Was wrestling popular at your school?

[Hadley 0]

How popular was wrestling at your school? It never really lost popularity as far as i know, though there werent as many fans during the 92-97 era, but thats understandable . By the end of high school though (i attended from 94-98) austin and dx shirts were everywhere!

[daileyxplanet 0]

It was about equal to Dragonball Z and Pokemon at my school... But not nearly as popular as JNCO Jeans and Abercrombie and Fitch.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

I was in high school during the height of the Monday Night Wars, so there were a great many NWO and Austin 3:16 t-shirts floating around my school. It's definitely not something that everybody was into, but, judging by how many crappy Rock impersonations I was subjected to, there were quite a few fans at my school.

 

Elementary and Junior High, on the other hand- not so much.

[Jericholic82 0]

In elementary school, here in Y.O. (87-94), it was pretty popular. In 3rd grade my friends and I started to "wrestle" at recess, having fake matches (not really hurting one another) and pretend to be WWF and WCW guys. Often I would play the ref and get distracted by the heels.

Junior High 7-8 (94-96) I had moved to Cali and wrestling wasn't too cool then . By around late 97, whe I was a sophomore , it started to get popular and by the start of my junior year in the fall of 98, it had taken off and there were wrestling shirts galore (I had over 10 myself and a different for every day at one point). One dude even had a WCW Monday Jericho shirt. (I was naturally jealous). It was so big at the time that our school news show had the guys dressing as wrestlers and playing theme songs. When I graduated in June 2000, many of us did wrestling poses and hand signals while walking on stage, and one guy even bit into a slimjim as Pomp and Circumstance played.

[King Kamala 0]

Well when I started watching, we were in the dregs of The New Generation and Hogan had just showed up in WCW and stunk everything up. It wasn't particularly cool or uncool, just not on the radar for the most of us. There was another kid in my grade who claimed that Ted DiBiase was his Uncle and that always fascinated me.

 

Then when The Attitude era hit, it became really cool for a year or two. Virtually every guy in my classes from 3rd grade to 6th grade watched it (From around '97 to '01). I remember RAW coming to Portland for the first (and only) time the night after In Your House: DeGeneration X was a monumental event and almost every male in my third grade class except me went. I'm still pissed at my parents for not letting me go to that. On the other hand though, I was the only person in that same class that attended the first (and only) WCW show in Portland a few nights after Slamboree. The other guys revelled in my stories about that momentous Saturday Night taping. Another mildly wrestling related event that happened that year was me getting reprimanded by a lunch aide (People-mostly kids' parents who watched over us while the teachers took a break) for telling her to "suck it" (and not in a good way!).

 

Around '01/'02, I gradually started hearing less and less about wrestling. By high school, the only ones who watched it were scrubs and the occasional jock (and me!). And even the scrubs weren't entirely loyal, I remember a classroom conversation during one of my remedial math classes where everybody seemed to come to a consensus that WWE started going downhill when Kane lost his mask. I remember Kane and/or Goldberg was the favorite wrestler for every scrub wrestling fan I met during my school days. Kind of odd but also sort of makes sense.

[Chazz 0]

During my high school years, 91-95, not very much. Aside from wrestling nerds like myself, nobody really talked about it. If you did, you got made fun of. Of course you also had your fair share of "closet" fans; I.E. Those who would talk to wrestling geeks like myself about it in a one on one situation,(unless it was a group of wrestling fans), but who would start making fun of it if it was being talked about near cool, non-wrestling fans.

[Diamonddust 0]

At my elementary/middle school, myself and maybe a handful of people in my class liked it. (We're talking early to mid 90's here).

 

Now when I got to high school (1996 - 2000: Basically the entire span of the Monday Night Wars), there were several fans of varying degrees: casual to hardcore. After a Nitro or Raw came to Birmingham, you could see a lot of NWO or Austin/Rock shirts the next day. Myself and a couple of friends, however, were considered the wrestling authorities in my school. It wasn't looked down upon either. All the typical cliques of the school (popular kids to the outcasts) had big wrestling fans in them.

[Brett Favre 0]

Did you guys do spork fighting when you were in junior high school? Cause we did, and each of us had a wrestler representing us. A "technical" wrestler was someone who attacked the spork's handle, which was usually done by the person who was Chris Benoit. I remember being Chris Jericho and winning an iron man match one time (30 minute spork fight). This sounds dorky as shit but yeah wrestling was popular in junior high school for me (from 99-01). We wrestled anywhere we could. Friends house, in classrooms when the teacher wasn't looking. One time I got in trouble because I got chokeslammed. Bullshit. Oh yeah and No Mercy came out around that time.

[Darthtiki 0]

In grade school, it was the end of the golden age and beginning of the lean years and it was somewhat of a passing thing. I happened to go to high school during the Attitude era and it was quite popular, hell it introduced me to Ced which led to me meeting Dangerous A & NoCalMike and posting here.

[King Kamala 0]

Did you guys do spork fighting when you were in junior high school? Cause we did, and each of us had a wrestler representing us. A "technical" wrestler was someone who attacked the spork's handle, which was usually done by the person who was Chris Benoit. I remember being Chris Jericho and winning an iron man match one time (30 minute spork fight). This sounds dorky as shit but yeah wrestling was popular in junior high school for me (from 99-01). We wrestled anywhere we could. Friends house, in classrooms when the teacher wasn't looking. One time I got in trouble because I got chokeslammed. Bullshit. Oh yeah and No Mercy came out around that time.

 

I've never even heard of spork fighting. Seems like a poor man's paper football.

 

Back in The Summer of '96, me and my brothers attended a summer daycamp where everybody was huge into play wrestling and we'd all pretend we were real life WCW and WWF guys. I remember three of my older brothers' friends were the nWo and amusingly enough like their real life counterparts, they dominated the play wrestling scene that summer. I was Shawn Michaels and my brother was Eddie Guerrero. Oh and there was this big fat fuck who was The Giant, he was the hugest (figuratively and literally) wrestling fan I had met up until that point. Had a huge tape collection. He won all of our battle royals. Damn him.

[Youth N Asia 0]

My highschool years were 97-00, yeah, it was pretty big. I never noticed too many fans that were online though. It seems like I knew everything before everyone else

[Diamonddust 0]

My highschool years were 97-00, yeah, it was pretty big. I never noticed too many fans that were online though. It seems like I knew everything before everyone else

 

Same here. People would ask me what would be happening that night or what was coming up in the next couple of weeks.

[strummer 0]

I was in High School during the dark ages (1993-1997) so wrestling was really never discussed at my school. There were still some kids left over from the 80s boom who I talked wrestling with in junior high but by high school it was never brought up.

 

Talked with a lot during college though (97-01)

[CanadianChris 0]

God yes, that's why I started watching in the first place (1986). Everyone was collecting those WWF stickers that were in Hostess potato chips.

[CBright7831 0]

5th grade-8th grade (96-2000)...then I just sort of stopped telling friends I watched wrestling. I did however bring back the Ric Flair "WOOOOOOOO during the last part of my senior year (2004) and I was shocked at how many people remembered I used to do that in middle school.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

I don't remember it being very big when I was in high school, or at least, not that big, which is surprising given that I was in high school from 98-02, probably the biggest wrestling's ever been.

 

I do remember in Grade 5 (95! of all years) that my brother and I got the Royal Rumble, and it snowed a bunch that night. I was surprised how many people were talking about Michaels' win and the Bret-Diesel match the following morning. The snow plows had done the parking lot, making a 3 foot hill, which coupled with how many people had seen the Rumble, led to an hour-long Royal Rumble at lunch break.

[cabbageboy 0]

I have only fleeting memories of other kids watching in the late 80s when I was in grade school. There were some but it was something that I was just interested in, not something I noticed a bunch of people watching. There was interest in the Hogan/Andre match from The Main Event at school though.

 

I would always find a few others at school who watched wrestling. In 7th and 8th grade there were a few others in midlde school that watched, enough to where I could talk to others about early Raw shows. In HS there were also a couple, maybe not so much in the dreary 1994-95 period but by 1996 there were definitely more people talking about wrestling.

 

By the time I was in college I did definitely notice more casual fans, what with all the shirts around campus and all. But it was mainly just talking to a couple of people about wrestling, only this time the net was around and I started looking for news online around the time of the Montreal Screwjob.

[CubbyBr 0]

I was in 6th grade in 1998 and DX was basically da shit. I remember getting sent to the principles office with three other guys after we gave our math teacher, Mrs. Scherman (nicknamed the Scherminator), a four-person crotch chop.

[Agent_Bond34 0]

When I was in high school (97-01) it was somewhat popular.

 

You'd see the occasional nWo, DX, Austin, etc shirts popping up every now and then.

 

There was even some dude that brought wrestling figures to school one time too.

[CanadianChris 0]

I should also mention that there were at least 2 guys that I can remember in my high school who did some kind of Macho Man imitation at their graduation.

[Diamonddust 0]

I was in 6th grade in 1998 and DX was basically da shit. I remember getting sent to the principles office with three other guys after we gave our math teacher, Mrs. Scherman (nicknamed the Scherminator), a four-person crotch chop.

 

A friend of mine got written up for jokingly calling our chemistry teacher a "Roody Poo." I can't remember if "jabroni" was included in it or not.

[King Cucaracha 0]

I was in Middle School at just the right time, the last couple of years ('99, 2000) it just took off. Owen Hart's death I can remember hearing about in school having taped the show and mistakenly hearing it was The Blue Meanie and not Blue Blazer.

 

There used to be huge playfights over what was the admitedly imaginary but highly prestigious Hardcore Title, with 24/7 rules. I remember fondly taking off Crash Holly style at the end of one of them and making it into the building just in time to avoid retaliation. The craziest one happened inside the school (yeah, it wasn't a great school) when we weren't allowed out. At least 20 people if not more, one plactic metre ruler broken over somebody's back and a lot of chaos. Myself and a taller kid would routinely bust out 3Ds. Funny to look back and wonder how we didn't break somebody neck being so stupid. I also remember nearly busting my tailbone after thinking it'd be a good idea to give somebody a Stunner on the field on a cold day.

 

The 'glory days' petered out soon after that. The group would soon thin out from maybe 80% of the guys in our year to just a handful. Ah, to be young and stupid again.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

I should also mention that there were at least 2 guys that I can remember in my high school who did some kind of Macho Man imitation at their graduation.

 

Just two? I'm astonished there's not more at every graduation - it writes itself if Pomp and Circumstance is played.

[AntiLeaf33 0]

There were lots of wrestling shirts during middle school, but by the time I graduated in 2001, anyone who wore a wrestling shirt was looked at as being retarded.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

It was always pretty popular where I live. It got enormously popular during 1997. You couldn't go to school without seeing a bunch of Hart Foundation T-Shirts in those days. It was still very popular into university, but interest seemed to just die during the Invasion.

[Jingus 0]

I graduated in spring of '98, so my high school years were before the real high point of the boom. Since I didn't watch wrestling back then, I certainly never talked about wrestling with anyone. But I don't remember anyone wearing the t-shirts, and literally only remember one guy even mentioning that he watched it. This was kind of a preppy sort of school in an upper-class neighborhood, so the demographics were against it in the first place.

 

In college, however? It was huge. That's how I first saw wrestling in the first place. Every one of the dorm buildings had a big-screen TV in their lobby, and every Monday night they'd always be tuned to Raw with a dozen guys sitting around watching.

[haws bah gawd 0]

Wrestlers and Stables were equally popular at my High School. I was the first person I remember wearing an nWo shirt at my high school in the fall of 1996. A year or so later, you started to see a shitload of Austin 3:16 shirts. Not the one's that were sold at WWE live events but the one you could get at places like Sears that had Austin 3:16 writtin in purple on the front of the shirt, and a skull carved out of stone on the back. Towards the end of my high school years, you couldn't turn a corner and not see someone with a D-X, Austin, or nWo shirt. This was during the "Attitude Boom" era.

[Ed Wood Caulfield 0]

I don't remember anyone in my class liking wrestling until 4th grade, and even then it wasn't talked about alot. I just remember some of my friends talking about Shawn Michaels being their favourite wrestler and that was it. I had to repeat the 5th grade (September 1998), so by that point, we were knee deep into the Attitude Era so by then, wrestling was talked about a lot more often. Ironically enough, it was the "popular" kids who were the most into wrestling. The "nerds" were never into it at all. I remember my best friend that year being one of the "popular" kids, and we used to talk about the WWF and WCW all of the time. By 6th grade, talk about wrestling died down, which I have always thought was weird since this was in 2000, when the WWF was at their creative peak. I know for sure that some of my friends still watched it, but they were watching it less and less and not talking about it at all. I remember one of my friends telling me that he stopped watching entirely because he thought that Chris Benoit became WWF Champion. A couple of friends of mine used to pretend to have hardcore matches with each other. I do remember getting stunnered, Rock Bottomed, Pedigreed, 3D, and Broncobusted in 6th grade. And I do remember a friend and I watching WWF SmackDown! one night in July 2000 while talking to each other on the telephone.

 

It was barely talked about in 7th grade, except with my best friend. In 8th grade, the two new kids in my class were both wrestling fans, so I talked about wrestling with them non-stop. I found some female wrestling fans that year too. Mostly everyone else stopped talking about it and stopped watching it by 8th grade (2002) I think.

Edited December 12, 2008 by Ed Wood Caulfield

[RepoMan 0]

WWE was pretty big at my high school during the attitude era. I actually got some attention from the popular kids who wanted some backstage info and to barrow PPVs I had taped. Half the school was walking around in Rock t-shirt after Raw came to town in 2000. Intrest fell way off after the crap that followed WM X-7.

[Grenouille 0]

I went to a small Catholic grade school so there weren't that many fans. It was really just me and core group of about three other guys that liked wrestling. Before graduating 8th grade in '98 things had changed with it seeming like everyone liking or talking about it. Of course one of my friends had to be the idiot doing the Macho Man during graduation too.

 

Right before I started High School I went to my friend's cousin's place for SummerSlam '98. There must have been at least 100 people there, all of the popular upperclassmen that I got to know. There was a bunch of the usual Austin, nWo, DX, Rock stuff that many people wore. The day after a house show in '99 I think half the school had some form of WWF merchandise on the next day. Before senior year everything died off again and it went back to the small clique of wrestling fans.