How long have you been involved in the IWC?

[Guest Kinetic]

I discovered the Internet Wrestling Community in 1997, shortly after getting a computer with internet capabilities. I immediately went to where any mark would go: WWF.com, then featuring Vince bellowing "Welcome to the WWF on America Online" in his booming announcer voice. I ended up on the haven for smart marks on that site, the Ask The Informer folder. What the actual intended function of that folder was escapes me, but it basically exposed me to the dark underbelly of the business for the first time. It was eventually overrun by marks, though, and most of the people either left or migrated to a board started by one of the ATI regulars called The Barbwire Syndicate. It was there that I achieved my first moment of internet glory: Winning a mini e-fed tournament and the right to call myself the board's founder's lackey. I moved to Italy in mid 99, though, and had to rely on my uncle for any wrestling tapes, which he sent very sporadically. When I moved back in July of 2000, I sort of roamed the net aimlessly until I found the Smark's forum on EZBoard and became a regular there. And I'm still here, for whatever reason. What's your story?

[Guest TheRockIsTheEuropeanChampion]

It was 2000. I'd been reading Scott Keith's stuff, and... that's pretty much how I got involved.

 

I kept going to his websites and spending hours on there. When the original forum began, I was reading it. I've been lurking since the beginning, more or less.

 

This forum is basically the only wrestling related website I even go to anymore... Figures, eh?

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

I come here for banter and go to 411 for my news.

 

August of 2000 I got a computer, and went to the 1wrestling.com site, since I'd seen it advertised in WOW magazine and all. I posted a few times at their forum, but avoided messageboards for the most part. Then I found TheSmarks.com in early 2001. I came to that site for reviews, but went to latestwrestlingnews.com for my news and such. It was a damn good site, but it's gone now. I miss it. So I started going to wrestlingplanet.com and rajah, and then I started posting in the Smarkboard for the hell of it in early 2002, becoming a Smarkboard member the night of Wrestlemania XVIII.

 

And then "fo sheez" and the State were created, and it was good.

 

I serve no real purpose now, and I keep getting distracted while writing Random Observations.

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest El Psycho Diablo]

Way too long? I've been online since 98ish, and IWC since 2000.

 

Wrestleline to here.

[Guest KingOfOldSchool]

When I got on the 'net in 2000, I joined up with IGN almost immediately, and spent my time reading the IGNWrestling section, along with buzzing around on IGN's wrestling boards.

 

I began reading more and more sites like PW and WrestlingObserver for my news once IGNWrestling shut down. I also began visiting TheSmarks around that time, occasionally reading the articles.

 

Just before IGN went Insider earlier this year, I began lurking on the SmarkBoard and joined up under my original name. By coincidence, the IGNWF, which I was a member of, moved here a bit later... and since, this has really been the only board where I've hung around on.

[Guest papacita]

Well, when I started high school (fall 97), I spent most of my free time in the school's computer lab surfing the net. I remember going the WWF.com 1st, but the school's firewall (read: cheap ass computers) wouldn't load the site properly. I got my first computer a couple of months later, and got into Scoops and Micasa, Wrestlemaniacs and stuff like that before I lost the net in early 98. Then I got it back for good in 2000, and got hooked on Wrestleline through WOW magazine, and when they suddenly folded last year, I ran to the Smarks and 411. I also ran an e-fed (The NFWA) for two years and just closed it about a month ago (and I miss it terribly).

[Guest Will Scarlet]

Well, I started in late 1996, early 1997 myself. I basically checked out the WWF page and the AOL wrestling boards. Through there,I found places like 1wrestling and wrestlezone. I had actually heard of names like Wade Keller and Dave Meltzer through a wrestling hotline I called back from 1993-96 or so. Alas, the wrestling hotline was closed because the Internet was growing and people were getting their news off of there, and some bizarre stuff happened to the guy who ran the hotline, but that is another story.

 

Anyway, around 1999, I found Rantsylvania because someone posted Scott Keith's Wrestlemania rants on the AOL boards I was at. At first, I ignored them, figuring they are just recapping matches. How boring. At like 4 AM, I was bored, so I checked them out and liked what I saw, I headed off to Rantsylvania soon after. I ended up liking the work of Keith and I even enjoyed Shannon's ECW recaps.

 

I finally checked out the old Delphi boards sometime in 2000, and was a lurker there. I also went the Ezboards, but since Ezboards did not get me my password until a week later I really did not post there because I was either lazy or could not remember my password. Finally, when the new boards came along, I decided to start posting regularly, and now here I am. This and the smarks part of 411wrestling is all I check out in wrestling anymore, unless there is a really big story or I get bored.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

Let's see...I came to Rantsylvania around mid '99. Lurked the EZBoard until about October '01 when I became Jimm Ross. Then I became I AM THE ALLIANCE and got banned for unexplained reasons that remains a mystery to this day. Then even more mysteriously I was unbanned for unexplained reasons and stayed until the bitter demise of the EZBoard. Then I came to this place as Crooooow! but forgot my password and became Croooooow! (one extra o) Then I forgot THAT one and at the end of May I became The Czech Republic. Now as September begins I am wishing to be referred to as TCR because it has more street cred.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

How about I piss off your main ethnic group and call you Bratislava?

 

Eastern European ethnicities fighting each other = RATINGS!!

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest The Czech Republic]

Just PLEASE don't get those damn Ruthenians involved, they're still pissed that they didn't call the country "Czechoruthenislovakia" after the Dual Empire crumbled.

 

How do you pronounce Kotzenjunge? Is it's Cots-in-young ?

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Cots-in-yung-uh.

 

Fo sheez,

Cots-in-yung-uh.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

I figured that was the other possibility. What's that German for? I'm a French student.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Puke Boy. Plain and simple.

 

Fo sheez,

Kotzenjunge

[Guest Incandenza]

It was either December of 99 or January of 2000 when I started, not too long after I got into wrestling. I didn't start going to message boards until late last year, where I posted a handful of times at the old version of this board under the name Slothrop. I mainly lurked, though, before finally joining up as incadenza on April 30th of this year.

[Guest areacode212]

I first came across rec.sport.pro-wrestling in late 1993, when I was messing around with my geeky computer friend's internet account. The first thing I remember reading was the WWF Real Names List, and I was pretty amazed at how all this info was out there. Remember, this was a year and a half before Vince McMahon saying "Kevin Nash" instead of "Diesel" was a big deal.

 

I got an internet account of my own in Sept. 1994, and spent hours upon hours lurking & posting on r.s.p-w. Yeah, so I knew who guys like CRZ, Scherer, Keith, Kunze, Scaia, etc.. were before they got their websites.

 

Then I got caught playing MUDs using school resources, and got my internet access taken away, but I still managed to get online using my crafty social engineering skills.

 

Eventually, I returned to r.s.p-w less and less over the years, and just visted various websites (Herb Kunze's site, Scaia's News from Dayton, which morphed into Online Onslaught, which morphed into WrestleManiacs, which morphed into WrestleLine, which went out of business, but led me to Rantsylvania before doing so).

 

Oh, and somewhere in there (95-96), when I didn't have any internet access, I had to rely on Al Isaacs's phone line for wrestling news, until he dropped it to start Scoops. But by then I had access to the net again, so it was all good.

 

Eh, fast-forward 7 years to 2001. I've been posting on CRZ's EZBoard, but I'm bored because only a handful of people go there. So I sell out and defect to The Smarks because of the HUGE number of posters there. Plus, it had a Comic Book folder, which I frequently posted on, along with Sassquatch, Judas, starvenger, gthureson, and others. As you all know, SK got fed up with the place, so Popick, Goodhelmet, Dames, myself, and some others threw together TheSmartMarks. And here we are now.

[Guest bob_barron]

about 95-96

[Guest The Ruthless Aggressor]

I'm pretty new to the scene. I've been around since early 2001.

[Guest Angle-plex]

In 2000- I was at IGN boards until they went Insider, then I came here.

[Guest treble charged]

I got the internet in '97, and by mid-'98, I started surfing the wrestling websites. I mostly visited the newsboards (i.e. prowrestling.com), and even posted at some of them. I found out about Rantsylvania through the old Wrestleline site in the Fall of '99, but didn't join the board until December of 2001, what with having a crappy computer and all prior to that.

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

I started on Wrestleline a few years ago. I can't remember how I found that or how I found the Smarks when wrestleline folded.

 

I've tried a few other boards but I still like this one best.

[Guest Retro Rob]

May 1999 I got the 'net. For a few months I hung out at newsboards that I would never consider going back to now. Then I found the link to Wrestleline.com in WOW magazine. I started reading SK's stuff, keep in mind this was back when he didn't suck, and one time he posted a link to Rantsylvania. I checked it out and joined Delphi. The rest is history.

 

I don't really know why I took up writing reviews for the IWC, but I did in Feb. 2001. I sucked really bad until June 2001, at which time my PC DIED. It took 2 months to get it fixed. I had been writing for Rantasia.net since March, but by the time I got my PC back they were on their way out. I started writing a few columns for the old EZBoard. One day, Jake Metcalfe, currently on 411, started a site. I sent in a lot of my old reviews to it. The site never really took off. Then I stopped writing altogether until TheSmartMarks.com opened. I had already tried out for 411 and didn't get the spot, so I figured I wouldn't get the spot here either. Little did 411 know that most of the people they hired SUCK! Looking back at it, I'd rather write here than at 411 anyday.

[Guest bob_barron]

Little did 411 know that most of the people they hired SUCK!

The keyword there is most

[Guest The Electrifyer]

I think I began in late 1999, when WrestlingTalks.com was big. I posted there until they died and after that was just kind of wandering around board to board and finally found this one in its late stages at EZBoard.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Started in '98... got the bagpipe report... I've pretty much stuck with the same web sites since the start -- Rantsavania (sp), then the smarks, then 411 just for Keith and Eric S.

 

THE END...

[Guest J*ingus]

I only really started watching wrestling in the summer of '99. Someone told me about Scoops, and I hung out there pretty exclusively from fall '99 until they closed. Then I branched out a bit, found the Torch and Observer sites, plus one that was then known as Pro Wrestling Columns, now Power With Choice, for which I eventually became a writer. In fall of 2001, I stumbled across Keith's rants on IGN, followed him over to the Smarks when it closed down, discovered the forum, and the rest is history.

[Guest ArkhamGlobe]

I first got an internet connection in 1997, though then I basically just visited wcw.com. Then in 1999, I was starting to get interested again in what the WWF was up, and being that I live in Sweden, the only ways I could learn about the goings on of the WWF was by either buying tapes or by reading the results on the internet. At first I just visited wwf.com, then I found wrestline through an altavista search I believe, and I became a regular visitor. Then I started reading Scott Keith's work and found Rantsylvania. I was a lurker at the old Delphi board, and only started actively posting sometime around late last year, early this year at the old EZBoard, and, well, here I am.

[Guest meanmaisch]

1998, when I returned to watching wrestling again after a four year hiatus.

[Guest Big McLargeHuge]

July 2000. I haven't looked back.

[Guest MrRant]

Since the dawn on man.

 

queue 2001: A Space Oddessy music.

[Guest Zero_Cool]

I discovered the WWF on America Online back in like '97, I think. Anyway, in January 2000, I went on some search engine, which I forget the name of, and looked for wrestling sites, maybe finding something good.

 

I found IGN Wrestling. I thought it was a badass site, plus it was my first real exposure to smarkdom. After about a year on IGN, I discovered they had this thing called a "message board". So, I joined up there, e-wrestled there, I don't post there much, since the board has been reduced to rubble since they went pay.

 

I was reading The Smarks since last year, finding somewhere to go for wrestling journalism. Registered here in Febuary, with the rest of the SWF, and that basically leads us up to now.