The best generation to be a wrestling fan?

[geniusMoment 0]

My first experience with wrestling was a 1992 pre mania promo with Flair. After hearing ric I became hooked. I just turned 22 on June 2, so I guess I'm close to what is being called the best era to be a fan.

[Darthtiki 0]

My wrestling oddysey began in the mid 80's with Hulk Hogan's Rock N Wrestling. I remember seeing the intro and loving the music, seeing Mean Gene intro the cartoons. It would be at least another couple years before I started watching the WWF, I saw Demolition (Smash and Ax) on Superstars. After that I was hooked, I remember at my school's fall carnival I pretty much bought a box of the Classic cards. I was lucky in the fact that as others have pointed out, I was able to catch up on history and what not through VHS, which fed my addiction. I was a mark then. It was about after WM 9 that I stopped watching and I didn't watch until about 1998 when the wars started. I do think the up and coming generations of fans will miss a lot because of the context and not to mention the revisionist history that has been made.

 

#800

[Guest wildpegasus]

Isn't the more appros question "What is the best time to be a fan?" because it's really about the difference in how we viewed wrestling as a kid, teen and for alot of us, as adults. Not neccesarily, "generation". At least that is how the thread has gone.

 

In my mind, the best time was the territory era where you could develop a more serious connection to those workers. While you missed out on alot, I think fans were more passionate for their region because it belonged to them.

 

Wrestling doesn't have that, with the exception of ROH...there's no territory style promotions anymore here. ROH just recycles its roster like it was done back then, people from other areas would just come it and the fans would just fall in love with the new batch. While WWE keeps the same roster and just adds in generic and green names and they haven't gone anywhere. They might put a new person but the same cliche storylines are rehashed and often done with zero inspiration.

 

The booking was geared towards your region, whereas today it's an attempt to entertain a broad spectrum of people(namely McMahons).

 

Personally speaking, I enjoyed the early 90's the most. 1992 to be exact. I was just a young punk and I loved how everything slowly got more serious with the Flair/Savage stuff or the harder style with MVC and Steiners, Sting/Vader in WCW.

 

Man, you love your ROH. It even saves us by bringing about all those warm memories of regional wrestling. ROH, what can they not do? Eh, they can't hold a candlestick to Rip Rogers.

 

Anyway, that's a good point about the regional thing. Here our regional wrestling league was World Grand Prix Wrestling known not only for having the stiffest wrestling mats of all time but known for its many stars such as Big Stevin Pettipas, the Beast who could move trains with his teeth! and his brother Leo Burke, the Cuban Assasin, Lanny Poffo, Bulldog Bob Brown and others. Stories of Andre the Giant and the Macho Man.

Among some, there was definitely a serious connection with the wrestlers. You could tell just by the way they talked about it. The only problem with the territory area is that they are often seen as minor league.

 

 

To answer Downhome's question about becoming a fan today -- Yes, I can see it happening despite the horrible booking. If you were to happen to come across a couple of good matches than you could be sucked in. Maybe some current weird WWE booking could hook you in today for a tiny bit but I don't think that could get you hooked for too long because the booking is just that poor.

I know if I came across for example that Angle vs Rey Mysterio match from the past week's Smackdown or the rescent Benoit vs Finlay encounter that would be enough to keep me a fan for today.

[Masked Man of Mystery 0]

I began as a wrestling fan with the very first Smackdown when it was a special in, I believe, April 1999. I had heard about wrestling from my friends through the 90s and I remember playing the arcade game that Midway made that was like Mortal Kombat. I even rented and bought WWF Warzone, hardly knowing who people were but enjoying the game regardless before I saw a complete wrestling show. A friend of my dad taped Raw for me once....and then Owen Hart died. I remember being quite upset despite only seeing him as Blue Blazer once or twice I watched Smackdown religously for a while, although I fell out of it for a while, I guess after Lesnar took out Hogan or something, but I was back in time for the rise of Los Guerreros and was hardcore from there, although nowadays I can;t watch Smackdown because I work on Friday nights and I don't have cable, so most of my wrestling coems from DVDs. I don't really order stuff online, so I don't see much indy stuff, but I've enjoyed the TNA I've seen, I root for them to become a viable #2. I watch WWE PPVs mainly through Netflix now. I'm still very hardcore, but what I can see is very limited, so I usually browse the PPV and Raw threads. My little brother loves Cena and Batista and anyone they tell him to love, generally. I would have trouble seeing a person getting into wrestling right now. There's not really a terribly compelling storyline unless you've been watching a while

[Guest Overworked]

Im going to be 28 this year, i've been watching wrestling since at least 85, went to two house shows in late 86, saw the Hogan, Orindorf Cage match live. In 87 I went to the NWA Jim Crocket Cup tournament met Lex Luger, Ric Flair, Animal, Brad Armstrong bunch of others. I watched it solid over the 80's and 90's took a hiatus I believe around 97 or so but returned (due to the fact my girlfriend at the time was a avid wrestling fan so I got WM14 for her and boom was hooked again) and been watching solid from 98 up to maybe middle of last year, when my current job really took away my wrestling watching time. I believe at my age and what has gone down in that span this must be the best generation for people my age. I a lowly wrestling fan got to watch and took in wrestling back in the days when they were still little fiefdoms, WWF/NWA/AWA/UWA up to only WWF/WCW/ECW to what we have now. if you watch it solid and not a causual watcher, you would have seen alot of stuff go down. and its cool to remember these things.

[King Cucaracha 0]

Isn't the more appros question "What is the best time to be a fan?" because it's really about the difference in how we viewed wrestling as a kid, teen and for alot of us, as adults. Not neccesarily, "generation". At least that is how the thread has gone.

 

In my mind, the best time was the territory era where you could develop a more serious connection to those workers. While you missed out on alot, I think fans were more passionate for their region because it belonged to them.

 

Wrestling doesn't have that, with the exception of ROH...there's no territory style promotions anymore here. ROH just recycles its roster like it was done back then, people from other areas would just come it and the fans would just fall in love with the new batch. While WWE keeps the same roster and just adds in generic and green names and they haven't gone anywhere. They might put a new person but the same cliche storylines are rehashed and often done with zero inspiration.

 

The booking was geared towards your region, whereas today it's an attempt to entertain a broad spectrum of people(namely McMahons).

 

Personally speaking, I enjoyed the early 90's the most. 1992 to be exact. I was just a young punk and I loved how everything slowly got more serious with the Flair/Savage stuff or the harder style with MVC and Steiners, Sting/Vader in WCW.

 

Man, you love your ROH. It even saves us by bringing about all those warm memories of regional wrestling. ROH, what can they not do? Eh, they can't hold a candlestick to Rip Rogers.

 

You know who I miss? Albert.

 

Oh wait, no I don't.

 

 

 

I'm only 18 pushing 19 so I started getting into wrestling in probably '92, '93. But most of the stuff I saw back then were Colliseum Video tapes, being in England, so I somehow remember the late 80s fondly. I went through the Hulkamaniac phase right around the time he faded out of the wrestling scene probably.

 

The best generation for me personally was the Attitude Era, because back then wrestling was more widely accepted. You had people speaking about it in the playground. I still remember the day after Owen died there being a huge talk about it around most of the kids my age, whereas by the time Eddie passed the reaction was minimal at best. It was 'cool' to be a wrestling fan, for once. And in terms of the product, it was a much more exciting time. The Monday Night Wars were the first time period I managed to get access to Raw and started to really get into the other avenues like ECW.

 

If you like indy wrestling, the past couple of years have probably been the best time to be a fan, pretty much from when ECW and WCW went bust and unsigned talented started to swell up. I don't think the indies have ever had so much talent at their disposal as they have the past four, maybe five years.

[-DeN- 0]

< 26, and while I'm not going to type out a list of the cool/horrible shit that I've witnessed over the years, I do agree with NorCal that we've probably had it the best. If not just for the memories of witnessing all that aforementioned shit unfold (Hogan/Andre was insane at the time...to a kid watching it for the first time now on DVD, probably not so much), but for internet access; which has unlocked a whole new world of crazy luchadores falling on their heads and guys dressed up like Crabs dancing on the ropes.

[Toxxic 0]

Well I'm 24 and was a kid in the Hulkamania era, I hardly saw much of it at all except on the occasional home video (like KC) and the occasional tape someone made off Sky. Didn't mean i didn't love it all the same. I mean, we had WCW on at 1am on Saturdays and that was cool, but it was never quite the same as the WWF.

 

I watched Wrestlemania IX, and then I think the King of the Ring that followed it (Bret won? Yokozuna beat Hogan? Was that on the same PPV?) and after that I stopped watching completely.

 

I didn't get back into it until early 2000 when, while completely at a loss for something to watch at my girlfriend's house, i was looking through the TV listings and went "well, WCW's on Channel 5..." It turned out that she watched it anyway so I watched it with her, then started watching Sunday Night Heat when it was still on Channel 4 on Sunday afternoons. And from then on I started watching again. First WWF PPV I'd seen in years was Summerslam 2000, and I picked up from there. Glad I got back into it in time for Mania XVII

[King Cucaracha 0]

I mean, we had WCW on at 1am on Saturdays and that was cool, but it was never quite the same as the WWF.

 

Oh, they showed one of the B shows on ITV through 92, 93ish. Can't remember what show but it was around the time Ron Simmons won the World Title. I remember the TV Title tournament and then it got dropped off the air soon after.

 

WCW on 5 was fantastic. The way they covered all the weapon shots with Batman-esque graphics? Hilarious.

[TheInsane 0]

Im not qualified to say since I only know of the wrestling that I grew up with. I started watching in 1992/1993 as a kid (I was about 9 at the time). WWF at that time was made for the kids and as I grew up so did WWF and WCW. And then I discovered ECW and through that all the puroresu stuff which I came to love. Im happy being in this generation as a wrestlingfan. However who knows if the 70ies was better for my personal taste? I dont know since I havent seen stuff from that era. I have nu clue about anything before the 70ies as well.

 

And then there have always been many different promotions so the stuff I know good is basically WWF 1993/1994 (on swedish tv), WCW 1994/1995 (they switched from WW to WCW) and then they cancelled wrestling altogether. I have selected knowledge of 1997/1998 WWF and then selected ECW as well. In 2001 with the Internetboom I was able to watch wrestling full time again. So this is the only thing I really know. I dont know much old NWA stuff, puro int he 80'ies, independents in the 80'ies, the historical stuff of really early wrestling etc.

 

Im happy where I am right now but maybe another era would be better for me, I dont really know.

 

If we ask in 10 years time alot of people will claim that those past 10 years was the best. If we would have asked the question in the70ies they would probably say the last 10-20 years was the best time etc. Its all about where we are in history.

 

Of course we have fond memories about the stuff we know because, well, we KNOW of it. Someone said that we know why Ric Flair is the greatest. True, but ask the same thing in the 80ies and people would claim that that era was great because no one had forgotten about Thez or Sammartino. As a casual fan today and they wont know who they were (they might recognize the names from a hall of fame or something).

[Promoter 0]

Reading all these posts really does illustrate how great we had it in terms of seeing the evolution of the business and some of the greatest stars of all-time. No wonder the newer stars and storylines have it so hard to capture our imagination as before(some things just flat out suck though). I also do wonder if I just started watching as a kid now if I would have held interest all these years. I mean seeing stuff like Steamboat holding his throat after Savage crushing it will definitely leave a mark as a kid.

[Guest Felonies!]

The "magic" just isn't there right now. That died with WCW and ECW in 2001, and when Rocky and Austin finally left WWE for good it really died out even more. I mean, this generation's Austin and Rocky is Cena and Orton. Ya know...what the fuck?

At least kids will know that Randy Orton's name is Randy Orton.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

I watched Wrestlemania IX, and then I think the King of the Ring that followed it (Bret won? Yokozuna beat Hogan? Was that on the same PPV?) and after that I stopped watching completely.

 

it's kinda scary how many people I know that got into wrestling either closely before, because of, or right after Wrestlemania IX.

[Jericholic82 0]

I am 23 right now. I got into wrestling at the age of about 7. My dad made me watch survivor series 90 with him and I became hooked (though my dad is a casual fan at best)

 

wrestling was cool with all the kids at school back then when I was living in NY originally. hell we wrestled each other on the playground at lunchtime. even when I moved to cali most of my schoolmates loved wrestling and this was just before the attitude/nwo era. I have at heory that pro wrestling is always popular in middle-class/blue collar to poor areas. anyhow I came in a huge warrior fan and then became a big Bret mark until 95 when HBK became my favorite (though Bret is always my sentimental favorite). Though I also loved wcw in the mid 90s for whatever reason (Sting Barry Windham, Steamboat, Cactus Jack were my favs then) I got to see the mid 90s dropoff and the late 90s blastoff and ecws arrival to the day when wcw died and the brand extension era.

 

It has been cool to live thru all of that. But it's haerd to beat the days when I had no idea what would happen and cared nothing about backstage politics and such.

 

watching old stuff now is like a link to my youth and it brings a chill to my spine everytime wrestlemania rolls around.

[tigeraid 0]

Tough call. 25 now. I started watching when I was 9 or 10, with the Warrior/Rick Rude cage match for the title at Summerslam in 1990 (my grandmother had satellite--badass.)

 

Prior to that Id had been to one WWE show in North Bay when I was maybe 6 or 7, had an isle seat, and the ONLY part I remember was touching Bret Hart's arm when he walked by.

 

I began following it from 1990 or so, the Hart Foundation were by far my favourite. After Bret went singles, my interest kind of waned (oddly enough) and I stopped following it consistently. Though I did tune in for it now and then.

 

It was WCW that actually brought me back into the fold, not because of the nWo but because of Jericho, Malenko, Benoit and Geurrero. I would later become a big fan of DDP when started in-ring work too. I got caught up in the Monday Night Wars and ended up frequently flicking back and forth--the Bret Hart/Austin fued got be back into WWE, so I really watched both--WCW for the solid mid-card and CW (Malenko/Jericho is, to this day, my all time favourite feud--NWA rulebook!) and WWE for their main event material. I watched WCW right up until the end, as bad as it was--I really don't know why.

 

I really do believe this was the best generation to be a wrestling fan. The previous generation to us (I guess) got Hulkamania (ugh) in the WWF and the original 4 Horsemen (yay), but we got Austin/Rock/Foley, the rise and fall of ECW, the rise and fall of WCW, and the current rise of ROH and TNA.

 

We've been able to see essentially every style of wrestling, from entertainment (WWE and some of WCW), Japanese Hard style (ROH, some WCW CW), Luchadore (ECW, WCW), Hardcore (ECW) and technical stuff (some of all of them.)

 

And think about this--we may have missed some awesome stuff in the 80s--but our generation also has the Internet, so we can watch all that old stuff anyway.

[Jericholic82 0]

Tough call. 25 now. I started watching when I was 9 or 10, with the Warrior/Rick Rude cage match for the title at Summerslam in 1990 (my grandmother had satellite--badass.)

 

Prior to that Id had been to one WWE show in North Bay when I was maybe 6 or 7, had an isle seat, and the ONLY part I remember was touching Bret Hart's arm when he walked by.

 

I began following it from 1990 or so, the Hart Foundation were by far my favourite. After Bret went singles, my interest kind of waned (oddly enough) and I stopped following it consistently. Though I did tune in for it now and then.

 

It was WCW that actually brought me back into the fold, not because of the nWo but because of Jericho, Malenko, Benoit and Geurrero. I would later become a big fan of DDP when started in-ring work too. I got caught up in the Monday Night Wars and ended up frequently flicking back and forth--the Bret Hart/Austin fued got be back into WWE, so I really watched both--WCW for the solid mid-card and CW (Malenko/Jericho is, to this day, my all time favourite feud--NWA rulebook!) and WWE for their main event material. I watched WCW right up until the end, as bad as it was--I really don't know why.

 

I really do believe this was the best generation to be a wrestling fan. The previous generation to us (I guess) got Hulkamania (ugh) in the WWF and the original 4 Horsemen (yay), but we got Austin/Rock/Foley, the rise and fall of ECW, the rise and fall of WCW, and the current rise of ROH and TNA.

 

We've been able to see essentially every style of wrestling, from entertainment (WWE and some of WCW), Japanese Hard style (ROH, some WCW CW), Luchadore (ECW, WCW), Hardcore (ECW) and technical stuff (some of all of them.)

 

And think about this--we may have missed some awesome stuff in the 80s--but our generation also has the Internet, so we can watch all that old stuff anyway.

gotta agree on the malenko/jericho feud, it ruled mighty and it made me excited to watch Nitro every week.

[Downhome 0]

Ah yes, the days of trying to watch Nitro and RAW at the exact same time.

[The Niggardly King 0]

I'll be 19 in July.... I've been watching since 91 or 92, I can't remember much of anything back then. Nothing really stuck with me until a few years later watching Bret, Owen, and Sting. I've always been into more of the older stuff since I was 13 and watched Sting/Vader strap match that was on one of my brothers tapes. I enjoy more of the stuff from the 80s and 90s.

[Kizzo 0]

Ah yes, the days of trying to watch Nitro and RAW at the exact same time.

 

Oh the memories. My remote control got a work out on Monday nights...

 

Exciting times indeed...

[Darthtiki 0]

I watched Wrestlemania IX, and then I think the King of the Ring that followed it (Bret won? Yokozuna beat Hogan? Was that on the same PPV?) and after that I stopped watching completely.

 

it's kinda scary how many people I know that got into wrestling either closely before, because of, or right after Wrestlemania IX.

 

Also how many left at that same time, myself included. I popped in the Best of Raw, Vol. 2 yesterday...ahhh memories.

[DMann2003 0]

One of my biggest regrets as a fan was not watching enough NWA/WCW growing up- I just considered it 'Southern wrestling' and not cool like WWF.

 

Let me give you a little perspective, I became a fan in Feb 1989, and I was watching only WWF

 

remmember what was going on in NWA in 1989? I've only begun to watch some of the cool stuff that went on then.

 

I need to see me some WCW Saturday Night circa 1988-93

[DMann2003 0]

Ah yes, the days of trying to watch Nitro and RAW at the exact same time.

 

It was easy when TNT showed a replay of Nitro at 12AM

[Jericholic82 0]

Ah yes, the days of trying to watch Nitro and RAW at the exact same time.

 

It was easy when TNT showed a replay of Nitro at 12AM

yea but that was tough when I was still in school and had to get up at 6 AM.

 

when nitro was first on, tnt had no seperate west/east coast feed and that meant I could watch Nitro live at 5 or 6 pm PST then raw tape-delayed at 9

 

 

of course TNT got seperate feeds abruptly during the summer of 98 (I speculated at the time that WCW wanted to have the ratings war on the west too)

that sucked.

[haVoc 0]

I use to watch the first hour of Nitro, then watch and record Raw, then set the timer to record Nitro so I could watch it when I got home the next day.

[Jericholic82 0]

I use to watch the first hour of Nitro, then watch and record Raw, then set the timer to record Nitro so I could watch it when I got home the next day.

yea when I got a vcr in my room , it was much easier.

[daileyxplanet 0]

There were many times when I would watch the first hour of Nitro, watch all of RAW 'cept commercials, then watch Nitro afterwards. Though I often fell asleep during the first hour since I'd already seen it.