Your first exposure...

[Guest Big McLargeHuge]

Ah, yes closed circuit. My uncles and I (what's up with all the Uncles?) went to the Cow Palace to see WrestleMania 2...or 3. I was too young to remember, or I blocked Hogan/Bundy from my memory.

[Guest RicFlairGlory]

My uncle used to watch wrestling all the time, so when my brother and I went over to his place, like babysitting or something, we'd always watch the Show. We'd come back tellin dad we liked it, so he got his friend Johnny to tape WM7 for us. Then WM8. When Savage lost to Warrior, I almost fell apart, Savage was DA BOMB when I was 7. Dad took us to a house show, got to watch UT beat Sid in a Casket Match. Dad also bought us One PPV, and I still remember, it was the one where Ric Flair won the title coming in at #3. He got rid of cable later on, wanted us to come up with better things to do or something. So during the end of middle school and the start of High School, I didnt watch much. I had seen WM11, the LT thing had completely driven me nuts, so I just didnt watch. Then, I'm sitting in math class one day, and I see some kids flyer for running for office, "Joey 3:16 says I just voted for your ass" or something dumb like that, but they were all Stone Cold catchphrases. I'm in Boston, so EVERYONE was talking about WM, and I didnt know any of the characters in the last 3 or 4 years, so I'm just barely in the conversations. After talkin to my buddies, that monday I saw Wrestling was on. After laughing and being shocked that HHH wasnt wearing the robe anymore, and seeing the UT had gone to the leather vest new TX rest in peace symbol, I got my bearings back and started watching again.

 

The next show I watched was Royal Rumble 91.  So....I missed the Ultimate Warrior's ENTIRE reign.  I always mark out for that tidbit.  I ended up seeing it on tape years later, but still...

 

I skipped everything from the SS after WM11 until the days after WM14

 

I'm a HUGE HBK mark. I missed ALL his title reigns. I missed "the birth of Stone Cold." Only vaguely heard of the montreal screwjob from my uncle. Yet oddly even though I missed all that much of WWF, I saw Bret showing up on WCW. (Btw, HOW THE FUCK DID THEY RUIN THAT ANGLE???) I was only mildly watching wrestling again, but I had my buddies at school, and once I figured out who everyone was (mankind wasnt evne around at WM11, was he?), we started watchin all the time. After getting to see HIAC and Mankind go flying off, I was back to watching it all the time

 

THOUGH, I'd like to mention that I offhandedly remember matches from the time i wasnt watching, I saw Ramon/Jarrett matches, I remember Taker/Mankind, I remember watching the interview of Stone Cold by JR after the neck injury from the Owen Hart piledriver. Very Passive viewer at the time, I caught Superstars each week, and a few times before it just turned to shit.  caught a lot of nitro's, remember seeing hte first thunder, but i only watched that because I'd be at my grandmother's, (my uncle and aunt lived upstairs then,) on thursdays after school (pre smackdown era.), and sometimes saturdays, occasionally mondays, but they watched Nitro. Infact, I even went to probably the last Nitro at the fleetcenter, before the nWo split when it was savage/hogan.

[Guest]

I remember I had a few friends that talked about wrestling in grade school.  My parents wouldn't let me watch it.  But that of course only made me more curious.  Finally, one day, I got to watch it.

 

And what a first show it was:  The first show I ever watched was the one where Andre Beat Hogan for the title even though Hogan's shoulder came up at two.  And I remember I thought "oh well, tough luck, it was a bad call, that happens."  

 

I don't remember how it turned out, although I have been told later, of course.  Funny that I don't remember the evil twin ref.

 

Anyway, after that, I was prevented from watching again (except when I was at certain friends' houses), but my parents finally broke down for good around 1991, when I was in sixth grade.  And then I got hooked watching Undertaker lock Ultimate Warrior in the casket.

 

See, my friends always leaned towards the badguys, or at least the rough edge goodguys, like Savage.  So they all talked crap about Hogan, and so I never got into him.  Besides, he never wrestled on free TV anyway.  So Bret Hart and the British Bulldog became my favorites.  I wasn't really a badguy fan at this point, but I've always kinda found that I had a sympathy for the devils.  (Although I actually CHEERED the Honky Tonk Man against that stupid Hillbilly Jim).  So I was always oddly fascinated at the out-of-this-world depravity of Jake The Snake Roberts and The Undertaker in those early days.

 

(But for the most part, I hated the badguys and cheered the goodguys, until HBK became anointed "the man" in 1996, and I decided "well fuck, if that's the hero, I'm rooting for the badguys."  And I have, for the most part, cheered for the badguys ever since.)

 

After a couple weeks of this, some guy at grade school (5th grade) was talking wrestling, and he was surveying all of us on "do you think Sting can beat Sid Vicious?" and that's how I learned that there was this "WCW" on Sundays, not just WWF on saturdays.  Soon after that, I found USWA and later GWF on weekday TV, and I would watch it before baseball practice.  I liked wrestling itself, and the idea of wrestling, more than just any one company or wrestler.  And I've always been like that. Any wrestling I could find, I'd watch.  

 

Which is probably part of why I'm so pissed that there's only WWF on national TV now, because I miss having a bunch of wrestling to watch.

[Guest KOR420]

I was real little,i don't remember the exact year so i'll say 85-86 i was like 3 or 4 or something and i had a little black and white tv in my room,i was supposed to be in bed but i was caught up in a match on i think superstars or something between Hogan and some jobber with a really long beard.all i remember was that hogan used that guys beard to slingshot him into the ropes,ever since then i've been watching