How far back do you go when it comes to "old school" wrestling?

[Mad Metal]

This is a subject I am highly interested in. How far back do you go when it comes to old school wrestling? Anyone these days watch videos as old as from when The Nature Boy Buddy Rogers was the NWA champion? Back in Bruno Sammartino's time? Billy Graham's time? The Hulk Hogan era? The Attitude era? Or do you only care about the present time?

The reason I'm interested is because many people these days praise guys that look like spot monkeys/stuntman compare to a lot of the old school wrestlers and a lot of times I see people talk about Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, nWo, DX etc. as if they don't watch anything prior to those years.

 

[BooCocky]

i believe the 90's was the best wrestling era it was meant for great entertainment.. the wrestlers of the 90's were very entertaining.... scsa the rock all the foley faces, bret hart, shawn michaels in his awesome days. the days of dx- nwo...it was entertaining....... the 1980's were also entertaining i have seen videos of hogan and flair when they were young and not 60 and a shadow of there former selfs.... like now wrestling is atrocious to what it was then. like i have seen videos of jimmy super fly snuka or jesse the body ventura, or bruno sammartino......but that never compared to what wrestling was in the 90' even though those wrestlers were like the pioneers of what wrestling was in the 90's....... anyways any wrestling that isnt now is very entertaining.

 

[grywolf2112]

i grew up watching wrestling. i'm 37 years old and don't have a lot of time to watch the online videos. but i still remember some of the matches from back in the old days. it was pretty enteraining to watch the awa and wwcw and the nwa. they used to show them on wtxx and sometimes on espn when it started at like 3 am. i've always prefered the 70's wrestling, but i still watch today.

 

[RVDgurl]

I think the answer to this question depends on how old you are. I grew up watching the WWF, AWA and NWA in the 80's, so the late 70's - early 80's are what I consider old school wrestling.

On a side note, thank you grywolf for informing us that you are 37! That officially means that I am not the oldest person on this forum! I pass the torch gracefully.....

 

[Mad Metal]

I usually go back to the 70's when it comes to old school wrestling. I been watching professional wrestling since the early 90's when umm.. well, when I first developed a functional mind. I grew up watching it with my dad when I was much younger and was immediately hooked into it.

Since I was 11 I been collecting, watching and been a fan of old school professional wrestling going back to the 70's. My local video store had around 30 - 40 wrestling videos including the original copy of the first WrestleMania and I would rent and tape a copy for myself majority of the videos they had. Most of the kids at my age only knew what happened in the WWF in the recent years and purchase current bio's and PPV's while I would get much older videos instead when I was a kid.

I still am a huge old school wrestling fan. I still collect old shows as well as what is featured on the excellent On-Demand service WWE 24/7.

Other than that, I have some videos in my collection when they ran shows in the White Sox field here in Chicago with Buddy Rogers as the NWA champion and many other big names including Gorgeous George (and you say gimmicks these days are bad LOL).

In a funny note, guys like Bruno Sammartino make someone like John Cena look like a Bret Hart LOL (in performance overall)

 

[grywolf2112]

i hate to admit it, but i've probably forgot more matches then these people watched on tv. thank god for the internet. and rvdgurl i'll regretablely accepect the torch, but i don't want these fans to lose the queen of extreme(not franchine either). they still need your guideness and your fanatic love love of the sport.

 

[X]

Well while I originally began watching wrestling in the 90s, I have a tape collection that goes back as far as the 50s and 60s. Mostly incredibly old NWA, WWWF, CWF and AWA. While the wrestling is never usually up to par with the fantastic matches that would come later in the century, I still find it very fun and entertaining as well as interesting in watching the history of this fine sport we call pro wrestling.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

I started watching wrestling seriously at Wrestlemania 8. When I think of wrestling history, my mind instantly starts as far back as Wrestlemania 1 and works forward. I believe the Wrestlemania era is where the true concept of "professional wrestling" for many fans began.

Even still, I am not devoid of knowledge of pre-wrestlemania events. I've read lots of the autobiographies (thank you Mick Foley for breaking down that barrier between fans and wrestlers) and thanks to the WWE acquiring the libraries of so many other companies I have now seen some particularly old school matches.

 

[mean_gene_roberts]

In a funny note, guys like Bruno Sammartino make someone like John Cena look like a Bret Hart LOL (in performance overall) [quote from MadMetal earlier in thread]



I feel like the Rodney Dangerfield of these forums now. I will be 52 in November and I am still a hard core "'rasslin'" fan. I grew up watching the WWWF out of Pittsburgh, PA on Channel 11, with "Chilly Billy Cardilly" hosting (who also did Saturday nights "Chiller Theater") and was the weatherman for the local news cast. The days of studio wrestling. Every week I would sit 3 feet away from the black and white screen, waiting for Bruno Sammartino to come out for a ringside interview with Bill Cardill.

He'd rant and rave for a couple minutes about how he was gonna meet up with Baron Von Rasque in Steubenville, OH or some such place. They didn't promot the EVENT...they pumped the town they were going to!

One day when I was about 11, here was the World Heavyweight Champion, Bruno Sammartino, on studio wrestling out of Pittsburgh, PA, saying that he was going to be in MY hometown in just a couple weeks, to meet up with Gorilla Monsoon and put an end to his treacherous, under-handed and deceitful ways.

I was on my best behavior since my birth, doing every menial chore placed before an 11 year old child, I was determined to see the World Heavyweight Champion beat the crap out of his enemy!

After all these years, I couldn't tell you the date of that match, or even the season of the year. But I do know that it happened in the small town of New Martinsville, WV (pop. 6243 at that time), and I shoke hands with the champ as well as Bobo Brazil, The Battman, "Jumpin'" Johnny DeFazzio (at last check he was on the county commission or something in Pittsburgh), Baron Miguel SeCluna and a host of others.

No, I don't have any memorabilia from that era, but I have my memories and my heart...and they tell me that one of the greatest eras EVER in Professional Wrestling happened in the 1955 to 1975 range.

Don't just take my word for it and don't just take what you see in old vid clips as an example of how wrestling was then compared to now. It wasn't uncommon from as far back as 1900 for a championship match to last 2 hours or more. And as far as length of title reigns go, everybody wants to make a fuss about John Cena holding the strap for a year. Bruno held it twice for a total of 13 years! About 7 or 8 the first and 5 or 6 the next (depends on which stats you look at). Bob Backlund held the title for about 4 years and has recently been seen in limited action on TNA.

I had someone ask recently if the show wasn't boring back then. Yeah, right. Like todays product is somehow "New and Improved".

Give me a break.

 

[THe WHoLe FuCKiN SHoW]

this is a very interesting thread. im 18 years old now and i first starting watching wrestling wen i was 7, which was the mid-90's. i consider this the best era of wrestling ever. i grew up with 2 older cuzins who were wrestling fanatics. one was an ultimate warrior fan, the other a hulk hogan fan. id constantly heard them talking about wrestling and we played the games for sega and nintendo all the time. i can remember the first time i actually watched a wrestling event on tv. it was wrestlemania 12 on ppv. the first time i ever actually watched wrestling. at the time it was the greatest thing in the world. of course now i look back n say wm 12 wasnt nearly as good a wm as say wm 17 for instance but to me it has sentimental value. it also is kinda interesting cuz wen ppl talk about whether or not the iron man match was really great or really terrible i cant really decide. for me, it was the first main event i ever saw and the reason i became an hbk fan and am still a fan of his today. he was my first favorite wrestler and still is. my knowledge of wrestling goes back to the late 80's cuz i love it and ive seen so many videos and read all the books and whatnot but i started in 96. watched until about 2002, then stopped. i just started watching again recently but it doesnt nearly thrill me the way it used to. wrestling needs to get back to being exciting and unpredictable which is obviously hard but definetly possible. awesome thread.

 

[suavestar]

i agree with you. wrestling isnt the same now, i started back in 1999 and was immediately hooked! i spent a fortune on books, tapes, dvds and would think it was worth it! not any more, raw, smackdown , ecw and tna are all boring! they have only two new things that work between them (jbl commentary and kurt angle as champ) now i only buy the documentarys of the old days as they are better than ever! as everyone knows it's fake they dont pretend its real and you get a real feel of what it was like and not have to listen to endless "we took that sob out!"

 

[kuch1031]

I started watching wrestling in the early 80's probably around Wrestlemania 1 ( having an older brother helped with that ) I usually watched only WWF/WWWF programming as WCW/NWA/AWA was not seen here in NY much.

 

[mean_gene_roberts]

I'd like to expand on my statement earlier that the greatest era in pro Rasslin' was the 1955-75 years. I had to refresh my memories of the history of the business. That goes back to 1902 and Frank Gotch being recognized as the Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion.

According to the history, the primary governing body for Professional Wrestling was the NWBA, the National Wrestling / Boxing Association. After a number of years the wrestling promoters separated and The National Wrestling Association was born. Then, there was further divisions and from that sprung the National Wrestling Alliance. This brings us to the mid 1950's.

Wrestling was one of the first programs to appear on Television, the invention of post-war America. And, this was at the height of the Territory days of wrestling promotions. Each promoter, or "boss", had a protected area in which to do his shows and no show could cross over into anothers area without serious repercussions.

In the 60's, Buddy Rogers was the NWA World Heavyweight Champion and mostly recognized as the champ in spite of other wrestling companies. But one of the territorys didn't like Rogers being chosen champ, so they dropped out of the NWA and became an independent promotion known as the WWWF and owned by Vince McMahon, Sr.

Things continued to run much as it did until the promotion was bought by his son, Vince, Jr. The NWA had Regional TV programs all over the country, as did the WWWF in its region. But with the advent of cable and the vision of a "Wal-Mart" of Wrestling, Vince crossed territory boundaries by video tape rather than playing high school arenas. The company became the WWF and later the WWE, but Vince did what no one actually wanted, and was to take the sport out of the wrestling.

Someone mentioned that TNA or "back in the day" WCW couldn't produced its own stars. Stars have been produced ever since Frank Gotch in 1902. And I would dare to say that at least 90% of the greats came through the NWA. Jeff Jarrett, Steve Austin, Buff Bagwell, Sting, HHH and Ric Flair all came from the ranks of the NWA. And I don't believe they (the WWE) are that good at raising up their own talent either.

HHH, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Mick Foley, Steve Austin, William Regal and many others first appeared in a WCW ring, not WWF. And Vince has hired talent such as Monty Brown, Frank Kazarian and Kid Kash from TNA just as TNA hired Angle, Cage and Rhyno.

So, when you get right down to it, the ONLY belt which should be legitimately recognized is the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. And, in case you haven't heard yet, The NWA finally has it's own show on Colours TV on Dish Network (and I'm stuck with cable...DAMM!). For the first time, they are not attached to another promotion like WCCW, GCW, USWA or WCW but actually on their own.

Thanks for providing a place for me to rant and rave.

 

["THE FIERCE ONE" MIKE W]

I myself have watched old school 70s wrestling a lot over the past year, I just was introduced to Bruno Sammartino. when i look for a standard of old school I think from late 70s to late 80s and maybe some early 90s but only at the max to 95. The best wrestlers in history(in my opinion) are, Bruno, Backlund, Flair, Lawler(won more titles than any wrestler in history, even more than Flair and Hogan) Hogan(terrible wrestler, and all around person, but really put wrestling on the map), and Undertaker(perhaps the best gimmick and gimmick wrestler to ever wrestle, in my opinion of course).

 

[FcukTheWorld]

I started watching in the late 70's - early 80's. When guys like Nick Bockwinkel, Superstar Graham and Larry Zybysko were cream of the crop. I miss the old territorial days of wrestling. My personal favorite was WCCW.

 

[TheOneBigWill]

I love how the 80's, quite possibly the highest of points for wrestling before that time, is left off the poll. So I went with 90's. But come on, I'll give in to the fact that I started watching wrestling in 1993 but I gathered all the older tapes I could of the 80's.

If I had to base it off of production value, then clearly I'd be voting for the mid 90's to present, but wrestling value.. 80's thru 98, then it started getting too overly hyped on pure storyline & backstage skits. Thats one thing I loved about W.C.W. they had storylines, but never allowed them to interfere too much with having quality wrestling on their shows.

And if you wanna talk about wrestling at its quite literal best, E.C.W. - they barely had a workable storyline, but no one ever cared, because each & every one of them busted their ass to put on a great wrestling match.

 

[RabidChihuahua]

For me personally, I've been watching wrestling since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. While I'm a mere 38, I grew up on the likes of Bulldog Bob Brown, Harley Race, Ric Flair, Rufus R Jones, Bruiser Brody and so many more that I can't go into detail otherwise I'd never get anything said.

I remember watching Central States Wrestling out of Kansas City on Saturdays, World Class Championship Wrestling from Texas on Sundays, NWA on TBS on Saturdays late afternoons, and the WWF on Sundays. Sprinkle in a little Mid-South and Universal Wrestling and Memphis Wrestling when I could catch it and it was a virtual cornucopia of wrestling growing up.

Of course, back then we didn't have the internet to tell us who was winning or what they had been caught doing.