Picklesnbeer Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 My intro to wrestling was us getting expanded cable cause cable in 1984 in our area was fubar. We got way more than we should have. We got tbs and my friend had an old school satellite so we got wccw up in Michigan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 I think that one of the things that helped get me so into pro wrestling is that during the formative part of my fandom from 84 onwards on most weekends in Toronto along with the WWF we had NWA, AWA, Montreal International Wrestling and Vancouver All Star Wrestling shows on at various points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teflon Turtle Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 (edited) My intro to wrestling was...mmm...1990-91 WWF, if I've got my timeline straight. I don't remember the first wrestler I saw. Might've been Bret Hart, might've been Ultimate Warrior. Despite being very young, I was already in to comics and at first glance, thought I was watching a comic book come to life. Probably stereotypical of the time and my age. As far as my first favorites: Bret (still my all-time favorite, probably will never be replaced), Macho Man, Warrior, Roddy Piper. I was in to The Rockers...super bummed when the barbershop window thing happened. I remember being pretty happy when Mr. Perfect turned face as a kid, though I can't exactly remember why. My favorite "heel" back then would be the one I would define as being the most convincing to me as a young child, in retrospect: Jake "The Snake" Roberts, no contest. I was terrified of him. Count me among the traumatized when he had the snake bite Macho Man. First wrestling figures is an interesting one: I can recall having a lot of the Hasbro WWF figures, but I must've picked up an awareness of WCW relatively early too, because at the very least I had the Galoob Sting and (I think) Lex Luger figures from '90. (Edit: this may have been because I stumbled upon the WCW comic book back then, now that I think on it a little more. I had the one where Sting fought Cactus Jack on behalf of a bunch of sick children...or something.) Edited June 20, 2021 by Teflon Turtle Further recollections. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 My first favorite wrestlers were Tony Garea, The Wild Samoans, Captain Lou, and Tony Atlas/ Rocky Johnson. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 I don't remember that WCW comic, but I did have like two issues of WWF Battlemania. The one with DiBiase vs. Virgil and the one where Bossman tries to infiltrate the Undertaker's funeral parlor and apparently Paul Bearer is a cannibal, which, uh, what a twist! Man, I need to try to track those down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elizium Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 19 hours ago, elizium said: I'm sure it was Hogan initially...but Demolition and Brutus Beefcake were my dudes. Thinking about this more and I was reminded of something: I have absolutely 0 recollection of this, but my parents swear that when I was four years old I would put a towel on my head and run around the house yelling "I am the Iron Sheik!" So either I was a fan or just a racist kid 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 20, 2021 Author Share Posted June 20, 2021 Did you have curly shoes? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 I remember having a couple of wrestlers in amongst my figures of superheroes, mutant turtles, etc. as a young kid. It was possibly Macho and Bulldog, but I think I must have just picked them up because they looked cool, I don’t remember watching wrestling until 98, when I was 9/10. Austin was an obvious early fave, the earliest thing I can remember actually seeing was the Raw segment where Austin faked out going corporate, and I loved that whole Summerslam build of ‘are Kane and Taker in cahoots’. As I got into it, X Pac became my proper favourite as he had the underdog thing going and was one of the few flyers to be featured around then, I used to love Taka against random cruisers but they were already losing interest in the division by then. In the UK, TNT would only come on at like 8-9 at night and I just thought of it as a channel that showed old films. I came across Nitro, presumably when flicking during Raw ads (Raw and Nitro used to get shown on a Friday back then) and, because it was the old film channel and I vaguely recognised the likes of Hogan as ‘old’ wrestlers, I genuinely thought it was a rerun of some old wrestling. But I remember seeing a Goldberg video package and being blown away by the spear in particular and telling a friend about this old wrestler I saw who would just dive across the ring to take out his opponents. Once I saw more I remember thinking the cruisers and DDP were great, but that early perception of WCW being where the old wrestlers went stuck with me for my first few years of fandom and WCW kind of lacked a bit street cred for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shartnado Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, Teflon Turtle said: one where Sting fought Cactus Jack on behalf of a bunch of sick children...or something.) Holy crap! What was that crazy bastard Cactus Jack going to do to those poor sick kids? Take them to an amusement park, where they obviously wouldn't be well enough to get on any rides and make fun of them whilst riding the fiercest roller-coaster himself? ...The kids didn't turn on Sting somewhere in there, did they? I mean , I have to ask , right ? Edited June 20, 2021 by Shartnado Question about Sting 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 20, 2021 Author Share Posted June 20, 2021 He would have taken them to Santa's Vilage in the summer. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shartnado Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 3 minutes ago, odessasteps said: He would have taken them to Santa's Vilage in the summer. He certainly resembles that remark! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakk_Sabbath Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 3 hours ago, nate said: General board question: Has anyone ever made the joke that AEW could still technically fit into the "Feds Just Trying To Make A Buck" section? According to the Forbes article, they would have been profitable this year but they made an eight figure investment into the video game division 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 9 hours ago, christopher.annino said: Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Flyin Brian, and originally based solely on how cool he looked Jyushin Thunder Liger Man, my friend had satellite and taped Suprebrawl 91 and it was our first peek at WCW and we were all fascinated that there was another wrestling league and it had guys who had disappeared that we knew (Dustin Rhodes!), or guys we'd never seen who looked so huge (El Gigante!) but most of all that there was wrestling in Japan (my friend was part-Japanese so it REALLY blew him away) and even though we were kind of bored of the Flair-Fujinami match, we watched it over and over then bought one of he Apter mags and saw a photo of Jushin Liger and thought he was so incredibly cool. In 95, when WCW brought in the NJPW guys for the World Cup, I watched the PPV preview channel over and over, watching for the promo which had Sonny Onoo addressing the NJPW guys in a row ("Jushin? Fly high. Come down hard on WCW!"). This was pre-internet, so eventually I just stopped seeing the ad and how no way of knowing what had happened at the PPV because we couldn't afford them and nobody rented WCW tapes chez nous. I remember buying the tape years later and it being so...mostly boring. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coletti Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 Shit, @caleyreminded me of something while we're all getting nostalgic... Who else used to listen in on scrambled PPVs to find out what happened? My folks thought wrestling was stupid as hell and would've laughed at the idea of shelling out good money for a show, so I spent many a Sunday night listening in on scramblevision... 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caley Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 5 minutes ago, christopher.annino said: Shit, @caleyreminded me of something while we're all getting nostalgic... Who else used to listen in on scrambled PPVs to find out what happened? My folks thought wrestling was stupid as hell and would've laughed at the idea of shelling out good money for a show, so I spent many a Sunday night listening in on scramblevision... I would do this for every PPV. It got really confusing some nights (The Foley HIAC with JR screaming about him being "Broken in half" and sitting there going "What happened? Tell me what he did JR!") but then every once in a while it would come into reasonably clear picture and you'd get all excited before it went squiggly again. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted June 20, 2021 Share Posted June 20, 2021 I listened in on the ECW PPV where Taz and Bam Bam went through the ring and was freaking out wondering what happened until Joey said what it was. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wyld Samurai Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 44 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said: According to the Forbes article, they would have been profitable this year but they made an eight figure investment into the video game division Kenny Omega dun bankrupted the bizness! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 38 minutes ago, christopher.annino said: Shit, @caleyreminded me of something while we're all getting nostalgic... Who else used to listen in on scrambled PPVs to find out what happened? My folks thought wrestling was stupid as hell and would've laughed at the idea of shelling out good money for a show, so I spent many a Sunday night listening in on scramblevision... I truly believe that Vince's "1, 2 HE GOT HIM...no, he didn't" was to torture all the cheap bastards and kids without enough allowance saved up who were listening via audio only. 1 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Commander Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 there's no way that a 59 minute clip of Cornette talking about a Chyna documentary is gonna be worth listening to for 59 minutes, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goodear Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 It’s not so bad, he seems sympathetic to Chyna now despite not thinking she was much of a worker. He spends a lot a time on the people surrounding her (the people doing the film before the rights fell to the current team) and how they contributed to the situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 21, 2021 Author Share Posted June 21, 2021 Its a lot of him bashing Russo, so if that appeals to you, …. otherwise, not a lot of new information, i dont think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ka-to Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 1 hour ago, christopher.annino said: Shit, @caleyreminded me of something while we're all getting nostalgic... Who else used to listen in on scrambled PPVs to find out what happened? My folks thought wrestling was stupid as hell and would've laughed at the idea of shelling out good money for a show, so I spent many a Sunday night listening in on scramblevision... I'm so old that I remember in the time before cable TV I would listen to a radio show on WHBI at 1 AM to hear the results from the monthly Madison Square Garden show. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elizium Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 5 hours ago, odessasteps said: Did you have curly shoes? God, if only... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octopus Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 8 hours ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said: I'm a bit envious of those of you who were around early enough to get into it because of your regional territories. I was born late enough that by the time I was paying attention at about four years old, Portland was not at all a thing I knew about. It would have been cool to get into it on late '70s Portland. People my age in Texas or Louisiana had the chance to get into Gary Hart-booked Dallas or Bill Watts-booked Mid-South if they were watching early in their lives, which is way cooler than basically the way most people my age got into wrestling, which was WWF. I honestly don't have memories of not watching wrestling, and WWF are my earliest memories, but luckily I had a grandma who was into JCP and so I would watch that too. ESPN also had the AWA when I was young, which is actually how I originally got into The Rockers (my household had cable as did my grandparents' household, so I was a lucky kid). As a spinoff, what were everyone's first wrestling figures? My first ones that I remember, which I think I've said before, were AWA figures: Bock, Zbyszko, Michaels, and Jannetty. Had some great tag matches with those teams. My first figures! They brought me so much joy and then growing up I continued to collect them. A few of them were chewed up by the dogs but I still would battle with them. My first two, I don’t remember the occasion or even if there was one. But it was Farooq and Vader. The day I got them, I probably spent hours of them just beating the hell out of each other. I remember they started on one side of the room near the treadmill and bashed their way all the way to on top of the speakers. I’m pretty sure Farooq threw Vader off for the win, but history is disputed. My next two were Big Boss Man and All Snow. Snow was no match for Bossman’s one handed press slam. But you just couldn’t put down Al. That Christmas was all wrestling toys (and clothes, yuck!). Andre the Giant, Mankind, Kane, Stone Cold, Shawn Michaels, and possibly X-Pac and a few others. I had a roster and they were all going to murder each other. I could be way off on the order of which came first, but that’s how I remember my childhood glee. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted June 21, 2021 Share Posted June 21, 2021 (edited) On 6/19/2021 at 11:52 PM, Octopus said: Fun question while I make Hamburger Helper: Who were your favorite wrestlers as a kid? The people that got you all into wrestling. Bret Hart, The Undertaker, Randy Savage, Ric Flair and Sting. Early 1990s. Edited June 21, 2021 by The Natural Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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