Watching Wrestling Background

PTH2009

Whats your background for watching wrestling ??

When did u start watching, who got you into it , who were your first fav wrestlers etc ??

I started watching wrestling back in 1996/7 when i was about 7 years old, my sister got me into it and my fav wrestlers were Stone Cold and The Undertaker. I used to watch it on Saturday mornings on Sky One and Raw is War on friday night. As the years went by i watched Raw on Thursday nights, Smackdown Friday night/Sat mornings and finally the i watch/tape raw when its not live nowadays. Im 24 now and still love wrestling. My first live show was in Nov 2009 during the Undertaker RIP tour and i have attended many shows in Dublin

Moneymaker

Bret vs Piper, WM8.

Have been hooked ever since.

MitchKoobski

Played WWF Warzone in my cousin's when I was a wee lad.

One week later I was watching Live and Kicking on a Saturday morning and switched the channel over and discovered the game was on the TV but in real life.

Addicted ever since.

SureYWouldntYa

A friend had Smackdown Here Comes the Pain on PS2, was the most amazing thing ever when i was 8

The whole wrestling being on Sky thing meant i never seen it unless i got lucky that it was when at the uncles house, and he used to get the big 4 on sky box office so i got to see those events for around 3 years

Never got watching it properly until late 2006 when we finally got Sky Sports

Hashtag_HEEL

I started watching around 2002-2003 when it was the "Cool thing" at school to watch. I wasn't into it at first but then I started watching and saw Brock VS Rock and all of those fueds and really enjoyed it. Then it was uncool and nobody was to be seen watching it.

I stopped because I didn't want to get slagged. Then I couldn't give a fcuk and came back in around when Eddie and Rey fought for custody of Dominic.

I haven't looked back since. I think what drew me was the larger than life personalities and the spectacle of it all. Also the idea of people beating up other people for revenge was awesome. Especially when you were the kid who was always picked on. You'd assume that life would be that easy.

Around 2005 I got into the internet scene and started watching ROH. This is where my began my love for cool wrestling and not just storylines. It's also where I saw my number one for history. CM Punk.

I hadn't a clue about straight edge or people who didn't drink. All I knew at the time before that was that I didn't want to.
He became a role model.

Wrestling no matter how bad it is, it's always good. I love it!

wilford

Showing my age here but I've been into it since wm3 Hogan v Andre can't even remember what channel it was on back then was it Super channel?

Diabhal Beag

Back in 2005 I was flicking channels and saw Eddie v Rey on a Smackdown at the start of their feud over Rey's son. Was impressed with the highspotsafter years of slagging of a friend for watching it. My interest dwindled a bit until I read a Powerslam mag and my eyes were open to all the mentals (think Ian and Axl Rotten were in an article IIRC) and the bitchy backstage nature of this ridiculous business. Have stopped watching the shows but always kept up with the backstage stuff.

krudler

Whenever Sky started showing it, I caught bits and pieces of it in the mid 80s but once sky one started showing wwf superstars and the ppvs on sky sports was hooked. Stopped watching for most of the new generation stuff around 94ish? started again in mid 97.

Itssoeasy

My first vivid memory of wwe was watching demolition at a friends house and I think it was on sky movies I saw it on. So early 90s so I was seven at the least.

Ape Lincoln

Much like Fergal Devitt, I started watching with my grandfather when I was a kid.

Randy Savage was a favourite. Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels later and then Austin in the teen years.

Lasting early memories are the stuff with Undertaker at the Funeral Parlour in 1991 and the Jake Roberts cobra angle.

montyrebel

i feel old seeing people saying they got into it through the computer games etc.

I started watching it in the 80's, yes thats right the 80's but only because I had older brothers that were into it and needed someone to try out there moves on etc :mad:

and been watching it ever since, and always will do no matter how bad a show it is

Garseys

Iirc I was in a cousins house who was watching Smackdown in like summer 2000. I got hooked and stopped following briefly between 2005-2007 but after that been keeping up to date since.

Penn

Watched a bit of WCW when it was on ITV in the early 90's (I may be wrong about all of that but I definitely remember some wrestling on a British station around that time). Only properly watched when WWF Sunday Night Heat and some PPVs were on Channel 4 during 2000-2001. 15 years old at the time so it was perfect timing for me.

Grand Moff Tarkin

wilford wrote: »

Showing my age here but I've been into it since wm3 Hogan v Andre can't even remember what channel it was on back then was it Super channel?

The old Sky Channel which became Sky 1 back in the day and also WM3 as well for me. Macho Man v Ricky the Dragon and the build up to that match was fantastic.

beakerjoe

Late 80's or so I came across Summerslam 88 and it blew my mind. I was only 4 but I was hooked ever since then.

The characters, though awful and cheesy in retrospect, drew me in and it was all real to me dammit!. Id soon rent every WWF video out of the local Multivision video shop on Townsend St and watch intently before watching Wrestling Challenge and Superstars religiously.

Some great memories and I look back at most of it fondly.

sixfingered

Good thread idea.

I started watching sometime in 1990/1991, early memories are of Earthquake squishing Hulk, Flair's blurred title, 'Taker locking folks in caskets etc. The whole of 1992 is my biggest nostalgia kick - classic Rumble, WM8 and SummerSlam at Wembley. We were spoiled. Also watched the Saturday afternoon WCWs on ITV then too.

Stuck with it through the downturn in 93-97 cos I was a huge Hitman fan, loved it through the attidude era - Friday night Raw, then a couple of years later Saturday morning Smackdowns.

Interest died out in 2003 and I spent more time watching DVD sets, SilverVision tagged classics more than the actual current stuff. I just kept up for the Rumble-Mania period most years and watched a couple of shows if it was convenient while mainly "watching" via news sites.

Interest returned in earnest around 2010.

Concannon7

Around Survivor Series 93. First PPV to watch was the 94 Royal Rumble. Guys like The Undertaker, Doink the Clown, Shawn Michaels. Such great characters got me interested. Stopped watching just before the attitude era as I felt I grew out of it but I always played the games and started back watching again properly from Wrestlemania 16.

Ape Lincoln

wilford wrote: »

Showing my age here but I've been into it since wm3 Hogan v Andre can't even remember what channel it was on back then was it Super channel?

I didn't know this. The Super channel was the precurrsor to that latw-night NBC channel on Cablelink wasn't it?

Did Super channel show WWF programming weekly? I assume Wrestlemania 3 was not live. Afaik Mania 6 was the first live one on the Movie Channel.

Grand Moff Tarkin

Ape Lincoln wrote: »

I didn't know this. The Super channel was the precurrsor to that latw-night NBC channel on Cablelink wasn't it?

Did Super channel show WWF programming weekly? I assume Wrestlemania 3 was not live. Afaik Mania 6 was the first live one on the Movie Channel.

WM3 was free to air on the old sky channel.

beakerjoe

The most wrestling related stuff on super channel was the Saturday Night Main Event theme on the fashion show, I thought everything was on SKY

Blue_Dabadee

It was some time around late 2000 that i started watching WWE. I would watch Smackdown on Sky 1, would go to a friends house to watch RAW every now and again.

I didn't really follow the product that much from 2004-2006, started watching WWE again around 2007 when Youtube became a popular site to watch videos online.

I also started watching TNA in 2008.

Agent Coulson

Ape Lincoln wrote: »

I didn't know this. The Super channel was the precurrsor to that latw-night NBC channel on Cablelink wasn't it?

Did Super channel show WWF programming weekly? I assume Wrestlemania 3 was not live. Afaik Mania 6 was the first live one on the Movie Channel.

Wrestlemania 3 was shown live I remember sitting up to watch Roddy Pipers retirement match lol when I still believed it would be last match ever

It wasn't about Hogan or Andre for me. It was Pipers retirement match and Savage and Steamboat.

Ruu

Penn wrote: »

Watched a bit of WCW when it was on ITV in the early 90's (I may be wrong about all of that but I definitely remember some wrestling on a British station around that time). Only properly watched when WWF Sunday Night Heat and some PPVs were on Channel 4 during 2000-2001. 15 years old at the time so it was perfect timing for me.

More or less the same as me self. Every Saturday afternoon. We got Sky but only had the basics so when Cartoon Network closed for the evening, TNT came on with WCW Monday Nitro.

krudler

I remember being in America with my family in late 97, it was around the time of Starrcade, it might have actually been the night after now I think of it cos Nitro had a segment about Bret counting too fast or something, and I remember flicking between Nitro and Raw on the hotel tv not being able to decide which to watch. I could totally see the US fan's predicament in that regard long before internet streaming.

diusmr8a504cvk

I'm 16 years of age. I grew up on WWF tapes that my brother had. Some of my earliest memories are watching St. Valentine's Day Massacre and 1999 King of The Ring. Matches like Rock and Taker at the King of The Ring, Rock and Mankind are ones that instantly think of. Watching Wrestlemania 19 on tape is another vivid memory. Never had sky so I couldn't watch it all the time but I watched DVDs and documentaries throughout the years. From 07-12 I stopped watching and lost interest. Then I saw the trailer for WWE'13 and got more interested, then The rock came back who is my hero and I've been interested ever since. #PushZiggler

Reebrock

I started watching in 1991 via video rentals from Blockbusters (they had all of the Wrestlemania's up to that point and various other tapes). I started collecting toys that same year.

The memory gets a bit fuzzy because the first card I remember watching was Summerslam 92. A family member would tape the TV events leading up to that, so I was fully aware of the build. I've been watching consistently (in the linear sense) since then. But I can't pin point when exactly I started getting the tapes to watch.

LeeJM

First event I remember being excited about was SummerSlam 92 and bugging my Dad to bring me to my uncles so I could watch it there. But I have been told that from the age of 4 I would be sat cross legged in front of the tv watching wrestling. So that would have been 1990 and I do remember being a kid seeing Earthquake kill Hulk, Shawn put Marty through the window, Undertaker putting jabroni's in bodybags, Ultimate Warrior dripping ooze from his head.

Favourites that hooked me as a kid were Hulk, Warrior, Undertaker, LoD and always enjoyed seeing the Brooklyn Brawler cos you knew even as a kid he wasnt getting a win.

Ridley

There used to be these things called VHSes, right? Which had, like, one movie downloaded onto them. Anyway, there were places where you could rent those but they started doing the same with video games.

After playing what I wanted, I got to the point where I just borrowed any game that wasn't foottheball (eventually reducing my choice to being between ISS 64, I think, or Thomas the Tank Engine for the SNES) so in the process of that I acquired WCW vs nWo: World Tour which I enjoyed.

If I'm remembering correctly, I saw the review for WCW/nWo Revenge in the Official Nintendo Magazine. A magazine being like a website but the pages are on paper and binded together.

Owning Revenge piqued an interest in seeing what the shows were - though I had been burned before when sports were nothing like they were in Bedknobs and Broomsticks or Asterix etc.

Now, I had a thing called cable which allowed me to watch WCW (remember that?) on a television which made me made aware of Capital Carnage so I ordered that on a telephone connected to a wire which was the style at the time.

That had been so emotional, No Mercy UK followed after that and in the lead-up to having access to Sky Sports I saw Fully Loaded at a buddy's and was being loaned a video with Raw "taped" on it. Between that I was watching Livewire on which I saw Jericho's debut and remembered him as the guy who hung out with Ralphus, had an awesome taunt in the games and wasn't Kevin Nash.

Got weekly access to WWE before Summerslam 99, soon gave up on WCW and been watching ever since. Except when the Great Khali won the WHC during Batista's billion title shots and I just had to say no to Smackdown for a little while.