20 years of wrestling

20 Years of Wrestling. How it all began

I first became a wrestling fan 20 years ago this month. Hard to believe that it has been so long. I’ve seen much in the industry over the years and I thought I would write about how I became a fan 20 years ago when I was 9. It all began when my cousins started watching it and my mom had gotten them both the old red WCW talking belt. I was really into that and wanted one too and my parents got me one a short while later. How I really got into wrestling started on Thanksgiving 1991 (which was the day after the Survivor Series). My cousins had brought a book they had gotten for me that had the top stars at the time. They also brought their collection of the old Hasbro figures and I really fell in love those right away! Those were the best figures that I ever saw by far.

Afterwards I had gotten into wrestling immediately. I would watch the Superstars and Wrestling Challenge shows every weekend and always enjoyed them. I also remember the first big event I saw and that was the 1992 Royal Rumble. I remember watching that show and of course being only 9 I was a Hulkamaniac and was hoping he would win. When he was eliminated and Ric Flair won it all to become WWF Champion I was so devastated. Then came WrestleMania 8, which was the first WrestleMania I saw. I remember the Randy Savage-Ric Flair match for the WWF Title and cheering for the Macho Man. When he won the Title I was so happy and I also felt very relieved that he won. I used to worry like crazy all the time when a favorite would have a big match. I had watched many shows as the years went on, from Superstars and Challenge to Saturday Night’s Main Event, to Raw (I actually first started watching Raw regularly in 1996 because I didn’t have cable before then) to the Pay Per View Events (which a friend of my dad’s would tape for me and I would watch a few days later).

My grandfather was also a wrestling fan and I would watch a lot of the WWF shows from the 80s and the part of the early 90s from before I became a fan. I would rent the VHS of the shows from Blockbuster for a long time. I went to my first live show on July 1, 1992 at the Westchester County Center in White Plains and I was in the 10^th row and couldn’t see everything but I was just excited to be there. The main event of that show was a 6 man tag that saw Ultimate Warrior & Legion of Doom vs. Papa Shango and The Nasty Boys. I don’t remember much of the match but the Warrior & LOD won. That night was also the night that Bob Backlund returned after being retired for a number of years (of course I had no idea who he was then).

I collected a lot of the Hasbro figures and was at a lot of shows at the County Center in 93-94 and I saw most of the stars from then. My folks and I also got on camera, which was really awesome! I remember being at Monday Night Raw in the fall of 93 and I sat 3 rows behind the announcers table. The commentators were Vince and either Shawn Michaels or Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. Michaels did commentary with Vince for the first part of the taping and Heenan did the second part. That was the night that Gorilla Monsoon came out at the end of the show and dragged The Brain to the back of the building and kicked him and his belongings out the door. I was right behind the announce table and if I remember right, I was able to see what was going on by looking at the monitor.

Then I started watching WCW also in 1994 just before Hulk Hogan came in. When Hulk came in a lot of the other WWF stars at that time went there also and I watched them there. I remember the Monday Night Wars very well. I would flip back and forth between both Raw & Nitro, sometimes favoring one company over the other (usually in the early days it was WCW). I would also watch WCW Saturday Night at 6:05 and the Clash of the Champions events. There were a lot of great shows from WCW back then and I really enjoyed watching the cruiserweights the most. They always had the best matches on every show. I wasn’t a big fan of the nWo itself at the time, but looking back at it now that era for WCW was the peak of the company and it was very cool to watch.

I had heard about ECW when they had the ECW wrestlers come into WWF to help fight against the monster WCW and to help promote ECW’s first PPV (which I wasn’t aware of then). I didn’t get into ECW right away but one night in February of 99 my dad was flipping through the channels and saw one of my favorites, Sid Vicious on ECW and he taped it. I watched ECW for about a month and wasn’t really into it because it had that grittier atmosphere to it that I wasn’t used to.

I started watching ECW again when my dad once again saw them when they first started on TNN and mentioned that The Dudley Boys were there and were the Tag Champions. I came in right at the moment Raven came out through the crowd and giving the Dudleys DDTs. I had heard that Raven had left WCW and had gone back to ECW. I would watch ECW from September of 99 till it closed in 2001.

When ECW folded I was disappointed that the promotion that I was relatively new to closed up within a little over a year. Then of course 2 months later WCW was bought out by WWF and that whole event changed the face of the wrestling world. I remember I was graduating from High School when it happened and I would keep my teachers and classmates updated on what Vince had planned for WCW.

On September 26, 2002 I went to the Manhattan Center and saw a show from the short lived MLW, which was the first Indy show I had been to and also the first show I had been to since July 8, 1995. The show was tremendous! I saw a lot of new talent that I hadn’t seen before plus some of the old ECW guys and I was standing on the guardrail for most of the show. That night was the first time I actually got to meet a wrestler and that was The Sandman. He was signing autographs after the show and I got my picture taken with him. It was such a thrill to finally have met a wrestler.

Since then I have been to many shows over the years and I met a lot of wrestlers. I got their autographs and my picture taken with a lot of them too. I met guys like Roddy Piper, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles and many others. I also got my picture taken with Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart at a show in Waterbury, CT on November 13, 2009. I waited in line for 2 hours, but it was all worth it! Getting to meet Bret was great! I also got the chance to get in the ring and have my picture taken, which was really exciting for me! Getting to actually be inside the ring was a dream come true for me!

I have had a lot of fun being a wrestling fan these last 20 years and I enjoy writing my recaps of the shows every week. As I write this I have never been to a PPV, but hope to get that chance someday. I hope you enjoyed reading about my 20 years of being a major wrestling fan as I have enjoyed taking the trip down memory lane.