How did you get into wrestling?

[Chui 0]

Sorry if this has been discussed before...

 

I got into wrestling a little later than probably most folks around here. It was Fall 1999 and I was in 7th grade. Everybody was talking about these "Stone Cold" and "The Rock" characters, and I was curious. Sure, I had played some wrestling video games (WWF Royal Rumble for SNES back in the day, and me and my friend would play WCW/nWo Revenge on his Nintendo 64), but I never had any interest in wrestling itself. One Monday night I was watching Walker, Texas Ranger on USA (Chuck Norris FTW!), and I saw the "Coming up on Raw..." thing they do 10-15 minutes before the show. I figure, "what the hell, I'll check it out."

 

It was the Raw before No Mercy 1999 and featured the beginning of the epic Big Show/Boss Man feud (not match wise, but hilarious promos and skits), Jim Ross teaming with Stone Cold vs. Triple & Chyna, and the end of the show was Davey Boy Smith getting Rock Bottomed onto a tray of dog poop. I have no idea why, but I was hooked for life.

 

What's your story?

[Diamonddust 0]

I was aware of wrestling before I really started watching it. I watched the WWE cartoon on Saturday Morning and knew who Hogan, Andre the Giant, Piper, and people like that were, but I never actually watched wrestling. When a classmate* of mine in second grade (Late 1989/early 1990), had a picture/brief bio book of wrestlers he got a school book-fair, I got hooked. I found out when wrestling would come on TV and started watching it all the time. The first stuff I remember watching was the angle where Cactus Jack would beat up his tag-team partners and the Clash of Champions where Sting injured his knee. It took me a while to understand that the NWA/WCW and WWE were two different companies as I was expecting talent to appear on both shows.

 

* - I still say said classmate is the inspiration for Eric Cartman. He was a fat, obnoxious, spoiled, and showed a lot of traits similar to Cartman. Granted, I don't think Parker and Stone visited Birmingham, Alabama in the early '90s, but when I first saw the character of Cartman... I was like... damn, that's (Said Classmate).

[King Kamala 0]

This thread has been done but it's a fun one so I'll jump in.

 

My older brother and his friends became fans around the time of WrestleMania VIII. I remember they would rent WWF tapes at the local video store and watch 'em in the basement. I sneaked downstairs sometime to watch a bit before my brother would kick me out (He was still at the stage where it wasn't cool to hang out with your younger sibling). The first wrestling-related thing I remember seeing was a WWF action figure commercial starring "Macho Man" Randy Savage and I was absolutely fascinated. The crazy voice, the colorful outfit. He was a human cartoon character and thus- my first favorite wrestler. For some reason, I don't remember watching very many matches during that period. Anyways, my older brother's interest waned around the time of WrestleMania IX, though he didn't completely abandon watching it until '02 (and even then he ordered both One Night Stand shows).

 

However, one day after my dad picked me up after kindegarten in the Fall of '93, he asked me if I wanted to go to the video store and rent a wrestling video. To this day, I'm not sure why he did that. He was a fan of the WWWF in the late '60s when he was an adolescent but he didn't really like having to take us to shows (but to his credit, he always did). Anyways, I looked at the relatively small selection of wrestling tapes and was drawn to the one with Hulk Hogan (him being one of the only wrestlers I could name at the time) flexing his pythons on the top of the world. For some reason beyond me, Hulkamania IV is what made me a wrestling fan. Soon after, I rented almost everyone of the wrestling tapes that video store carried with the exception of The Making of WrestleMania: The Album (even as a five year old I had some sense I guess).

 

Anyways, shortly thereafter, I discovered that WWF Superstars came on after cartoons on the local Fox affliate. I watched it religiously but my mom wouldn't let me stay up till 9 P.M. to watch Monday Night RAW (ah to be five again). Well, one night, she was at work late and my dad let me and my older brother stay up to watch our favorite, "Macho Man" Randy Savage challenge the dreaded WWF World Champion Yokozuna for the title. I think from then on I was hooked. Again, an odd match to hook you on the stuff but my tastes as a 5 year old wrestling fan are a bit different than my taste as a 20 year old wrestling fan.

 

 

Boy that post is the definition of TL;DR but you can't stop me when I;m in a nostalgiac mood.

[Youth N Asia 0]

Probably 1986, I was 5, and I caught whatever Saturday wrestling was on, along with Saturday Night Main Event that my dad would tape for me. I pretty much just watched WWF cause it's all I really knew. Don't really feel like telling a whole story, but it caught my attention very early on and I'd watch it with my dad

 

Watched from 86 to 04

[Chui 0]

It's a shame there isn't Saturday morning wrestling anymore for kids to stumble on accidentally and become lifelong fans. Even I had WWF LiveWire for a little while! I always watched LiveWire and Superstars to find out what happened on Smackdown. I didn't have internet until 2002 and I never got Smackdown except for 2006-2008 when it was on the CW.

[Ed Wood Caulfield 0]

I pretty much have been watching since I was a baby. Literally. My mother recalls me watching Hulk Hogan matches from my crib. My grandmother ran a foster home in her house, and one of the foster kids, a 15-year-old, watched the first Main Event when Hogan lost the WWF Championship to Andre The Giant with my mother, my aunt, and myself. My aunt points to this as the first time that I ever watched professional wrestling. I'm not sure if she is 100% right, but I'll take her word for it.

[CubbyBr 0]

I moved from the Ukraine to the United States in the fall of 1992 and caught my first glimpse of wrestling a year or so later. I'd see it here and there on a Saturday morning and didn't know what to really make of it. IT was definitly entertaining and the larger than life characters appealed to me just like any other 6 or 7-year old. I didn't really find myself wondering if wrestling was real or not...it was entertaining and it didn't matter. My dad would see me watching it and would constantly remind me that it was fake but I loved it anyway. I didn't start really following it until the spring of 1995. It was the end of a Monday Night Raw episode and I caught the entire angle of Psycho Sid turning on Shawn Michaels and powerbombing him three times in a row. I don't know what it was about that angle (maybe the way Shawn sold the injury) but it really hooked me into the product. I didn't have a TV in my room up to that point so I couldn't watch the show weekly since my dad would usually watch TV Monday nights. So for the next nine months or so I would follow wrestling (pretty much only the WWF) through the WWF magazine that would come out every month. I finally got my own TV for Christmas of 1995 and have watched atleast one wrestling show every week since then.

[DMann2003 0]

The short version, 9 years old, 2/5/89 The Main Event The MegaPowers explode!

 

I was aware of wrestling but never really watched until that night, and after that I was hooked. I have a home video of my brother's 1st communion party where I'm going gaga in front of the camera over a videotape of SummerSlam 88.

 

Damn, I've been watching this stuff for 20 years now...Wow.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

It's a shame there isn't Saturday morning wrestling anymore for kids to stumble on accidentally and become lifelong fans. Even I had WWF LiveWire for a little while!

 

This.

 

God damn do I miss those weekend squashes. I really lucked out, too, as my interest in Saturday morning cartoons was on the wane. The transition from Gravedale High and that Kid N' Play cartoon segued quite well into Wrestling Challenge and Superstars. Going from Hammerman to The Warlord squashing Chris Duffy didn't phase me in the least.

 

WCW Saturday Night was the shit too.

[Kinetic 0]

I also accidentally stumbled upon a WWF show while flipping through channels as a kid. It was the Shawn Michaels/Marty Jannety "Barber Shop" angle. I was immediately hooked. This seems like a fairly strange thing to have gotten me into wrestling, as I had no idea who either guy was and no context for anything that was happening. I guess I just really liked seeing a guy get thrown through a fake barber shop window.

[migoli 0]

I remember having those pillows shaped like wrestlers. Ultimate warrior, Hogan and whatnot so I was into Hogan in the late 80's/real early 90's but I know I wasn't into it too much til I seen Razor Ramon. I've always given credit to Scott Hall for my personal interest in wrestling.

[Kinetic 0]

I had one of those Ultimate Warrior pillows! He was wearing the championship belt. I saw that thing on a YouTube video a few weeks ago, and it was like being punched in the face by the past.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

I also accidentally stumbled upon a WWF show while flipping through channels as a kid. It was the Shawn Michaels/Marty Jannety "Barber Shop" angle. I was immediately hooked. This seems like a fairly strange thing to have gotten me into wrestling, as I had no idea who either guy was and no context for anything that was happening. I guess I just really liked seeing a guy get thrown through a fake barber shop window.

 

I have stated before that the first wrestling match that I saw, which ultimately hooked me as a fan, was the Rockers vs. The Orient Express from the 1991 Royal Rumble. After seeing them perform I immediately became a Rockers loyalist, and thus, had a deep emotional investment in anything that involved them as a team. So, as you can imagine, the angle where Michaels chucked Jannetty into the plate-glass window was incredibly traumatizing. I think I might have gotten a little sick after it happened. It really bothered me.

 

And, yes, I had both Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan Wrestling Buddies. Not as much fun as wrestling my Yorkshire terrier was, but what can you do?

[Cran Da Maniac 0]

I normally purchase a ticket and enter through the arena doors.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

I normally purchase a ticket and enter through the arena doors.

 

Ha! The last show that I went to was on the house. One of my best friends used to clean Chad Patton's fish tank. No homo.

[strummer 0]

No really a complicated story. Just flipped by it sometime in the Spring/Summer of 1986 and was immediately hooked. The first real angle I remember was Orndorff turning on Hogan.

 

I didn't really start watching Prime Time until maybe late 87. Just usually watched the syndies but that was always difficult as a kid because my affiliate was constantly changing the times of Superstars and Challenge. I vaguely remember catching Tuesday Night Titans a few times and not liking it

[BruiserKC 0]

I've told the story before...I'll tell it again.

 

I was five years old...it was back in the summer of 1979 and I was over at a friends' house for a playdate. My friend was taking a nap and his brother in high school had his girlfriend over. They turn on Georgia Championship Wrestling on WTBS. The first wrestler I remember seeing in action was Tommy "Wildfire" Rich. I scramble up onto the couch and start watching with them...I'm mesmerized by what's going on. When my mother comes shortly after to take me home, she wonders what they did to me as I'm so quiet just watching. I've been a fan ever since. Some of the other wrestlers I saw on that show IIRC was Ole Anderson, Ivan Koloff, the Masked Superstar, Wahoo McDaniel, and Outlaw Ron Bass.

 

I watched GCW, Mid-Atlantic, and Mid-South initially. I didn't first see WWF until mid-1983.

[Scroby 0]

Before I started watching wrestling, my mom and dad got me, what I think is the first Hulk Hogan action figure and also got me these Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan finger puppets. Once I found out what channels WWE was on, I just started watching it as much as I could.

 

My dad tried to break me out of my habit by trying to get me to go back to sleep when Wrestling Challenge was on, but it failed.

[Vampiro69 0]

My friends and I rented the SNES game Royal Rumble. I had no clue about any of the wrestlers so I started watching wrestling after playing the game. I do know that I always used either Flair, Tatanka or Razor Ramon.

[King Kamala 0]

I've always admired fellow wrestling fanwho got hooked during The New Generation era. It was not an easy time to be a wrestling fan and it was probably even harder to get into it. I do think I have a much higher tolerance for schlock thanks to it. Though I got hooked in '94 which nostalgia aside, wasn't all that terrible and was '00 era WWF in comparision with the year that followed. I truly admire the people who got hooked (on WWF or WCW) in '95, particularly the first half of the year or so. Everytime I watch a truly bad episode of RAW, I just think to myself "At least it's not as bad as seeing William Shatner duke it out with The Roadie and bozos like Mantaur getting a push."

[haws bah gawd 0]

I remember having those pillows shaped like wrestlers. Ultimate warrior, Hogan and whatnot so I was into Hogan in the late 80's/real early 90's but I know I wasn't into it too much til I seen Razor Ramon. I've always given credit to Scott Hall for my personal interest in wrestling.

 

I had one of those Ultimate Warrior pillows! He was wearing the championship belt. I saw that thing on a YouTube video a few weeks ago, and it was like being punched in the face by the past.

 

Oh hell yes, Wrestling Buddies! I too had the Ultimate Warrior. I used to beat the shit out of that thing on my trampoline in my earlier days. I probably still have it around here somewhere.

[Scroby 0]

I remember having those pillows shaped like wrestlers. Ultimate warrior, Hogan and whatnot so I was into Hogan in the late 80's/real early 90's but I know I wasn't into it too much til I seen Razor Ramon. I've always given credit to Scott Hall for my personal interest in wrestling.

 

I had one of those Ultimate Warrior pillows! He was wearing the championship belt. I saw that thing on a YouTube video a few weeks ago, and it was like being punched in the face by the past.

 

Oh hell yes, Wrestling Buddies! I too had the Ultimate Warrior. I used to beat the shit out of that thing on my trampoline in my earlier days. I probably still have it around here somewhere.

That was a pillow? I thought they were for beating up! I had a Macho King.

[IWD 0]

I started watching during the World of Sport days on British TV in the early 80's (most of which was terrible.) I began watching WWF a few years later (rather bizarrely in Switzerland.) Randy Savage was a legend to me back then.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I watched wrestling a bit from like '87 on. I distinctly remember seeing an episode of Superstars featuring Killer Khan squashing some jobber and thinking he was legitimately scary.

[korndogg123 0]

When I was 7 years old (1990) my dad asked me one night if I wanted to watch a video called Hulk Hogan vs the Ultimate Warrior. I don't remember how he explained it or if I even knew what professional wrestling was before then. I just recognized the names. So he puts on the tape (Wrestlemania 6 of course), I see all these random matches and I have no idea what it's all about. So my dad has me watch the entire show and then eventually introduces me to the weekend TV shows like Superstars and Challenge. Sometime after Royal Rumble '91, I find out that my aunt has every PPV from Summerslam '88 until then on tape (illegal black box to get PPV). My dad borrows them from her, I eventually watch them all, I get my dad to order Wrestlemania VII, and the rest is history. I now have all of those tapes plus many others from later years in my possession. I still watch them from time to time.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

I had brief experiences with wrestling before I started watching...knowing about who Hogan was to an extent, seeing glimpses of the Rock 'n Wrestling cartoon, and then I saw the commercial for SummerSlam 1993 while watching the Preview Channel.

 

Around the summer of 94, I decided to finally start watching Superstars after seeing a commercial with Randy Savage and a computerized midget Savage.

 

The first match I ever saw was an Irwin R. Schyster match.

 

Somehow, after that, I stayed hooked.

[TheFranchise 0]

You saw someone beating up the tax-man.

 

You pretty much need to watch after that.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

You saw someone beating up the tax-man.

 

You pretty much need to watch after that.

Actually, Irwin won the match.

 

Post match he had a confrontation with Tatanka though. Apparently this was shortlya fter Irwin stole Tatanka's headdress...

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

I'll bite.

 

I was 12 and I stumbled across the Saturday morning show Livewire on USA around the winter of 1997-98. Everybody at my school was getting into it at this time, and the Austin 3:16 and DX shirts started showing up more and more. Having no internet, I had no idea who Bret Hart was besides from the video game and had no idea about Montreal. Anyway, I started getting intrigued by it, and around March or April I started watching Raw every week. I don't remember what drew me to it exactly, because I didn't have a particular favorite wrestler. I guess it just sort of hooked me. Of course, as a 12 year old, Steve Austin became my favorite pretty quickly. I always hated The Rock, because when I started watching he was a "bad guy," then all of a sudden a few months later he was a "good guy" yet he was doing pretty much the same stuff, so I couldn't root for him. I was already programmed to hate the guy. That's how I started being a wiseass and always rooting for the heels.

 

By the time I was 15 or 16, my interest faded quickly through the summer. It was around the time of the WWF to WWE name change and the Raw/SmackDown roster split. Two events stopped me from watching the product completely: when 87 year old Hulk Hogan won the title in the spring (which me and my friends were rooting huge for, and then afterward I realized how ridiculously dumb it was). I thought it was ridiculous how King and JR would always badmouth WCW for having the old guys in the main events, and here we were years after that and they are putting over the same geezers over their own talent like Rock and HHH. I stopped watching Raws, didn't see any of the summer PPVs, and then stopped watching it altogether when Eric Bischoff gave HHH the big gold championship belt without having to wrestle a match for it.

 

Every so often, my one friend who still watches will try to convince me to watch a PPV with him, but that is rare these days because I think he's given up on the 'fed and is only into the independent circuits.