When did you become a fan?

[Stone Cold Tea]

We all have it. That one moment, the first time we witnessed wrestling and was hooked. It gets you, reels you in and keeps you.

For me the first time i remember watching it was one Saturday morning me and my mum went round to her friends house. I must have been 7. They went into the kitchen and I was left with free run of the remote. Now most kids would go for Cartoon Network and believe me I was about to. As i'm about to change the channel this programme called SmackDown! comes on on Sky1. Whats this? The Rock Vs the Dudleys in a handicap table match! Thats the day i became hooked. When The Dudleys 3D'd The Rock through the table I couldn't believe it. I guess thats the day The Rock became my favourtie wrestler too.

So whats your earliest memory? When did you become a fan?

 

[SJ5522]

it took a while between first viewing (1999-2001ish, mostly only catching Rumbles and Manias) and when I properly made sure to always catch it (2003). The tipping point of me becoming a fan was the strength of SmackDown and The Undertaker beginning his greatest era once they stopped making him come out to Limp Bizkit. Then another couple of years later, TNA used to be really good with Joe, Styles, Daniels, Sabin etc. and that turned me into an obsessive who would eventually go on to start checking indys, Japanese and older wrestling

 

[TootsieBear]

To be honest with you guys I don't remember the starting point, but I know my friend Michael got me hook in the mid-90's. When Triple H was still known as Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Bret Hart was one of the biggest stars in the company.

I still remembering purchasing WWF's In Your House video game for the PlayStation. There where times I watched both WCW and ECW. But as the WWF became more hardcore and developed multiple new and younger stars, both WCW and ECW became irrelevant. Sorry nostalgic wrestling fans, WWF was just more enjoyable to watch in my opinion. However, I do wish I watched more of WCW and ECW when it was on the air. Every other wrestling fan I know talked about those two companies like crazy.

 

[L@RISANO]

Watching RAW is WAR as a little kid on Saturday afternoons got me into the WWE. As a little kid, I used to hate SCSA quite a bit and used to be pissed when he beat the Undertaker when it mattered. Ntm, I was scared of both Kane and Mankind for some reason...

 

[TootsieBear]

Watching RAW is WAR as a little kid on Saturday afternoons got me into the WWE. As a little kid, I used to hate SCSA quite a bit and used to be pissed when he beat the Undertaker when it mattered. Ntm, I was scared of both Kane and Mankind for some reason...

You're not the only one who was scared of Kane when you were younger. Not only him, but the Undertaker too. Both of them terrorized me but I couldn't turn away from watching them on T.V.

 

[L@RISANO]

You're not the only one who was scared of Kane when you were younger. Not only him, but the Undertaker too. Both of them terrorized me but I couldn't turn away from watching them on T.V.

Kane's full face mask creeped me out. UT was my fav from the time I saw him, and it has remained so until now. Mankind was the worst tho, even more than Kane... I was legit creeped out by him, mask and all.

 

[TootsieBear]

At first Mankind did creep me out; I remember reading a paragraph in Mad magazine that commented that blue cheese salad dressing was made from bits on Mankind's mask. At that time I thought it was true and turned my stomach. However, I soon warmed up to him after his interviews with J.R. and tag teaming with the Rock.

 

[Mustang Sally]

That one moment, the first time we witnessed wrestling and was hooked.

Happened to me in 1985 when I was 6. Hulkamania was running wild and while I enjoyed his act, my moment came when Randy Savage introduced his new manager and Miss Elizabeth came strolling down the runway.

I was hooked on the whole 'Beauty & the Beast' storyline and have been a fan of pro wrestling ever since.

 

[Jonyboyuk2]

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s - WWE was called WWF, and in the UK we did not know of WWF until around 1998 when we got SKY tv - (satallite TV to the USA fans reading this) - and it was all the rage suddenly. My first time of watching a WWF match was the Survivor Series 1988 - The Powers of Pain (The Warlord and The Barbarian), The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty), The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid), The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) and The Young Stallions (Jim Powers and Paul Roma) defeated Demolition (Ax and Smash), The Brain Busters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard), The Bolsheviks (Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zhukov), The Fabulous Rougeaus (Raymond and Jacques Rougeau) and The Conquistadors (Uno and Dos) (with Mr. Fuji, Bobby Heenan, Slick and Jimmy Hart).

This was one HELL of a match - from bell to bell. I had never seen anything like it. I believe at the time it was about a year after the event and was on the shelf in Blockbuster video store and we rented it because my friend had sky tv and was raging about it. Think this was the first match that I saw that got me. Then I watched many events to catch up - by renting them out of the order in which they happened. Luckily at the time - WWF did a video package before each match that described/explained why the match was happening. There were huge moments back then and great matches!

 

[SJ5522]

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s - WWE was called WWF, and in the UK we did not know of WWF until around 1998 when we got SKY tv - (satallite TV to the USA fans reading this) - and it was all the rage suddenly. My first time of watching a WWF match was the Survivor Series 1988 - The Powers of Pain (The Warlord and The Barbarian), The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty), The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid), The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) and The Young Stallions (Jim Powers and Paul Roma) defeated Demolition (Ax and Smash), The Brain Busters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard), The Bolsheviks (Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zhukov), The Fabulous Rougeaus (Raymond and Jacques Rougeau) and The Conquistadors (Uno and Dos) (with Mr. Fuji, Bobby Heenan, Slick and Jimmy Hart).

This was one HELL of a match - from bell to bell. I had never seen anything like it. I believe at the time it was about a year after the event and was on the shelf in Blockbuster video store and we rented it because my friend had sky tv and was raging about it. Think this was the first match that I saw that got me. Then I watched many events to catch up - by renting them out of the order in which they happened. Luckily at the time - WWF did a video package before each match that described/explained why the match was happening. There were huge moments back then and great matches!

Hey do you know, when did the Survivor Series become just another PPV?
They could never book the matches they used to for SS, because nowadays those are the kinda matches you see on Raw

 

[laodaron]

In 1990-1991, I was in the 3rd grade. My best friend was named Derek, and he and I used to spend the night at each other's houses. So, we used to go to the video store, and we'd rent Rocky, or we'd rent Terminator, or we'd rent No Holds Barred, and eventually, we decided to rent some WWF PPV Tapes. Well, we quickly went through everything, and as we got older, we watched Raw, and then he moved away, and I never stopped watching...until 2002, when the WWE really started going to shit. It wasn't until about 2008/2009 that I really got back into watching again, and I've never been happier with it.

 

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

I read about everybody in here, having started watching in late 80's, 90's and early 00's and I just feel way to damn young

I actually started watching in 2009. The first thing I saw: Randy Orton punt kicks Vince McMahon to hell.

Up until this point I didn't know what the WWE. I didn't even know of its existance. WWE was really popular here in Greece in mid-2000's, since a greek channel was airing WWE SmackDown!. However nobody would look it up on the internet or write on forums about it. It was just an ass-kicking show.

By the time I started watching, it was dead for us here. I still believe that a lot of people know what it is but will never talk about it. Only a handfull still watch I can say and I believe that really shows WWE's decreasing popularity. I know that the greek market doesn't really mean anything to the WWE, but the fact that 10 years ago it was one of the most popular shows here and now nobody knows it shows WWE's current state.

Some facts:
People here know that it's fake, but they confuse fake with scripted.
The average person that doesn't watch wrestling here, only knows The Rock and Hulk Hogan. However only Hogan has popularity because of wrestling. The Rock is an just an ex-footballer big-time actor.

Back on topic, that punt kick shocked me. I was like "This granpa's dead now". I didn't know what it was, I didn't know it was scripted. I liked it. I looked it up on the internet. I learnt everything about it in a matter of months. Still watching and i dare to say that, excluding 2010, WWE's product is improving every year since then. So I believe that better things are going to come.

 

[Jonyboyuk2]

Hey do you know, when did the Survivor Series become just another PPV?
They could never book the matches they used to for SS, because nowadays those are the kinda matches you see on Raw

I guess for me - a lot of wwe PPV's, not just Survivor Series, became just another show - when the Invasion angle became a farce in 2001. It was like WWE just gave up then - because they had no more competition. After that a lot of PPV's became boring (of course many PPV's stand out since then as being excellent - but as a general rule they stopped being as creative as they used to be).

 

[The Warlord]

Royal Rumble 1989...in Houston, Texas

My buddy said he was bringing over a wrestling tape. For some reason I thought he said "game" as I had just bought a nintendo. I was disappointed finding out it was a VHS of a ppv he just recorded. It hooked me right away snd the Royal Rumble match itself, being that it was so easy to understand, had me glued. I thought it was crazy that the same tag team drew numbers 1 and 2 and had to go to battle.

I never looked back

 

[Kodo Sawaki]

1996 when I was in elementary school and local game house when they had some WWF game. Still remeber that they had Undertaker, Bret Hart, Yokozuna, Bam Bam Bigelow and Doink as playable characters.

Though I havent been heavily invested in stuff till 2000s when wresting came to TV in my country and when internet came along so that I could read and watch about new and old rivalries.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I don't remember a specific time, but it was around late 1998. I was definitely round at my friends house, and he and his brother were big wrestling fans. They had loads of the action figures from WWF and WCW (I can still remember exactly what some of them looked like with their moving parts (WWF) and solid plastic (WCW)), so I already knew some of the names of the wrestlers.

But we watched an episode of Raw and he was explaining the characters to me- I distinctly remember Ken Shamrock living in a car as a kid, and The Rock was in the ring with a ladder at some point in the show. And then there was Sable...oh my god. I'd never seen a woman like her at that point, incredible!

The first PPV I watched was the 1999 Royal Rumble and even at 12 years old seeing The Undertaker for the first time in his satanic Ministry character freaked me the hell out, with the long hooded robe, the evil music and the eyes rolling into his head. What a persona! But at the time it shit me up a bit!

After that show I was hooked, and I was a huge fan for years. I've lost a bit of interest in the WWE product these last 4-5 years though, but with the Network being launched I'm a bigger fan than ever, watching wrestling every day and going over shows I didnt see back in the day, and reliving old memories. Wrestling is fucking great.

 

[Just Do It]

1992, around spring time. I specifically remember getting hyped for Summerslam 1992, and can't recall an event prior to that. Although I do rememebr seeing magazines covering Wrestlemania 8 on the stands. That's as closely as I can nail it sadly.

 

[tdmoon]

About '84, I used to run across the AWA on a local station in Northern California. I thought Nick Bockwinkel was too cool and then became a fan of Zbysco and Jerry Blackwell. I was a big baseball fan so I would always read the sports section and remember being able to follow wrestling results from the Cow Palace in there as well.
I would spend my summers with family in the Midwest and my uncle would take me to matches at the old Memorial Coliseum in Evansville. It got me completely hooked; Lawler, Dundee, Idol, the Moondogs were totally compelling to me. He had taped a lot of wrestling and I was blown away by footage of the Concession Stand Brawl, Joe LeDuc slitting his wrists with a hatchet, Jimmy Hart's promos....it was like nothing I had seen before. I have taken various sabbaticals from watching wrestling since, but those early memories ensured I will always be a fan of the sport.

 

[HBKistheHOF]

My first wrestling memory ever is Wrestlemania XII & Shawn beating Bret for the belt (probably why I love HBK so much). I've lived pretty close to Anaheim throughout most of my life & when Mania came to town it was the first I ever heard of Pro-Wrestling & the WWF. But it seemed like a pretty huge event even back then & that PPV was the first show I ever got to watch. I think I watched it over at a friends house with my family but I don't really remember that part, just Shawn leaning over with the belt & crying.

Unfortunately it was also my last wrestling memory for awhile, seeing as I was still pretty young at the time & I don't think my parents cared much to spend money on it. Also we didn't have cable or anything growing up so unless I found an IYH PPV or something on VHS at the public library, I didn't really get to watch WWF.

When '99 rolled around though & Smackdown came to UPN I started watching again, although I didn't recognize anyone really except the few times Shawn would come around & for some reason it took me a couple years to really become a super fan again. Oddly enough it was actually the feud between Kurt Angle & Edge in 2002 that really made me a huge fan again. I think it was because I was a little older, I knew wrestling was "fake" by then (unlike in the early/mid-90's when I really believed as a little kid) & I think it was when I saw Edge rip off Kurt's wig inside the Cage that I really realized it's not just the athleticism & action but the story telling, the emotion, the comedy, etc. that really makes pro-wrestling different from any other regular sport or just your average play or movie. That was the first time I remember calling out moves & appreciating the guys taking a beating but at the same time laughing, being entertained & still remembering the story/outcome.

Since then on I've been pretty much been hooked. I became a part of the IWC in about 2004/2005 when I started attending live shows & saw people with "I hate Cena" shirts. I was shocked because I thought everyone had to love guys like Hogan, Warrior, Cena, etc. even though I never did. & I quickly found out that there were a lot of people who hated things a lot more than I did lol

Well that's about it. I found WZ in 2007 after being out of town for WM 23 & wanting the results, I made an account a few years later & I've been around ever since. I love the WWE to this day, no matter how bad it gets or however many people want to crap all over it. & no I'll never claim to stop watching for good like some people do, although I did stop shortly around '08/'09 when I turned to TNA for awhile instead. But that's like turning to meth to kick your heroine addiction, it's just a poor excuse for a substitute.

 

[pipebomber]

I cant tell you the specific point, I watched wrestling as a kid with my dad, and though I phased in and out there was no part in my life that I didn't watch it some. the first match I distinctly remember watching was Goldberg Vs Hollywood Hogan for the World Championship on Nitro in 98 when I was 8 years old.

 

[BestSportsEntertainer]

My first time watching wrestling was when Edge and Lita attempted to marry, but Kane had different plans. (Or at least that's how I remember it). I was really young (5 or 6), but I was hooked instantly. I've watched almost every single Raw since then except maybe 3 or 4. I've always been a huge fan of pro wrestling, and more specifically WWE. I have complained - A LOT - but I've always enjoyed it and probably will always enjoy it.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

I can't remember what exact promotion it was, maybe WWWF . It was the pre Killer Bees vs The Road Warriors . This had to be about 33 years ago, I was only just a little punk. The Road Warriors dominated the entire match with one or two offensive moves by Jim Brunzell but that was about it. Near the end of the match, one of the Killer Bees were busted open and blood covered his forehead. I remember being shocked at the sight and yelling at my dad to come in the room and watch. The Road Warriors continued to punish them after the match , something I wasn't used to seeing. I was floored at the events and talked about the match for a long time.

Looking back, it was basically a no name tag match with The Road Warriors destroying their opponents like they did earlier in their careers.