Having listened to feedback given to me regarding my previous blog post (which you can find a link to on the right hand side of this page), I have decided to blog about something completely original. This blog is how, when and why I became a wrestling fan, from Wrestlemania 12 to Wrestlemania 32.
Wrestlemania 12
My first knowledge of wrestling. Thanks to my street being one of the first in Brighton, England to receive cable television I was able to watch Sky Sports, and during my channel hopping I saw a repeat of Wrestlemania 12. I was 8 at the time and still highly impressionable (I wanted to be a Manchester United football player, a Sussex cricket player, a doctor, a vet, an astronaut as well as anything else that was on the TV at the time) and I was transfixed by the action on display. The first match I remember watching (as I must had joined the broadcast halfway through) was a Scottish man dressed in a leather jacket and jeans have a fight against a man in face paint and gold clothing in a car park. No British TV show I had ever seen offered such heart stopping action (and certainly more than my description would give justice to!).
I called to my grandfather to show him this and we sat and watched it until the end. The final match (and one of the best matches I have seen) was the Iron Man match between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, A match that went back and forth with drama from both sides. The match ended up as a draw, but then as we all know, Gorilla Monsoon (then the on screen "president") ordered the match to continue. Not long after, Shawn Michaels kicked Bret Hart in the face and was awarded the WWF Title. The image of an exhausted man celebrating his first title was an image that has stayed with many wrestling fans. At that point, I wanted to become a professional wrestler. I had at that point caught a bug that I never knew I would still have 20 years on.
The Attitude Era
Thanks to the fact that I was only 8, I was not able to watch wrestling as much as I wanted, and it became very difficult to follow any story lines. It was only when Sky Sports showed repeats of pay-per-views that I was able to watch the WWF (as it was known then). Sadly I don't have many memories about this period as I would like. I was however able to watch a repeat of the Summerslam showing of 1996. My stand-out memory of that event was the Boiler Room Brawl between Mankind and The Undertaker. This was the first time I had ever seen Mankind, and I genuinely believed he was a very troubled individual. I was too young to know about story lines and kayfabe, so I believed everything I was watching was real, and when I saw Paul Bearer turn his back on the Undertaker I was shocked and I became very emotional!
My next stand out memory from the WWF comes from early 1998. I had missed the debut of the monstrous masked character called Kane. I had no idea who he was when I was able to watch an late night episode of Raw during a school half term (I felt so rebellious!). I had no idea why he had aligned himself with the person who I had last seen betray the Undertaker to Mankind. I was amazed when he seemed to summon a lightning bolt from the sky and set a man on fire at the ringside area. My eyes were opening to a new type of risqué entertainment that had changed since I had last seen the WWF.
The Monday Night Wars
Thanks to cable television, I was able to watch Cartoon Network when I came home from school. During another school holiday I was watching Cartoon Network on a Friday until the channel finished at 7pm. I didn't turn off the channel and Cartoon Network eventually became TNT. To my amazement, the opening credits to a TV show called WCW Nitro started. I watched the first match of the show thinking I had stumbled upon a WWF show, however when the stage appeared different, and the fact that the show was being filmed outside, I soon knew that this was a very different TV show to what I was used to. TNT used to show the first hour of the Nitro broadcast then would go to classic movies.
This was when WCW was bossing the Monday Nights Wars, again something I had no knowledge of. I saw the two contrasting sides of nWo, a faction that had bossed WCW for a year but whose relevance I didn't understand and why there was a white and black faction and a red and black one. I didn't know why Bret Hart (a man who shared my first proper memory of the WWF) was in WCW, but I was still transfixed by wrestling, the fact it was a different company made no difference to me. In fact, because of TNT being on cable TV in the UK, it was easier for me to watch WCW than the WWF. I was able to invest in story-lines, I was hypnotised by the monster that was Goldberg and his entrance, physique and his ability to destroy everything in front of him. I was jumping around my living room trying to copy Billy Kidman, Rey Misterio Jr and Juventud Guerrera.
Hiatus From Wrestling and Computer Games
It was a great heartbreak for me when we had to lose cable TV. It became very expensive in 1999 and we could no longer afford it. I found myself at a loss because the first TV show I had become attached to was no longer available for me to watch (and I didn't have the internet at the time). However, I had received a Sony Playstation for Christmas in 1998, and the first game I received for it was WWF Warzone, so I did at least still have a wrestling fix. WWF Warzone wasn't the best of games, however it did allow me to get a better look at the WWF Superstars that I had failed to engage with because of my inability to watch WWF (I was unable to find Sky Sports on the cable TV box).
I then read that the games sequel, WWF Attitude, was coming out in 1999 and I had to have it. I remember making my pre-order with Electronics Boutique and I received a free WWF t-shirt, which I wore with pride. The game turned out to be a huge improvement on the last game, with an increase in modes and Superstars. I was able to remain a wresting fan, even though I wasn't able to watch the live product. Following wrestling games included my first trip into WCW gaming with WCW Thunder. I actually preferred this to WWF Attitude because I felt I had more emotional attachment to the WCW Superstars than the WWF ones. Then the ill-fated decision to buy WCW Backstage Assault (a game which I didn't mind, but was universally panned), which I got in a bargain bin for only £3 and the first WWF Smackdown game.
Wrestlemania X-Seven and The Invasion
We finally got cable TV back in early 2001. Because of the new TV box and software, it became easier to find the TV shows I wanted. I tried to find WCW programming but was unable to find it (there was now a separate TNT channel, which we didn't subscribe to) so I went back to watching re-runs of WWF programming, at which point I found a re-run of Wrestlemania X-Seven on Sky Sports. I was amazed by the sheer size of it all (as my first Wrestlemania had only 19,000 people in the arena, whereas this was in a massive stadium with nearly 68,000 people). I was amazed about how the business had progressed and I was amazed that so many people were as invested in the product as they were in one place. Wrestlemania X-Seven has been voted by many as the best Wrestlemania of all time by many, something of which I am agreed. The Hardcore title match between Kane, The Big Show and Raven (including a memorable spot with Raven being thrown through a window), the TLC tag team match and obviously the main event feature heavily in my mind.
What however became painfully clear during the show was that WCW (which had been my only source of televised wrestling during the Monday Night Wars) had died. Because I never saw the grim days of Nitro, I didn't realise how bad things had got for WCW and that the WWF had been making a far superior product for years. I felt quite sad at this point, but when I saw WCW logos all over WWF programming, I felt happy because I thought the old days were back. I became invested in the Invasion storyline but wondered where the likes of Goldberg, Sting, Hollywood Hogan and Ric Flair had gone. I didn't know about the complexities of the business and was blinded by the fact I was watching wrestling again.
When ECW became involved I became confused at the storyline. I didn't know about ECW. I had no idea who Paul Heyman was. When Stephanie McMahon became involved with her brother Shane in the storyline, it became clear that the brands involved no longer mattered and the storyline became all about the McMahon's. At this point though I didn't care. I was able to watch wrestling again. I was able to get excited by the spectacle (I at this point still thought wrestling was real) and the excitement was building up the WWE Invasion storyline, something which I was able to watch live. The ending of the PPV astounded me, and kept me glued to the product for years to come.
Part two of this blog will be available next week. Follow me on Twitter @MalingoIsHere
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