on the floor.
 
But this was also the night that Terry Funk endeared himself in my heart forever. The week after flyers/radio commercials for the show started floating around the area and he was advertised as one of the wrestlers appearing, Terry Funk started showing up on WCW TV again. An angle ran that lead to Terry Funk being booked against Kevin Nash at WCW Souled Out 2000...on the same night as the "R.A.W." show.
 
So naturally, my friends and I assumed that Funk would not be appearing on our show. Before doors open, we ran into a friend that worked for the local TV station and was there in the afternoon recording pre-show interviews for the 6PM news broadcast that would air a couple of hours before bell time for last-minute promo. He told us Funk was there (side note: the same promoter ran another town three hours away the night before, and one of the undercard wrestlers has since told me that Funk worked the night before in a falls-count-anywhere hardcore match against Shaw and got Muta-level juice when a trash can spot went wrong, which of course is now a holy grail match for me if anyone recorded it that night), and the plan was that Funk would go out to open the show and then immediately hop on a plane to the WCW PPV, which was in Ohio that night so a quick flight was doable provided weather panned out.
 
The show opened with one of Shaw's trainees - "The Irish Luchador" Billy McNeill who ended up working St. Louis indies for a while and running in the same circles as folks like Matt Sydal and Delirious prior to their ROH days - receiving the "R.A.W. Rookie of the Year" award, and then Terry Funk comes storming out of the locker room and assaulting McNeill and issuing an open challenge to anyone in the locker room, which summons Bruce Hart. Bruce Hart and Terry Funk then do a wild five-minute brawl all over the gymnasium before they end up tumbling through a door to outside the gym, where I assume a car was waiting for Funk. Bruce Hart of course being Bruce Hart, comes back to the ring, and on a show that was in a high school and had been promoted as "family-friendly" immediately starts calling Funk a "chicken shit" on the mic.
 
It may not have been a proper match, but Terry Funk cemented my fandom forever that night by still showing up on the same night as a WCW PPV booking, when everyone would have understood if he canceled off the show.
 
And yes, the promoters really did say "R.A.W. Comes to Marquette!" on the flyers/posters promoting the show. In January 2000. When WWE RAW was red-hot.
 
4. IWA-Mid South Something to Prove - front row for Samoa Joe vs. Necro Butcher. I can be seen freaking out multiple times on video. To this day, that match is still the closest I have ever felt to experiencing "BIG FIGHT" euphoria and delirium. One of the most epic wrestling weekends ever. Caught overnight flight on Friday night out of Los Angeles, landed in Philly Saturday morning. Went to the IWA/CZW double-header at ECW Arena with friends, then we drove together to NYC Sunday morning for Puerto Rican Day, the ROH show, and the first ECW One Night Stand. Then caught a 7AM flight Monday morning back to Los Angeles and was at my work desk by 10AM Pacific time. I had no vacation days with work at the moment, hence me not being able to take Friday and Monday off and missing Hardcore Homecoming and having to make the whirlwind weekend. I was drunk the entire time from Saturday morning flight landing to Monday morning flight returning with maybe eight hours of sleep total for the entire weekend. WORTH IT.
 
5. Joey Janela's Spring Break 2019 - I was at G1 Supercard in MSG, and getting really nervous about the timing for taking the train from NYC to Jersey City and getting there in time for JJSB. Okada vs Jay White took the ring at MSG, and as much as I wanted to see an IWGP Championship change, I couldn't help but pull the trigger on bolting early for Spring Break. I speed-walk from the Jersey City train station to the GCW Collective venue, and as I walk in the doors, Rich Paladino is in the ring starting the countdown to going live on FITE TV. I literally could not have timed my departure from MSG better.
 
And my departure from MSG meant I got to Spring Break in time for what was the main draw for me that evening. My first non-WWF wrestling as a kid was Jim Crockett Promotions 1986. Throughout many years of attending WWF/WCW/ECW events in the late '90s, and Wrestlemania weekends and numerous independent shows in the 2000's, I still had yet to see the Rock N Roll Express wrestle live. I finally got to cross seeing them off my wrestling bucket list with Spring Break that night, and on top of that, it ended up being a damn fun "passing the torch" match with LAX/Ortiz & Santana/Proud & Powerful. Seeing Ricky Morton live hitting every move crisply brought me great joy that evening, and I 100% lost my shit when Morton hit a perfectly-executed Canadian Destroyer. And the post-match where RnR presented their bandanas to LAX...I still have yet to actually cry while watching live wrestling, but that may be the closest I have come.
 
I missed the IWGP Championship changing hands, but I honestly would have been much more bummed out if I had missed the Rock N Roll Express tearing it up that night.
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15 minutes ago, clintthecrippler said:

But the biggest smile of the night came when Bobo Brazil came down to the ring. My dad never watched WWF wrestling with me, and would always joke about how phony Hulk Hogan was. He never did it in a mean way because he knew it was something I loved watching, would always be more in a joking manner. But that night, when Bobo came to the ring, my Dad pulled me aside and said the following words..."I used to watch him wrestle when it was real!"

The funny thing is that I figured out wrestling was fake watching Bobo Brazil "punch" Blackjack Mulligan when I was a child live at the Norfolk Scope.

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31 minutes ago, DEAN said:

The funny thing is that I figured out wrestling was fake watching Bobo Brazil "punch" Blackjack Mulligan when I was a child live at the Norfolk Scope.

Yeah, that's something I can smile about as an adult, as that comment meant that my Dad watched Bobo Brazil vs The Sheik in Detroit, which isn't exactly the epitome of "working snug" or a match that fits into other narratives of "the preliminary matches are a show, but the main events and championship matches, THOSE are real!"

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It's a toss up for me, either the 2002 No Way Out show that had the return of the nWo or the DGUSA show I went to in 2010 (https://411mania.com/wrestling/100-percent-fordified-dragon-gate-usa-way-of-the-ronin/) where we had to wait outside for like an hour because whoever they originally rented the ring from flaked so they had to get a ring from somewhere else. I got to see CIMA directing traffic when they were unloading the ring from the truck. There was also a Bryan Danielson vs. Jon Moxley match (this was Bryan's indy farewell tour after WWE hired him back) where Bryan dove on Moxley onto a set of theater chairs that were bolted to the ground so hard that they rose up a few inches and then started kicking Mox like 5 feet away from me. It was awesome.

There was also a NXT show that had Sami(just back from the double shoulder surgery)/Chiampa as the match after intermission and featured a top rope Air Raid Crash. Sami does a big speech after talking about how some guy told him that Milwaukee was a great town to wrestle in and that Turner Hall was a great venue. Then Kevin Owens' music hits and he comes out and confronts Sami and gets a kick for his trouble. I had ringside seats for that one and I got to see Eva Marie up close and uh calmdownRamo2653netico

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On 12/8/2020 at 10:57 PM, username said:

My favorite wrestling show I attended was the Ring of Homicide show for ROH with the Homicide vs Necro Butcher main event as I got to toss a chair into the ring.

I was at Ring of Homicide. The chair riot was one of the most fun and scary things I've been apart of. 

I went to so many shows in NY/NJ/Philly during the Gabe era that I can't pick just one. Those were some of the best times in life.

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21 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I was at Ring of Homicide. The chair riot was one of the most fun and scary things I've been apart of. 

I went to so many shows in NY/NJ/Philly during the Gabe era that it's so hard pick just one. My first ROH show was Samoa Joe winning the title from Xavier. My favorite ROH show might be Death Before Dishonor IV with ROH vs. CZW cage of death. Also on that card was a seriously underrated Pure title match between Nigel and Roderick Strong. Those were some of the best times in life. 

The ROH/New Japan Supercard holds a special place for me for actually gettitng see New Japan live. 

One of the perks of living in New Jersey is being a hotbed for wrestling. I've seen WWE, ECW, NXT, ROH, Impact, etc. One moment that stands out is being there live for Mikey Whipwreck and Tajiri winning the tag title tournament to at the Hammerstein Ballroom.

 

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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