That moment you realised....

[ItsClobberingTime]

I'm often curious as to how MMA fills a void for some people. I can honestly say I love both MMA and wrestling, and I've never seen MMA as anything comparable to wrestling in any time period. I know some people say wrestling is too kiddy now or whatever, but MMA is just so outside of what wrestling has ever been to me.

[Dirty Eddie]

I'm often curious as to how MMA fills a void for some people. I can honestly say I love both MMA and wrestling, and I've never seen MMA as anything comparable to wrestling in any time period. I know some people say wrestling is too kiddy now or whatever, but MMA is just so outside of what wrestling has ever been to me.

 

 

I think its more the case that MMA is another kind of male-friendly, social gathering type of entertainment, rather than the two things being super similar. People (well, blokes) watch UFC events with groups of mates, much like they perhaps used to with wrestling.

[PunkStep]

I started watching in 1990 and since then I've had two 'dry periods'. I stopped watching after Survivor Series 1996 and didn't start watching again until summer 1999. What a total cock, eh? I only missed perhaps the best period is the entire history of fucking wrestling. I think in 1996 I just grew out of the product they were putting about. I was 13, it had been pretty stale for a few years now and although 1996 had started to get good, I didn't really notice as I'd gotten bored and more interested in going out chasing skirt. Plus, although I liked Shawn Michaels, it was weird seeing him as the top guy. Didn't seem big or special enough. I was a huge Bret fan back then.

 

I got back into it in 1999 after Owen Hart died, as I wanted to see the tribute special. I started watching it regularly just after Summerslam, caught up with most of what I missed and kept watching until Wrestlemania XX in 2004. I stopped watching after that for a few reasons- Brock was leaving, I thought Angle was going to hang up his boots because he was a dead man walking (so I thought, anyway) and also I didn't think there would ever be a better moment than Eddie & Benoit embracing in the ring at the end. Plus the product had started to change and a lot of the guys coming through the ranks I really didn't like (Cena & Orton were exceptions). I got bored and stopped watching regularly until the Nexus angle.

 

I kept up-to-date in between, checking PPV results and also Raw & Smackdown results now and then, so I always knew what was going on. I very nearly got back into it around Wrestlemania 24, the one with HBK/Flair & Big Show/Mayweather, I tried but couldn't quite get back into the swing of enjoying it enough. The 'Monday Night War' in early 2010 grabbed my interest, and around that time I actually started series linking Impact. Tried getting into Raw but got bored, and it wasn't long before I got bored of the Hogoff Impact show and soon stopped watching that too. Then when the Nexus angle happened, I started to watch Raw now and then. I was getting more and more into it, and by the time 2011 rolled around I was a full-blown regular fan again. I stayed up and watched my first PPV in several years (ECW One Night Stand aside)- Royal Rumble 2011- and loved it. Series linked Raw from then on and would watch most of it. Then I think I watched 9 of the remaining 12 PPVs, around half of them live.

 

I've watched every PPV so far this year and most of every Raw and bits of Smackdown now and then. I'll watch Extreme Rules, always a good gimmick PPV plus Brock is wrestling. Him returning is a big reason that will keep me watching wrestling, seeing as his departure was one of the big reasons why I stopped watching after Mania 20.

[craig3:16]

For me it was when WCW died,stuck with WWE through the Invasion but gave up in 2003,discovered ROH early 03 and really enjoyed the Indies for a year or so then lost my interest until around 2008 when I saw TNA and watched that every week then 2009 discovered PWG and havent looked back since.

[King Pitcos]

Perhaps that's part of my problem - the internet. I got into wrestling in late 1999, and because I was unaware of any spoliers/internet/newz sites etc I enjoyed it more. I guess all this has spoiled it for me.

I think that's the same reason for a lot of people. Generally, one arrives at wrestling sites because they're a big fan of wrestling on the telly and they want to find out more and discuss it with other fans. Only to find that the sites and the other fans are just going "it's shit now, they should give him a manager and let him wrestle, only 6 minutes of wrestling on a two-hour show, the finish was crap, the booking is illogical, they should push [little indie bloke] instead of keeping him in developmental, big man fetish, needs more YOUNG GUYZ~, that bloke's only on top because he sells t-shirts to kids" and so on. And it'll deflate one's balloon of wrestling enjoyment by picking apart everything that's "wrong" with it. If you're a mong, the suggested alternatives like ROH might float your boat and keep the dream alive even if you've been put off WWE and TNA. But if you're not, you're left with watching WWE and TNA and no longer enjoying them. Unless you reject all that, and just enjoy wrestling for what it is. I enjoy it way more now than I did for the vast majority of the previous decade, though not as much as I did as a kid. The genie can never squeeze back in the bottle completely, the fat fuck.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

i've been a wrestling fan for 23 years now, but i watch it as force of habit these days. i would religiously watch every show from both wwe and tna but now i only watch raw and wwe ppvs and the live smackdowns they do. with tna i just follow the spoilers as i forget to watch impact on sundays and lockdown was the first ppv i've watched in about 18 months

 

cutting down my consumption has managed to stop me from getting wrestling fatigue which i think is a good thing

[NEWM]

I've posted stuff along these lines before, but Benoit being silly ended up indirectly completely refeuling my interest in wrestling. I've been into it for 22 years and never lapsed, but by the mid-00s, I was still a bit ingrained in the internet negativity and didn't find enough time to appreciate all the joy the product may have had to offer. I had fucked off to Uni in 2003 so didn't have Sky for that three year spell, and with the internet as my sole contact with it before I had a chance to make my own mind up, the shows took on a very different stance. By 07, I was back watching every week, but only in the weeks and months after Benoit died did I completely reavaluate everything I'd thought since about 1999 when I threw myself over to the dark smart arse overlords of the IWC.

 

After a few months of morbidly enjoying how chaotic all the suspensions and how basically fucked the promotion and the entire business seemed to be by it, I consider John Cena's Rumble 08 return such a huge symbolic moment for the WWE and me as a fan. For the company it was like "New year, new start, and this fucking white as a sheet nice guy is your fucking hero, whether you like it or not, because look what those little cunts and their piledrivers did to everybody". For me it was, "I've pretty much just creamed my jeans because John Cena is back and not injured. Wrestling's ACE".

 

Never really wavered again since, though after being such a dedicated TNA fan since it first began, I did jack that in after Bound For Glory last year, and haven't gone back 'cept for two hours sat on my hands at the Manchester house show this year waiting for Hulk Hogan to come out. It was awkwardly entertaining for the first few months of Hogan and Bischoff's reign there, but I felt a noticable decline from then on that never really recovered save for the build of Bobby Roode. When they burnt my fingers on that PPV, I was happy to bow out.

 

The "three stages of fan" thing posted on here many times is really the best guide I think, and there's often an end of stage one/middle of stage two period where a lot of people give wrestling the boot. Pity's right too, a lot of wrestling's a total joy to me now, but you never love it like you did the first time.

[unfitfinlay]

It's odd but I think it really hit me when I was watching one of the shows on Sky One at the weekend and a Bashams vs Jamie Noble and Billy Gunn tag match came on. I suddenly came to the odd realisation that I was watching Swingers fighting Gimps and that maybe just maybe this wrestling lark had passed me by.

 

In saying that I still follow online and occasionally get sucked back in when something special happens (Punk's first Title win, Nexus, Summer of Punk come to mind) but nowadays the stories never seem to be able to hold my interest for more than a couple of weeks.

 

I did get into Chikara a bit last year but, with every show being three hours long, I found it hard to keep up. The stuff I watched was pretty good though.