When were you last a mark?

[JoeDirt 0]

I was last a mark in 1999. At the time, I thought the Greater Power angle was AWESOME, though was slightly disappointed when Vince was revealed. I told my friends that I couldn't wait for a match between Undertaker and Big Show, because that would be an AWESOME match. Why? Because both guys were big and dominating and won all the time...so why WOULDN'T it be awesome, right? That's how a mark thinks!

 

I rooted like hell for Test to beat Shane MacMahon at Summerslam. I talked to my friend, who told me I needed to see WCW Starcade 1998 to see the match between Goldberg and Kevin Nash, which he called "really short, but one of the best matches ever."

 

But then after Summerslam 1999 I started reading stuff by Scott Keith and Herb Kunze and reading about star ratings...and then about match psychology. And I started seeing more old wrestling, and was able to see the difference between that and 1999 WWF.

 

So that was it for me...but what about you? When were you last a mark?

[Guest Staravenger]

Summer of 2000. I've been a wrestling for over a decade and still didn't know about match quality, politics, etc. Then I got a magic thing called the Internet and down I go.

 

I do become a mark though for Wrestlemania every year, except in 1999 when it REALLY REALLY sucked.

[Guest Real F'n Show]

If you mean when I became a smark, i'd say right around Royal Rumble 2000 is when I became one. I've been watching since 1995, so I've been a smark almost half as long as I've watched wrestling.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Summer of 2002 and to quote Staravenger

I've been a wrestling for over a decade and still didn't know about match quality, politics, etc. Then I got a magic thing called the Internet and down I go.

[algrim 0]

The Invasion angle slapped me into reality. Looking back, I still can't believe how they botched a surefire thing.

[Guest momoracci]

Got on AOL for the first time in 96. That opened up all the doors for me.

[The Mandarin 0]

The question is how long did some people believe the wrestling was real?

 

Personally, my parents squashed that for me before I even got into wrestling. I swear, EVERY single time Ahmed Johnson would hit a move (all two of them), my father would call out "That's so fake." I never bought into any of the angles and usually preferred the wrestling to the storylines. That's why I was a HUGE Dean Malenko mark in 1998. I think I even preferred him to Austin(!).

 

Around the summer of 2000 is when is when you guys corrupted my mind by telling me most of the wrestling I watched sucked and Japanese wrestlers would eat my guys alive.

[haVoc 0]

I was a fan well over 10 years before I jumped on the 'Net in late 1999. Then I began to learn all those insider terms and words. Heel, face, work, worker, booker, mark, holding down, politics, glass ceiling, kayfabe, the clique, etc,.

[Guest Fook]

I knew it was scripted and they pulled punches and stuff from a young age, but I was still a mark up until around the Montreal Screwjob. When that happened I started searching for wrestling sites online (I knew they existed but never bothered checking any of them out) so I could learn what actually happened that night. My smarkdom blossomed from there.

[Ed Wood Caulfield 0]

January/February 2000. I've been a wrestling fan ever since I was a baby, so that would make it 14 years. I had had the internet for a year and a half and had used it to search for wrestling sites, although the sites I usually went on were mark sites and e-fed sites. Then one day, I went on this site that talked about backstage news, and it shocked me that someone actually knew what was going to happen on the show before it happened. Soon, I went on more of these sites, and then one day in February 2000, I went on Wrestleline.com, and from then on I slowly became a smark, although I say it wasn't until the InVasion angle in 2001 that I became a full-fledged smark.

[King Kamala 0]

Summer of 2000, although the seeds were planted when I first got the internet three years before that. I think it was the whole Vince Russo/Hulk Hogan incident at Bash at the Beach 2000 that kind of started it off, I was like what the fuck just happened. I was still sort of a Hogan mark at the time and I read the Scott Keith report of Bash at the Beach 2000, that sort of kicked it off, that and reading WrestleCrap.

[Guest Staravenger]

I was still sort of a Hogan mark at the time and I read the Scott Keith report of Bash at the Beach 2000, that sort of kicked it off, that and reading WrestleCrap.

Chalk me up as also reading Wrestlecrap as the first website that MOCKED gimmicks and angles. I miss that website...when it was not the weak version of today. Stupid cost to run sites...

[CanadianChick 0]

Pretty much always knew it was scripted, because my dad was clear on that with me and my older bro. WHen I was young though, it didn't take away from anything for me.

 

Started smartening up a bit with websites like wrestlezone.com (although half of the 'news' was just fabricated bullshit) and SLAM wrestling around 1999. Probably was a full blown smark by 2001, but I was a semi-smark for 2 year prior, if that makes sense. So pretty much since I was 13.

[Guest ally mccoist]

I started watching wrestling in the early nineties with WCW. Pretty much straight away my brother told me it was all fake. I must've been only about 8 at the time. I didn't believe him at first because I didn't understand how these guys would fall on the mat with a thud and not be hurt. Anyway I believed him after a while. So i've pretty much known all along that it was fake, but I didn't become a smark until 2000 when I started using the internet at school and read about all the backstage shit.

 

Last time I marked out? Well I got giddy like a little girl when Piper appeared at WM19. I didn't even watch much old school WWF, but I always liked Piper just because i'm Scottish and, well, he pretends to be Scottish.

[Aero 0]

I first got on the internet around Wrestlemania XIV. I had WebTV back then, and it only lasted until summer before we got rid of it. I occasionally went online on computers in school every so often for the next few years, and once I got a computer at home in July 2000, I went to all the websites and read about everything. Even though I only got online in 1998, I had a friend who had AOL in 1996, so he always told me about the important backstage incidents like Bret & HBK in 1997, and Bret leaving WWF right before Survivor Series 97.

 

Whenever I go to live events, today, I always usually turn back into a mark. Kurt Angle's one of my favorite wrestlers, but I still chant "You Suck" with everyone else.

[Si82 0]

I got "smart" in 1996 when I started to read Power Slam magazine. That taught me a bunch of stuff about wrestling and the backstage side.

 

The last time I marked out was either Wrestlemania XX when Benoit made Triple H tap to the crossface or Backlash 2004 when Benoit made Shawn Michaels tap to the sharpshooter.

[Papacita 0]

I've had a little bit of smark in me ever since I first started watching ECW 95, and it just kinda gradually progressed from there. I would say that the last bit of mark in me died in 01 when Chyna left WWF and Tazz got buried.

[razazteca 0]

If there is not a little bit of a mark in you than how the hell can you convince yourself that this "sport" is entertaining? If you are not a mark than why do you watch wrestling on tv? Why are you here?

 

Hulk Hogan killed it early for me with his no-selling hulking up and the 5 moves of doom of the 3 punches, big boot, leg drop. Once you see that happen you know it was over. I also noticed the extreme fat wrestlers like Earthquake and Yokozuna would not put all of their weight in the finishing move, it was more of a glorified squat than a I'm gonna squash you, type of move.

[nl5xsk1 0]

The last time that I marked out was when Foley went off the cage through the SAT.

 

The last time that I actually acted/thought like a mark was probably when the Road Warriors lost their tag titles to Garvin & Regal. How the AWA couldn't over-turn that decision was unimaginable to me. I was about 12 then, so it's been a long time.

 

And in answer to raz's questions, I've never been a huge, die-hard wrestling fanatic. For me, it was always just mindless entertainment that helped me kill a few hours. (It amazes me when people on TSM can rattle off dates of specific RAWs, or how long a team held the tag titles or things like that.) Even when I knew who would win (or who would interfere) it was always fun to watch and see if I was right or not. It was even fun to root for certain wrestlers that you really knew would never win (e.g. Al Snow, Lance Storm, Hurricane, etc.)

[cawthon777 0]

The last time I acted like a mark was on March 14, 2004 when I was on the floor of Madison Square Garden, standing on top of my chair to see Chris Benoit win the belt. To be there live, that entire night is what wet dreams are made of.

 

When did I really lose the mark persona? I think for a good percentage of us, some of it happened with Montreal. I followed that up two months later when I got the Internet and read everything I could find regarding what really went on.

[Slingshot Suplex 0]

I was a mark in 1984 and still am.

 

My first time in the Mid-South Coliseum a couple years ago, I just walked around the place and thought about the history there, soaking it in.

 

Driving 400 miles to Highland for the main purpose of seeing Abdullah the Butcher up close and in person for my first time. And then standing about 5 feet from him and being afraid to touch him for fear of being stabbed with a fork.

 

Getting to see an early title defense by Chris Benoit vs Triple HHH at a house show and the opportunity to applaud the man for a great career and reaching the big prize.

 

The unexpected GCW Lightheavyweight title win of MsChif out of nowhere. And the series of standing ovations she was given on 3/6 in her Highland debut.

 

Matt Sydal vs AJ Styles

 

The TNA PPV debuts of Matt and Delirious

 

There's probably a bunch more

[Guest T®ITEC]

Uh, probably the InVasion angle. I marked out for everything in that angle until Survivor Series. ...Then Jerry Lawler came back and I somehow stopped caring about WWE entirely.

 

As far as the time before I was, uh, "wise" to everythting... 1998. We got the internet that summer and I read Rantsylvania constantly.

[Papacita 0]

If there is not a little bit of a mark in you than how the hell can you convince yourself that this "sport" is entertaining? If you are not a mark than why do you watch wrestling on tv? Why are you here?

What I meant when I said that was just that while I find wrestling (the matches, characters, etc) entertaining, since 01...with the exception of HBK/HHH from Summerslam 02 or maybe the Angle/Benoit match at Rumble 03, nothing's really been able pull me in and believe in the product. Even though I always knew that it was fake, when I watched wrestling--regardless of the promotion, how good it was, how bad or whatever--I used to be in tune with everything, but now when I watch, it feels like I'm just watching and nothing else. Tazz was the last wrestler that I had any kind of connection with, and since he retired, nothing's really been able to catch me.

[Guest SteveyP93]

1998.00

[RavishingRickRudo 0]

About 1990.

 

The Hogan/Earthquake angle was the pinnacle of my markdom as I actually wrote Hogan a "get well soon" letter, but then realized it was lame and hid it (goddamn I wish I still had that). I was a smark really early on. I define a smark as someone who wants to know more about the business - beyond the ring. The internet creates so many smarks because it provides that information, and I didn't get online till about 2000, but well before that I was smarked out. Growing up I watched tons of wrestling tapes (I prided myself on seeing every WM, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, and Summerslam up until WM 10, as-well-as other Coliseum Videos like World Tour, Rampage, etc. ). The day after WM 7 I got a bootlegged tape of the event and it was my most prized possession. In Grade 2, I read that Hulk Hogans real name was "Terry Gene Bollea" and never forgot it (and really, if knowing wrestlers' real names isn't the sign of smarking, what is?). In grade 3 a few of us were making a book of wrestling submissions and I was the one who was looked to to figure out how to put em all on. I used to call up the "Harold Line", which was a free hotline that provided "inside" information (I assume stuff read from the observer) every single week like an addict to find out what's going on behind the scenes. Infact, both a friend and I won tickets (seperately, though we went together and shared his tickets) to a 1994 WWE house show in Halifax. I brought a sign.

 

I never get why people are negative towards being a smark and so "Oh, I wish I were a mark again"; if you're really interested in wrestling, then you should be interested in what makes wrestling "work". And that's being a smark.

[Guest news_gimmick]

For me, it was late 1995 when I first began discovering the inside news about what was happening behind the scenes, and who was getting a push and why. But the end of my markness was really when Hall and Nash left for WCW. After that, I was always curious and wanted to know who was next to leave for WCW, and everything else that was available online. Heh, I hated WCW back then simply because it seemed to me like they were trying so hard to put the WWF out of business, which was always my fav fed growing up, but looking back on it all now it really was a great time to be a fan.

[chuck415 0]

The last time I marked the fuck out was during the invasion angle when all the WCW and ECW guys where beating the hell out of the WWF. Stone Cold pulls up in his pickup with the pool stick and just destroys everybody in his path. Say what you will, but that was just B-A-D-A-S-S.

 

I have always known wrestiling was a work, but I also know that movies are not real either but that doesnt deter my enjoyment.

[tekcop 0]

That's why I was a HUGE Dean Malenko mark in 1998. I think I even preferred him to Austin(!).

Awesome! I was a huge Malenko mark, too. In--I believe--sixth grade, my teacher made us write an essay on who'd we'd most like to be. Mine was about Deano. Yeah.. glorious mark days. Never did get to see Malenko vs. Hogan for the WCW Title....

 

Anyways, I believed wrestling was "real" until '97 when "Wrestling with Shadows" and all the like started. I was still a mark untill about two years ago, though. I blame Scott Kieth. Fucker....

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

... but I didn't become a smark until 2000 when I started using the internet at school...

:: slams on brakes ::

 

 

Sumbitch! You guys had the internet in school? I never would have graduated...

[UZI Suicide 0]

I became "smart" to wrestling when I got on AOL in 96, but in 97 during the NWO-Sting angle I constantly marked out each week for Sting, I basically tuned in only to see what he was going to/what entrance he was going to make, etc. Those were great times in WCW.. I still mark out for certain things here and there but that's the last time I consistantly marked out week in and week out.