Crest Fall

Ever since I can remember, really. Probably the first memory that I can remember is a Bret Hart/Diesel match, but I'd been watching long before that. Went to events at the Richmond Colosseum until it was torn down and watched WWF Superstars at my grandma's house because we didn't get RAW until a year later or so. I'm ashamed to admit that I became a fan of Shawn Michaels, and even bought his stupid red gloves when Summerslam came to Cleveland, but the appeal didn't last long as I came to find him as a complete jackass. Was a Bret Hart fan from then on, though I'd always respected Bret and was a huge fan of his anyway.

Uhh anyway, I probably found out that wrestling was fake when I was five, which are the oldest wrestling memories in my brain, so my parents let me in on it early on so I wouldn't be trying that shit at home. Of course, I did it anyway, powerbombing the shit out of pillows and stuffed animals nearly everyday. I also went on the Wrestle Vessel '97, which was a cruise vacation where all the wrestlers were on board for autographs and whatnot. As I grew older, I still watched but I lost A LOT of respect for wrestling as a whole after the Montreal Screw Job. Wrestling's never been the same since that day, but I've kept watching regardless. It's just not as fun anymore, I guess. Anyway, I was excited that Bret was going to WCW, but I should have known that they'd mess it up. I watched Nitro, but even when I was seven or eight I thought their booking was retarded.

I'd known about ECW, but had no way of watching it. Plus, I was very disgusted by blood so I wasn't too interested in watching it. I remember I would collect so many magazines and see their advertisements with blood GUSHING out of Tommy Dreamer's head and always quickly turn the page and whatnot. Like the Montreal Screw Job, Owen Hart's death really messed me up for a while but I kept on watching.

I wasn't a fan of the Attitude Era. I dunno, I guess I just didn't see the appeal of DX doing dick jokes or Goldust wearing S&M outfits. WCW was going way downhill and whenever Bret was used, it was usually in stupid situations. I do remember one of my favorite Bret Hart WCW moments was when he knocked out Goldberg with the plate on his ribs. I fucking hated Goldberg. So yeah, I didn't care for wrestling much back in 1998 and 1999, especially when they would do those stupid boxing tournaments. If it weren't for guys like Austin, Jericho, Benoit, Malenko, Guerrero, and some other guys, I imagine I probably would have lost interest. The only thing that kept me going was Austin and the great undercard wrestling featured on WCW (and Bret Hart, when he was actually used properly).

Fast forward and I stopped watching in 2003 and 2004 because it was fucking boring. I started watching again either at the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005. 2005 was the year I really started to get acquainted with the internet and computers, and got into some e-fedding with a friend I'd met. He was RP'ing as this dude I'd never heard of called CM Punk, but he sounded awesome and I loved the promos my friend showed me. Still, I had no access to Indy wrestling and was unsure of the quality of the shows. I'd been to crappy Indy shows in Ohio and they weren't very fun, so I figured all Indy promotions were like that. I was more interested in what we were doing on our little Invision Free boards than what was going on in WWE. I found out about this decent little promotion called TNA on Fox Sports Network which had the oddest time slot. I remember seeing my first glimpse of TNA on the last day of school in either 7th or 8th grade. Really flippy and loud. Thought it was okay, but it had potential to be really good. Saw Samoa Joe for the first time and laughed my ass off at his name and whatnot, but when the match was over I was hooked and instantly became a fan of his and the promotion, though TNA has fallen A LOT since they've gotten on TV. Nowadays I watch TNA for comedy relief.

In 2005 they did that whole Matt/Lita/Edge thing, and truth be told, I got behind it. I'm not sure if it was because they were blurring the line or because I loved heel Edge and slutty Lita, but I got into it. Then I heard Matt was leaving to do shows in Ring of Honor. So I searched on YouTube for ROH and found a video YouTube neglected to take down in Samoa Joe vs Kenta Kobashi, the match that changed my professional wrestling experience. Look, I get it. In retrospect, the match is seriously overrated and has some of the most annoying fans in the world, but at the time it wasn't anything I'd ever seen. And it WASN'T just because they were hitting each other superhard. At the beginning, I became instantly spoiled after seeing a KENTA/Marufuji match, and just started trolling WWE and TNA fans with what they were missing, but as years have gone by I've been able to accept the product of WWE (not so much TNA) and enjoy it for the most part. Outside a couple promotions, the Indies are dead. Puroresu has taken a big hit because of the death of Mitsuharu Misawa and the economy. I still watch wrestling and I still LIKE wrestling, I just don't LOVE it like I used to only a few years ago.

I went on waaaay longer than I thought I would.

__________________

Kayla

I was three years old when I started watching it. My mom and my uncle were huge fans of WWF and WCW, so I sat down and watched an episode of WWF with them. I can't say that I remember a whole lot from then, but if I go and watch a video on youtube, I'll remember it happening, just not fully remembering it. Like, it refreshes my memory.

I watched religiously for 10 years. I never missed an episode, if I knew I was going to miss one, I'd tape it. [Until I started going on the internet] I actually remember one time, I accidentally fell asleep before Smackdown! came on and I woke up pissed off because I had missed it and my mom had to tell me what happened. I was a big fan of Triple H, Chris Jericho, The Undertaker and Mick Foley. For some reason, I was the only kid at school that just didn't like The Rock. I just...I didn't like him.

Then in early 2007, I started getting bored with it. I guess it was because I had just turned 13 and had other things in mind. (Like Myspace, ha.) Then, late last year, I went on youtube and saw a "Video recomended for you" and it was Kane vs. Taker at WM20. Memories were brought back and I ended up watching RAW the next day.

__________________

TheBoogeyMan

I started watching wrestling when i was about 7. My grandma had given me a tape of Wrestlemania 5. Obviously like most new wrestling fans, Hulk Hogan was my favorite. I soon started watching wrestling regualrly on Monday nights, bouncing between Nitro and Raw during commerical breaks. I was actually more of a fan of WCW at the time. While watching WCW i became facisinated with Lucha Libre style mostly due to guys like Rey Mysterio, Pyschosis, Juventud, and Ultimo Dragon.

A fews years later, probably when i was 11 or 12, i discovered ECW on TNN. This was kind of the start of my facisination with Hardcore wrestling.

Well two years later when WCW and ECW were brought into the WWE name, i was still watching wrestling regularly, and tried to catch as many wrestlemanias as i could. Around 2004, i began getting into Japanese wrestling, mostly FMW and New Japan at the time. I still had a great intrest in high flyers so guys like Hayabusa, Liger, and Sasuke took my interest.

I watched a bit of hardcore here and there but nothing to bad. That is until i discovered CZW three years ago. I really dont know why i took such a big interest in it, but i just kept watching. I soon began watch more and more deathmatch wrestling from CZW, IWA, and BJW.

Today, i still have a big interest in Indy wrestling, but mainstream not so much. I might watch the occasional Impact or Raw if im not doing any thing. I still read PPV results when i can.

Y 2 Jake

I've been watching since the late 80's, although I don't remember much until the early 90's. I've watched continuously since. But if I'm honest I don't really pay attention to that much wrestling. I often have it on in the background when I'm reading or doing something else.

My favorite era is easily 1992-1997, WWF. A lot of people switched off around that time. I probably prefer it because it's the least talked about on forums. I find that people overrate a lot of aspects of wrestling. Certainly the Attitude Era. It just makes me come to the conclusion that it wasn't nowhere near as good as people make it out to be.

__________________

horrorfan_1986

I can't remember a time when I was not watching wrestling. My earliest memory was the 1991 Royal Rumble with Hulk Hogan and Earthquake battling it out at the end. However, I was already a major fan at that point, so I imagine I had started watching a few years prior. Being so young at the time, (At the time of the 1991 Rumble, I was four and a half) it wouldn't be surprising for me not to remember much from before then.

In those early years, I was mainly watching the Wrestling Challenge and especially Superstars. The WWE definitely appealed more to children at that time by having plenty of shows at a reasonable hour for the younger fans. For every birthday or Christmas, I would receive a few of the old Hasbro action figures. Other merchandise included a Hulk Hogan wrestling buddy, WWF bedsheets, a Hulk Hogan robe and slippers which I wore when I had to have my tonsils taken out, and the trading cards that came with the WWF Ice Cream Bars. With Coliseum Home Video putting out a new tape every few weeks, I was always renting tapes from the local video rental place. With the home videos dating back to 1985 or so, that gave me a few extra years of knowledge. At that time, I was all about Hulk Hogan, Tugboat, The Big Boss Man and the Bushwackers.

While I was primarily a WWF viewer, I did occasionally watch WCW. With the company not being as gimmicky as the WWF, I didn't get as into it though. For the most part, my favorite wrestlers were Sting and Arn Anderson. Looking back, I suppose liking Arn Anderson was the first sign that I would prefer work rate later on in life. I had almost all of the action figures that was released in 1990 or so. However, even then I realized how poorly WCW was at marketing. The figures were these hard plastic figures that were stuck in one position. The only other company that existed for me was the AWA. One Christmas, I received two old AWA Home Videos of the Road Warriors and the best of the Tag Teams. I had already known of the Road Warriors for their time in the WWE, but other than that I wasn't too interested in them.

As the years went on, I started watching more with the WWE adding more shows such as The Action Zone, Mania and of course Monday Night Raw. Raw was like nothing I had seen up to that point. It was edgy and had a theme music that caused me to be glued to the screen. It was around this time that Hogan came to WCW and brought a lot more publicity for the company. I started watching a lot more and was enjoying seeing a lot of old WWE guys again. Years later, I cringe when I look back at this time frame for the company.

The years continued to go by slowly. Scott Hall made a special appearance on Nitro and proclaimed that a war was about to begin. Hogan turned heel and a whole new order made WCW the biggest company in the world. Meanwhile, the WWE went from being very gimmicky and child friendly to much more adult nature. As for me, I continued to rent tapes and started buying PWI and their sister publications a lot more. It was this time that I started hearing about another company that was supposed to be so much more extreme than WCW and WWF. Watching my first ECW PPV through the scrambled PPV channel (As I did with most PPV's), I was shocked about how much they got away with especially when it came to language. Once ECW on TNN debuted, I was hooked on the company. Things had became a little too stagnant in the two big companies and ECW was there to keep my interest.
More time passes and both WCW and ECW goes under. I finally ordered my first PPV (Previously, the PPV's I got were ordered by others who taped it for me and sent me the recording) to see Hulk Hogan return to Wrestlemania and face The Rock. Soon afterward, I read results from the first show of a new promotion, NWA-TNA. Six months or so later, I bought my first TNA PPV to once again have that feeling that ECW gave me four years before. 2003 turned out to be the year that I finally started being burned out by wrestling. Raw was unbearable to watch and Smackdown just wasn't as good as it was the year before. By the end of the year, we lost our cable. Losing the cable caused me for the first time in my life to not watch wrestling on a weekly basis. The only new wrestling I was able to see was by buying Royal Rumble and No Way Out 2004. By time we got cable back right before Wrestlemania 20, it was as if Raw was a totally different show. I loved it.

A year later, I owned several TNA DVD's and I began reading about a new company called Ring of Honor. Although it had been around for a few years, hearing that CM Punk (A guy I enjoyed on the 2 hour TNA PPV's) had feuded with Ricky Steamboat the previous year made me take notice of the company. Once I got to college in the fall, I downloaded my first ROH match. Just as ECW and TNA had done, I fell in love with wrestling again. It would take another year before I bought my first ROH DVD. Since then, my interest in WWE and TNA has continued to diminish while my enjoyment in the indies has increased.

Realizing that I've been a fan for roughly two full decades, I'm shocked. I can remember being a kid and not knowing whether I would still be a fan by time the next Wrestlemania came along. While companies has disappointed me and my interest has went down, there's always been another company to keep me interested in wrestling. I suppose not taking any breaks from watching wrestling in twenty years (Even when I lost cable, I still watched my old wrestling tapes), I can only assume I will never stop.

As much as I enjoy work rate more than anything else, I still smile at the thought of the Bushwackers doing the Bushwacker strut down to the ring. No matter how smarkish I have become, I remain virtually the same kind of fan. I like who I like and I hate who I hate. At times I'm still a mark watching moments that reminds me of being amazed at Hulk Hogan for being able to lift and throw Earthquake out of the Royal Rumble all of those years ago.

__________________