When did you first get into PW which wrestlers stood out?

Special Agent Oso

I think i was around 7/8 and i watched WCW on normal tv. WWF was always on Sky which we didnt have at the time. The main boys in my mind were Sting, El Gigante, Sid Vicious, Arn Anderson, Flyin' Brian, and Beautiful Bobby. The tag teams then were Doom, Steiner Bros, and The Fabulous Freebirds. Every wrestler seemed like they had something going on, some storyline they were involved in - although back then it was all real to me. Running around clotheslining anyone and everyone that came into the house with Stings facepaint on. Jes, it was good back then. Of course now we have The Miz and Jack Swagger so i cant complain

CMpunked

First got into it around 1997 but didnt really watch because it was more my bros thing.
But i remember specifically it was the run up to wm 16.
Wrestlers that stood out to me then had to be HHH. The man was phenomenal, he had that mega size back then. Of course he still does but its a lot more common these days.

rovert

Hogan and Ultimate Warrior just colourful and larger than life as a nipper. Bret Hart was my guy though.

Penn

Start of 2000, so really Rock, HHH and Kane. Little bit of Jericho, Benoit and Angle too

grames_bond

rovert wrote: »

Hogan and Ultimate Warrior just colourful and larger than life as a nipper. Bret Hart was my guy though.

this for me too! started watching about 1996!

chopperbyrne

Would have been about '88 when I first started watching.

Was always a Macho Man fan and loved the Rockers when they were introduced. Jannetty was my favourite of the two.

Stopped watching for a few years when Sky 1 was taken off Cablelink, but got straight back into it when it returned and was a huge Razor Ramon fan.

irish_stevo815

The first PPV i ever watched was Royal Rumble 94, got my cousin to record it for me as we didnt have sky at the time. Tried to keep up with it when over at friends or cousin house. Really got into it full time a few weeks before Wrestlemania 16 (2000) as we just got sky then. Remember flicking on toi smackdown on a saturday morning and seeing the likes of HHH, The Rock and The Hardys....was totally hooked from then on.

I think the Rock/HHH feud around that time was one of the most epic things i had seen up to then.

Turtyturd

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Would have been about '88 when I first started watching.

Was always a Macho Man fan and loved the Rockers when they were introduced. Jannetty was my favourite of the two.

Stopped watching for a few years when Sky 1 was taken off Cablelink, but got straight back into it when it returned and was a huge Razor Ramon fan.

This for me although started slightly earlier and returned slightly later. Was a big Warrior fan back then but Bret Hart was my favourite, from the Hart Foundation, to his IC run but missed a lot of his World Champion run.

My first memory of wrestling is of a pre recorded promo by Piper/Andre and Million Dollar Man talking about a cage match. It was a few years later before I started watching on SKY 1 every Friday night and listening to scrambled pay per views on Sky Sports. Remember Eurosport showing Summerslam 1990 (Rockers Vs Power and Glory was great with Michaels selling his injured knee, and a 2 out 3 falls match between the Hart Foundation and Demolition) and Sky 1 showing Tuesday in Texas (first time a wrestler managed to knock Taker off his feet) both of which I recorded and watched repeatedly. Then Sky was gone from Cablelink and I was devastated.

Got back into it around Survivour Series 97 and have remained into it since although at varying levels. Also discovered news letters and online sites which (along with getting older) have kinda ruined the shock/surprise factor. Now I mainly watch it with my son and wouldn't be too bothered if I went a few weeks without seeing Raw or Smackdown, it looked like it was going to become must see tv again last summer with the Punk/Cena feud but WWE really dropped the ball there.

DEFTLEFTHAND

I was/still am a massive nWo mark. I got into wrestling by watching Nitro on TNT on Friday nights when the nWo were prominent. It was the gritty realism that drew me to WCW at the time, everything felt and looked real.

Also the great talent on the undercard kept me loyal to the company, Malenko ,Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero, Rey, Ultimo Dragon etc. The wrestling was top standard and guys were given time on the card to have decent matches. Unfortunately they're great work didn't lead to them been given opportunity to ascend the card but that's a whole other story.

ricero

around 1997 and of course the people who stood out for me was kane, undertaker, austin, the rock, mankind and of course vince mcmahon the sadistic son of a bitch. in wcw it was sting and the the original nwo

Angron

I started getting into it in or around 97-98, by way of my cousin who was a huge Rock and Stone Cold fan. The guys that stood out the most for me though were Kane in WWE and Goldberg in WCW.

starviewadams

Around 1994/95 I would say,first guy that I became a huge fan of was Bret,I couldn't stand HBK back then at all!

eh i dunno

Got into it around 92 and Piper was my main man for a while but then it was Bret Hart. Idolised the man and he could do no wrong in my eyes. Also a fan of Perfect and the Steiners back then too.

bobby_says_hi

I was all about DX when i first started watching, around 1999 or so. i started watching full time around 2000 and "The One" Billy Gunn really stood out to me. He was a big guy with a lot of strength who could do military presses and yet could speed around the ring and get great height on his dropkicks. then it was Kurt Angle for all his goofiness and comic timing. Team Xtreme as well for obvious reasons and then Trish Stratus for that it factor in addition to two obvious reasons

Charisteas

Dont remember exactly when I first got into it, was around 1990 when it was becoming popular at school. I was quite a shy kid with not many friends and I remember my Dad buying me a Flying Bryan Pillman action figure, and I took it to school the next day and it was like I was accepted into the cool kids gang. Changed my school life forever

I remember my first VHS tapes being Wrestlemania's 5,6,7 so yeah was probably around 1991. Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior obviously the faves, remember hating Ric Flair because he stole Macho Man's wife or something like that.

Of course I collected all the sticker albums too.

Then when I joined big school in 1995, I made new friends and got into Soccer big time so wrestling faded away for a few years.

Then around 1998 when I was 14, my younger brother and his mates started getting into it big time and I remember making fun of him telling him it was for kids etc. Then I actually sat down and watched it with him and saw guys like DX, Stone Cold, Ken Shamrock, Sable, and hot crowds on every show and I thought to myself WHAT THE F*CK HAVE I BEEN MISSING, THIS IS FRIGGING AMAZING!!

Cactus Colm

Got into wrestling as a kid way back in the 80's ... don't know what channel it was on, but was a big fan of the big boss man . .. then stopped watching for various reasons. Got back into wrestling in the late nineties, Smackdown was on at 10am on a saturday morning, and made for perfect hangover tv. The likes of Mankind, Kane, The Rock, 'Taker got me back into it, along with Edge and Christian's five minute poses.

glenjamin

Got into it in the late 90s/early 00s. Kane was always my favourite. He just looked like such a badass.

Guitar_Monkey

Grew up watching the english wrestling on itv...then when sky came along i got hooked on the WWF. It was pre Wrestlemania 3....so it was largely the build up to that. It was jaw dropping compared to what i'd been used to with Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks. Savage stood out immediately, and quickly became my all time favorite. They all seemed fascinating and larger then life. Hogan, Andre, Jake Roberts...The Harts and Bulldogs...Orndorff. Great times.

jaykhunter

Got into it as a kid in the late 80s so
Hogan,
Savage, Warrior, Perfect, Rude.

Fell out in the early 90s and back in again in late 96 so
Austin - he was leagues ahead of everyone else
Bret, Shawn, Rocky (I absolutely hated him as a face but knew he was talented.) Owen & Bulldog were awesome. Loved Ken Shamrock as well when he came on the scene.

Dave H

Like someone else said, I watched the English wrestling until we got Sky, that was just after summer 1990, about a month or two after Summerslam. Warrior was champion, Texas Tornado was IC champion and the Hart Foundation were tag champs. It was around the build up to the Survivor Series, the one where the survivors went on to have a heel survivor vs face survivor match. If memory serves it was Tito Santana, Warrior & Hulk Hogan vs Ted Dibiase, Rick Martel, The Warlord and Power & Glory with Hogan & the Warrior surviving. Also the debut of the Undertaker.
Notable fueds around that time were:
Jake Roberts and Rick Martel,
Hulk Hogan and Earthquake,
Dusty Rhodes and Ted Dibiase,
Mr Perfect and Texas Tornado ( although it was more about Perfect regaining the IC title, they weren't at pure loggerheads with each other),
Randy Savage stalking/terrorising the Warrior,
Legion of Doom and Demolition,
to name a few.
And even as a 10 year old kid, regardless of Mr Perfect being a heel, I f'n loved him then and he remained one of my favourites of all time.

newballsplease

Not sure when but remember watching on sky 1 or sky sports, macho man,lex luger, bret hart, doink, million dollar man, papa shango, razor, crush, perfect, yokozuna ! Headshrinkers were my fav tag team-Those were the days!

sockmo

Think i started watching at 6 years old around the time of wrestlemania 7..Ultimate warrior was my favourite as a kid! though i didnt realise at the time how bat**** crazy he actually was!

robvondoom

Liked it as a kid but never had access to any of the shows as my family didn't have Sky. I remember watching the Universal lot show that WCW had showing Saturday afternoons on ITV in the mid 90's so I got to see a bit of Vader, Cactus and the like. At that time I was 12 and all I can really remember is digging 2 Cold and Bagwell and absolutely despising the Hollywood Blondes. (How things change eh?) I remeber renting Wrestlemania VI I believe it was. The one with Slaughter Vs Hogan in the main event. Yeah that put me off for a while.

Finally in 2000 I got to watch the Rumble on Channel 4. Cactus Vs HHH blew my mind completely and I started buying up videos. Mick, Jericho and the Rock were my favourites pretty much in that order at the time.

chopperbyrne

robvondoom wrote: »

The one with Slaughter Vs Hogan in the main event. Yeah that put me off for a while.

Possibly my favourite ever match. Both Hogan and Slaughter were amazing that night.

What didn't you like about it?

krudler

started watching around 86 or so, for me Jake Roberts was the man, I'm pretty sure he was a heel at the time but there was just something about the guy. It wasnt just the snake it was his demeanor, his promos, his ring attire, everything was so fcuking cool.

krudler

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Possibly my favourite ever match. Both Hogan and Slaughter were amazing that night.

What didn't you like about it?

It was a terrible angle exploiting a real war that was going on at the time for cheap heat?

robvondoom

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Possibly my favourite ever match. Both Hogan and Slaughter were amazing that night.

What didn't you like about it?

Well to be fair to the lads, as a child I thought Hulk was legitimately being destroyed. But when Hulk came back it just seemed silly. Just not my kind of match I reckon and at the time there were better cards to have picked up instead.

jaykhunter

krudler wrote: »

It was a terrible angle exploiting a real war that was going on at the time for cheap heat?

I didn't like it as a kid but not for that, i was more annoyed Hogan was still on top but I loved Macho and Warrior as well and felt bad for them. Plus not being American i felt a bit left out of this patriotism schtick. I only found out a few years ago that WM7 did such bad business/people en masse hated the exploitative angle that they had to move to a much smaller arena (16k) as ticket sales for the original stadium across the road (~70k) were REALLY slow.

Charisteas

jaykhunter wrote: »

I only found out a few years ago that WM7 did such bad business/people en masse hated the exploitative angle that they had to move to a much smaller arena (16k) as ticket sales for the original stadium across the road (~70k) were REALLY slow.

Didn't they say they changed the venue because of threats to Sgt Slaughters wife? So a wrestlers wife is being threatened, better move the show across the road

The LA Memorial Coliseum can hold 93,607 (for Football) so maybe the initial plan was to beat the Wrestlemania 3 attendance.

Special Agent Oso

sockmo wrote: »

Think i started watching at 6 years old around the time of wrestlemania 7..Ultimate warrior was my favourite as a kid! though i didnt realise at the time how bat**** crazy he actually was!

Loved that. What the jesus was going on inside that man's mind :pac:

Special Agent Oso

When it all started for me anyway, i actually even remeber some of it as well.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8QigrgkWWQ

smallerthanyou

My very first exposure to wrestling was as maybe an 7 or 8 year old (1993 ish) and our neighbours used to rent tapes of ppvs in no particular order. So we'd be watching WM 92 followed by Royal Rumble 93. We'd have no idea of the story lines and the era was populated by luminaries like Papa Shango, Ted DiBiase, Irwin R Shyster, Doink, Undertaker, Paul Bearer etc. Don't remember having a favourite who particularly stood out.

Then got back into it in about 1998 when we got sky for the first time. From then it was all about Stone Cold, Undertaker, Y2J and ManKind. Loved the Hardy Boys too. Then fell out of it again.

Now third time I'm back again since the start of the year and this time I don't really have any stand out favourites or see any stand out wrestlers so that may be a bit of reflection of product offered.

Eire-Dearg

I was another early 2000s kid but those who stood out for me personally were the Hardyz, Dudley Boys etc. I absolutely adored the tag team division in general and some of those crazy matches.

In single terms I was a Kane guy, The Rock of course when he bothered to appear. Was a massive Rey Mysterio fanboy when he first started out.

QikBax

Around 93/93.

I briefly thought Lex Luger was the greatest man in the world

The Rockers were my men though. Was devastated when Michaels threw Jannety through the Barbershop window

DM_7

Hogan, Warrior, Legion of Doom, Undertaker, Perfect, Macho Man, British Bulldog, Bret Hart, The Mountie, Rick Martel, Ted Di Biase, Jake The Snake all spring to mind.

So around 1990/91.

I loved the colours and characters back then.

Bounty Hunter

I dont really remember not being into the PW, but didnt watch regularily until around 98/99. the wrestler who stood out for me was easily The Undertaker. That Gimmick for me defines Pro Wrestling for me in a lot of ways and although it isnt what I would have picked to be my most important match (as its not like its technical wrestling or anything) him vs Mankind HIAC at KOTR 98 is what id say got me fully hooked. I guess it ran home the idea that the WWF pushed a lot, that anything can happen in the WWF. Mostly cos I was so much younger I'd assume but it truely did have much more of an unmissable feel to it back then

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Ah, back in the hazy days of Randy Savage v Hulk Hogan and the Hart Foundation v The British Bulldogs. ITV showed it one Saturday afternoon in place of their ususal British wrestling show and Sky (still just Sky at the time) picked it up soon after. Wrestlemania 3, a few months later, free to air .

krudler

Charisteas wrote: »

Didn't they say they changed the venue because of threats to Sgt Slaughters wife? So a wrestlers wife is being threatened, better move the show across the road

The LA Memorial Coliseum can hold 93,607 (for Football) so maybe the initial plan was to beat the Wrestlemania 3 attendance.

I think that was a cover story for the poor ticket sales, probably has some truth to it though. that ppv was stolen by Savage/Warrior anyway, much better match than the main event.

gerrybbadd

I started watching about 1988, and then stopped when our local TV provider stopped showing Sky. We got Sky in then properly around Wrestlemania 11.

My favourites were Taker, HBK, Sunny, Bret, Kane, The Rock, Stone Cold & Jericho

Andy_rse

First time I saw it was when a friend showed me a tape of Wrestlemania 5,

It must have been a year or 2 after the even because I'm the same age as wrestlemania and doubt I would've been into it at 5, he just showed me the Bushwhackers match and I've been hooked since. (*interesting note: Last Christmas was the first year I didn't receive a wrestling related gift since I got into it, normal tradition was resumed this year though with the Randy Orton dvd!)

I don't even know what it was about the Bushwhackers that I liked, must have just thought they were funny, and the rest is history as they say.

Bret Hart was my hero growing up. I was never a really a Hogan guy for some reason, Warrior always appealed to me more!

I used to get my Aunties next door neighbour to tape all the shows for me, he must have hated me but he was the only one I knew with sky until we got it in 95. And I remember all my punishments as a kid always involved not being allowed to watch wrestling. Never really getting grounded, just no wrestling. Back with no internet and very few people with sky, that sucked! Kids these days got it easy!

I was having a similar conversation with a friend about how we realised it was all a work and I couldn't pin point a moment exactly, I was young so I probably took it as being real without even really thinking about it and I must have just figured it out over time, then obviously as the Internet became more prominent that's when you get all the information. I definitely have more respect for the wrestlers now that I know how it all works and knowing the sacrifices they make.

GTR63

No love for The Godfather, Tiger Ali Singh. Al Snow, Steve Blackman, Marc Mero, Val Venis, Droz, D-lo Brown, The Outlaws, The Headbangers, Kaentai, The Oddities or any other random attitudinal gimmick that somehow were memorable?
One thing that stood out early on was when Val Venis nearly had his tadger chopped off by Kaentai.

Charisteas

GTR63 wrote: »

No love for The Godfather, Tiger Ali Singh. Al Snow, Steve Blackman, Marc Mero, Val Venis, Droz, D-lo Brown, The Outlaws, The Headbangers, Kaentai, The Oddities or any other random attitudinal gimmick that somehow were memorable?

Pretty much everyone in the Attitude Era was memorable. I wonder in 10 years time, who is going to remember half of the current mid-cards or lower-cards?

D.Q

Charisteas wrote: »

Pretty much everyone in the Attitude Era was memorable. I wonder in 10 years time, who is going to remember half of the current mid-cards or lower-cards?

jesus man, I don't remember them NOW.

ciano316

This is an easy one for anyone my age..

Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Sargent Slaughter, Ted Dibiase, Texas Tornado, Bret Hart, Demolition, Legion Of Doom..

I could be here a while haha..

It has to be Hogan and Ultimate Warrior.. They were larger than life people and Hogan's star power and Warrior's energy.. They were the ones.

RosyLily

I got into wrestling about 95/96. Randomly turned onto it one Saturday morning and I was hooked.
Bret Hart was the be all and end all for me! He could do no wrong in my wee 6 year old eyes. I met him when he was in Eason's signing his book a few years ago; literally tongue-tied, barely squeaked out hi.

Another one would be The Undertaker. Scared the bejaysus outta me. Memories of my little brother running into the kitchen every time Paul Bearer appeared/spoke.:D Thought Taker was so cool and exciting to watch.

Others would be Stone Cold (Da's favourite), The Rock, HBK, Alundra Blayze, Razor, Doink (f'in hate clowns!!), The Dumpster, Trish.

Ah, good times!:)

cena

It would be late 80's early 90's, Hogan and the rest where big than. Boss man was my favourite at the time cause I wanted to be a police man. Only seen it than when we where in liverpool at my nans for the summer holidays. She was big into the bulldog.

Got back into it in 99. Austin, rock two of my favourite of all time. My mother loved linda and the apa guys. She liked watching back than with me

Special Agent Oso

Papa Shango scared the absolute sh#te out of me back in the day, i was that young i didn't realise it was the same fella when he later returned as Kama - the supreme fighting machine but when the Godfather came along i had found out it was all scripted and i felt soooo embarrassed for ever being scared of that lad