What lead you to becoming a wrestling fan?

[Zeeboe]

I became a wrestling fan when I was a child and I think what initially attracted to me professional wrestling was the violence and the machismo. (I think most little boys in general are just naturally intrigued by violence and machismo.) I also was fascinated with the characters in wrestling. Wrestlers back when I was growing up were very cartoonish in nature and wrestling essentially was like a live-action comic book that had very over-the-top characters along with a theme of "good vs. evil" in the wrestling matches so it was all very appealing and the type of thing I believe most little boys would be interested in.

[Doc Brown]

My grandad took me to the matches at Maple Leaf Gardens when I was very very young. He passed away in 1991, and since then I've just sort of kept going with it as a way of remembering him.

[Corporate CockSnogger]

First watched with my Grandad in like 94 or 95 or something and enjoyed it, and he bought be a bunch of the action figures as well. Didn't stick with it though, started watching again in like 97 or 98 when everyone in school was talking about it, watched up until around 01 or 02 and then just sort of stopped following it.

Started reading results and watching a bit whenever it was JBL first became champion because I decided to check who the main guys were at that point and was like "lol what Bradshaw and Eddie Guerrero?" and I got a bit curious how that came about. Been mostly reading results and watching the odd bits and pieces since that point. Check out most PPV's.

[CSL]

Hulkamania Forever on VHS, Christmas 1991

[steveweiser]

First for me was sitting in front of the Tv watching Summerslam 1992, Shawn Michaels Vs. Rick Martel. Been obsessed ever since, not sure what exactly what made me go OMG but just i suppose got the "bug"

[Heyman]

I was always a very casual fan thanks to Hogan/Andre, Savage/Warrior, and Owen/Bret/Lawler, but I became a major fan in 1997 during the Hart Foundation/Austin feud....along with the birth of DX and the Attitude era.

Wrestling was my favorite thing between 1998 and 2005.

[Razzamajazz]

the wcw vs nwo video game for n64 got me curios, and the first nitro i remember seeing was the one with jericho doing the conspiracy victim in washington dc thing which got it started

[Rhaps]

Shawn Michaels throws Marty Jannety through the barbershop window. Caught it by accident on TV. Back then both guys looked like the coolest f'n blokes on the planet and I had to see more. So I did, 20 years later, I'm still here.

[GD]

I was captivated by the Undertaker while channel surfing. My earliest memories of wrestling are of Undertaker feuding with Yokozuna. I absolutely loved Bret Hart.

[Joesgonnakillyou]

Wrestling was MASSIVE in the UK in the early nineties (see Summerslam 92). I just like it because I was 8 years old and Hulk Hogan was cool. Stopped watching in 1994 but my friend's carried on watching then in 1998 i heard about this guy called The Rock, started watching and haven't looked back!

[The MAC]

big muscular guys who shave their chests, wear tights and roll around with other guys....whats not to like :shifty:

[Mike the Metal Ed]

Everyone watched Raw when I got to secondary school, after a few weeks and the 1999 Royal Rumble I was hooked.

[Stickman]

Hogan, Savage, Andre.

[Zeeboe]

I became a fan in 1990 during the Hulk Hogan/Earthquake feud. I was already slightly familiar with it because I had wrestling toys, played the video games, and had wrestling stickers, but I remember it was the summer of 1990 that I remember watching wrestling regularly. My Mom also took me to the local video store all the time and she'd let me rent several Coliseum Home Video VHS wrestling tapes and I'd spend hours watching those. I was a huge WWE fan from 1990-2003.

[Emperor Smeat]

No actual specific moment or match but mostly watching wrestling at my grandparents house after every Sunday morning CCD class. Was a big Hogan fan as a kid but I think I liked the Bushwhackers the most overall.

Probably started watching somewhere between 1989 and 1992.

[jerichoholicninja]

I turned on Thunder one night because I was curious what it was. It was the middle of the match between Dean Melanko and the masked Chris Jericho who turned out to be Lenny Lane. I was a fan from then on. The first WWF show I watched was the Sunday Night Heat before SummerSlam '98. It was the Austin/Undertaker feud that began my transformation from a WCW guy to an WWF guy.

[DLVH84]

I was living in Germany at the time. It was around 1988, and saw Otto Wanz' CWA promotion live. And from there, I was hooked. I wanted to see and learn about the sport even more. Different styles, different countries, etc. Been a fan for almost 25 years and seen many ups and downs.

[Pintint]

I was like 12 at the time, parents went out and I was bored. Turned the TV on and wrestling was on. I was like, "lol this is the fake fighting stuff?" but started watching and got hooked. I knew other kids in school were watching it, but I was all like, "lol fake fighting is boring" and then I discovered that I was wrong.

Been watching ever since...

[Rammsteinmad]

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/WWF-WRESTLING-STICKER-ALBUM-MERLIN-1993-SAMMELALBUM-KOMPLETT-SELTEN-/00/s/ODAwWDYzMw==/$(KGrHqZ,!p4E-72G187jBPyGZYs!Jg~~60_35.JPG

I had a coupon from the newspaper to get this sticker album for free. Started collecting them as I was only five or six at the time, and this was around the time when Raw debuted on television, so just kinda got into it all then. Been watching ever since.

Still have the sticker album somewhere, never managed to complete it though. :(

[CSL]

yesss, remember that sticker album

Merlin > Panini

[Zeeboe]

I remember during the "Attitude" era, I found myself cheering more for the heels then the babyfaces. Reasons being is because some of the heels at that time were characters who objected to all the violence and sex going on in wrestling and I was against it too so I cheered for those characters who felt the same way that I did about it. I also felt most of the heels were outcasts that were being bullied and mistreated and I was able to relate to them more since that is how I felt during my teenage years, and I was able to vicariously live through some of the characters in wrestling.

I think what also kept me interested in wrestling during that period were the theatrics. Professional wrestling is really a form of theater. Being a Theater Arts nerd, I started noticing the overall theatrical athletics that went on in wrestling and it inspired me. i.e. I'd see these wrestlers doing embarrassing things sometimes all just to entertain the audience, and it made me realize that I should never worry about looking stupid in front of an audience when I'm acting because these wrestlers are doing some pretty embarrassing stuff in front of a lot of people and don't seem to care, so I shouldn't care either whenever I act.

[Pintint]

I remember during the "Attitude" era, I found myself cheering more for the heels then the babyfaces. Reasons being is because some of the heels at that time were characters who objected to all the violence and sex going on in wrestling and I was against it too so I cheered for those characters who felt the same way that I did about it. I also felt most of the heels were outcasts that were being bullied and mistreated and I was able to relate to them more since that is how I felt during my teenage years, and I was able to vicariously live through some of the characters in wrestling.

I think what also kept me interested in wrestling during that period were the theatrics. Professional wrestling is really a form of theater. Being a Theater Arts nerd, I started noticing the overall theatrical athletics that went on in wrestling and it inspired me. i.e. I'd see these wrestlers doing embarrassing things sometimes all just to entertain the audience, and it made me realize that I should never worry about looking stupid in front of an audience when I'm acting because these wrestlers are doing some pretty embarrassing stuff in front of a lot of people and don't seem to care, so I shouldn't care either whenever I act.

I pretty much always cheered for the heels. I don't know why, but heels were almost always more entertaining. I hated The Rock back when he was a big time face and remember cheering for HHH (this was before I started reading about wrestling online, so I took things at face value).

[The Condor]

WWF game for Super Nintendo in the mid-90's, used to play it at my cousins. Before that I was just casual for Jake Roberts, Ultimate Warrior and Savage. The Attitude Era consumed me after that.

[RiX1024]

My mate mentioned WWE Raw to me in July 99 and told me what time was it on and I watched it and got hooked.

[Fox]

My friends were really into WCW in 97. I had my reserves about liking a "fake sport", but I gave it a chance and was immediately gripped by larger than life superstars like Hollywood Hogan, the Outsiders, DDP, Sting and Goldberg. But it was really the smaller guys like Rey Mysterio, Kidman, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit who made me a fan - I loved the excitement and the fast paced style of cruiserweight matches, and they're the ones who had me tuning back in week after week.

[KyleEmmott]

People talking about it in Middle School, and I just had to check out all the hype.

[Nicky Fives]

My uncle rented Summerslam 1996 on VHS and I was hooked right after that......

[dronepool]

Undertaker and Stone Cold made me more interested in it.

[Curd]

I was channel surfing in mid-August 1997 and saw Hollywood Hulkster bragging about how he won the World Title from Lex Luger the prior week, both of whom I recognized from the WCW/nWo World Tour video game. The production crew then replayed the ending of their Nitro match. Hogan's arrogant heel persona and aura of luxury, wealth, and power drew me in!

I wrote down the station, day of the week, and time to make sure I heard every Hogan promo after that. I sampled RAW/Warzone between Hogan appearances and recognized Bret and Owen from their Super Nintendo appearances. I searched the Internet for background information on the other wrestlers and stumbled upon the "dirt sheet" websites, including the original Rajah WWF!

[AKin3D]

Nothing really lead to me being a fan that I can pinpoint. It's always been part of my life. Just like Monday Night Football and The Golden Girls. If it was on I was watching it.

[Road Warrior]

Nothing really lead to me being a fan that I can pinpoint. It's always been part of my life. Just like Monday Night Football and The Golden Girls. If it was on I was watching it.

Same here. Used to spend my summers as a kid at my grandparents house in the country reading PWI magazines and watching the same old collection of wrestling vhs' rented from the local video store. I've probably seen Starrcade 86 & 87, WM 5 and RR 90 a good 50 times each.

[Kane Knight]

Even as a child I liked watching big sweaty men groping each other.

[MoFo]

When THE ROCK got big in 1999 I started taking notice more than football

But before then I still had the games like WWF Attitude but didnt rly care

[Zeeboe]

Today, I don't watch wrestling anymore. It became too repeative for me. Also, the mystery of wrestling is gone. Because of so many wrestler's autobiographies, and because of the MTV show "Tough Enough", I feel so many of the secrets and mystic of wrestling is gone, and the mystery of wrestling was one of the many things I enjoyed about it. I do love wrestler's bios and I was a fan of the first few seasons of "Tough Enough", but the price for enjoying all that stuff was no longer seeing wrestling the way I use to.

Finally, I'm an adult now and almost all the wrestlers are my age and younger so I don't see them the same way I use to see the wrestlers when I was kid. Back in my youth, the wrestlers were (figuratively speaking) ten feet tall, and God-like. i.e. They were old enough to be my Dad, and they were my heroes. Wrestlers today just look like my peers. i.e. The kinds of guys I could have grown up with watching wrestling and I just don't see them as heroic-like because I see them as my equals whereas when I was a kid, I saw wrestlers as my superiors because they were older then me and because I saw them as my superiors I seemed to enjoy the storylines and matches more. When I watch wrestling today, it's hard for me to stay interested for a long period of time. I do however enjoy watching older wrestlers wrestle with each other when that rarely happens such as when Undertaker wrestled Triple H at Wrestlemania earlier this year.


I still am a wrestling fan at heart, and I get my wrestling fix by reading autobiographies of the wrestlers I grew up with, listening to shoot interviews, and watching old matches as well as watching documentaries about the wrestlers I grew up watching.

[Pintint]

Today, I don't watch wrestling anymore. It became too repeative for me. Also, the mystery of wrestling is gone. Because of so many wrestler's autobiographies, and because of the MTV show "Tough Enough", I feel so many of the secrets and mystic of wrestling is gone, and the mystery of wrestling was one of the many things I enjoyed about it. I do love wrestler's bios and I was a fan of the first few seasons of "Tough Enough", but the price for enjoying all that stuff was no longer seeing wrestling the way I use to.

Finally, I'm an adult now and almost all the wrestlers are my age and younger so I don't see them the same way I use to see the wrestlers when I was kid. Back in my youth, the wrestlers were (figuratively speaking) ten feet tall, and God-like. i.e. They were old enough to be my Dad, and they were my heroes. Wrestlers today just look like my peers. i.e. The kinds of guys I could have grown up with watching wrestling and I just don't see them as heroic-like because I see them as my equals whereas when I was a kid, I saw wrestlers as my superiors because they were older then me and because I saw them as my superiors I seemed to enjoy the storylines and matches more. When I watch wrestling today, it's hard for me to stay interested for a long period of time. I do however enjoy watching older wrestlers wrestle with each other when that rarely happens such as when Undertaker wrestled Triple H at Wrestlemania earlier this year.


I still am a wrestling fan at heart, and I get my wrestling fix by reading autobiographies of the wrestlers I grew up with, listening to shoot interviews, and watching old matches as well as watching documentaries about the wrestlers I grew up watching.

So you're saying that even THE RYBACK doesn't spark your interest? :nono:

[Zeeboe]

Who?

[Curd]

Who?

The dude who looks like Goldberg but loves the pro wrestling business more, even if that is partially due to never being in the NFL like Goldberg was! :)