When did you start moaning about wrestling?

[King Pitcos]

Wrestling fandom is a fascinating thing, and I haven't followed any real sports since puberty (because why would you?) so I don't know how different it is to those. A flawed football analogy that occurs to me is that WWE is like a premier league team that we've supported for years, but half of us hate the chairman and revel in any failure causing him grief. Or some of us support the local non-league team and hate the premiership lot. Anyway, my point is we still watch it but we've all moaned like fuck about it for years and think we know better than the people who run it and do it. But when did that start for you? I'm roughly 100% certain it comes from reading PowerSlam and/or newzsites because that's how it started for me, and I've no ability to empathise with other people's lives.

 

I think I was reading Powerslam a few years first, though. I know the first issue I got was on holiday in Weymouth and it was the one covering Shawn Michaels winning the title at WrestleMania 12, which amazed me because it was so current to TV pace. I knew I'd be waiting about three months for the WrestleMania results to turn up in WWF magazine, and the Apter mags at the time had STOP PRESS! PIPER HITS SNUKA WITH COCONUT headlines. And I think I bought every issue of PS from then on, but I don't remember it making me negative until about late 1998, when I was parroting that Undertaker wrestled Kane too much. That was definitely from Fin. I don't know if I got this from PowerSlam or if it was just being fifteen and wanting to hate babyfaces, but I had a proper "Austin wins too much" idiocy on me, same way you get "SuperCena" cretins now. One of my highlights of WrestleMania XV was a crowd sign saying I BET AUSTIN WINS because I felt like the bloke who wrote that was doing a big fuck-you to WWE's predictable booking/storytelling that made sense. One of my cringeworthy wrestling memories was after SummerSlam 2000, complaining that the Hardys and Edge and Christian shouldn't be taking the shortcuts of all those dangerous spotfests because they're good wrestlers. I still really enjoyed it though and the whinging was mostly one-offs like that.

 

Then of course after the attitude era novelty wore off, which coincided with everyone getting broadband and fueling each other's negativity, I was well into the complaining about Triple H and so on. For me, that also went along with going to university in 2001 and not having that environment like school/sixth form where there were a big group of us mad into wrestling. Wrestling went from silly, fun shit like mates standing behind each other doing

to "sit at the computer hungover, reading people saying that Vince is burying all the WCW wrestlers." I wonder, had I been a couple of years younger, would me and my schoolmates have been shouting "HERE COMES THE PAIN" and doing spinaroonies, or would we have sat around the common room complaining that Rob Van Dam deserved a bigger push and Undertaker shouldn't be selfishly avoiding doing jobs to young talent. How much of becoming a moaner was my age/life and how much was the industry itself?

 

I'm curious about how that timeline differs from other people's, specifically because the turnaround of top talent in the nineties to early 2000s is different to the eighties or now. No babyface was ever really on top long enough to turn on them in my formative era. Hogan was on the way out, and then Vince was just scrambling through Warrior, Savage, Luger, Michaels, Diesel, Bret etc until he settled on Austin. Then Austin was overtaken by Rock within about eighteen months, and a couple of years later they were both finished. I know from old Observers that people were crying about Hogan's routine from the eighties, but were the people doing the crying mostly ones who never liked him or had they been fans and gone off him? There are shitloads of fifteen year olds now though that have never known wrestling without John Cena, and must have gone from being the kids who buy Cena merchandise to complaining about Cena being for kids and shilling merchandise.

 

So when did you start moaning about wrestling and the way it was run?

[Arch Stanton]

Good question this. I genuinely don't think I ever moaned about wrestling or ever allowed my thoughts on it to delve any deeper than the face value of the product until I joined a wrestling forum (not this one) in about 2002-03. Until that happened I was just like you described yourself as a sixth former, wrestling was something fun and stupid that almost all of my mates at the time would enjoy, whether it be watching it or pretending to be the nWo in nightclubs then wondering why no birds wanted anything to do with us.

 

Joining a forum fucks with you as a fan. Especially at that impressionable age and at that time in wrestling history.

[air_raid]

So when did you start moaning about wrestling and the way it was run?

 

Younger than most. WrestleMania IX when I was 10 years old, and that red and yellow twat came back and stole the top spot from my pink and black hero.

 

"Why would they not let Bret just win if a goodie has to be champion??? Why can't they just let Hogan go???" - I was a proper misery for days. And in many ways, still am. But I have forgiven Hogan, because he's great.

[Sexy Dad]

The time that I started watching with a more critical eye was in 2005. I wasn't watching in 2002/03 after my parents got rid of sky so when I returned back to viewing in 2004 the landscape was very different and outside of lending videos I wasn't really sure what was going on. So coming back to see Benoit and Guerrero with Championships was a bit odd but it was good to see two men elevated from when I had previously been watching it. By the time Cena and Batista were on the rise I didn't have that much enthusiasm for them simply because they weren't around in 2000/01 and I thought there were guys who had been around longer that would be a better fit at the top.

 

Then by the summer of 2005 one of my old favourites Chris Jericho was finally back in the title hunt only to lose to Cena and leave the next night, further ushering in this scary new era.

 

Obviously, on reflection - Guerrero, Benoit and Jericho weren't the superstars with the appeal of Cena and Batista and WWE is all about making new exciting stars. But I was an angry, cynical 14 year old who knew better. When is The Rock coming back?

[DCW]

Early 2002 and Power Slam was definitely where I got the idea from.HHH burying everybody and old men like Flair,Perfect and the nWo coming in and holding down real talent like Maven,Billy Kidman and Kanyon and other such wankery notions.By the time the Cena bashing had commenced in 05 or so I had grown out of my teenage smark phase and saw Fin for the bitter old cunt that he had become.Also had found more rational wrestling opinions online by that stage.

[neil is brill]

For me it was sometime in the year 2000. I'd missed pretty much everything WWF related from late 1994 all the way up to No Mercy 1999. My parents cancelled our cable tv, and we didn't have the internet. Anyway, once I got back into it in 1999 Triple H was the man for me. So by the end of 2000 I was constantly complaining that "dickhead Rock" was always holding down the real wrestlers like Triple H. I was such a clueless teenager, no idea what I was even saying half of the time. It's that 2000 title reign that The Rock had that makes me still hate him to this day.

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

I wonder, had I been a couple of years younger, would me and my schoolmates have been shouting "HERE COMES THE PAIN" and doing spinaroonies, or would we have sat around the common room complaining that Rob Van Dam deserved a bigger push and Undertaker shouldn't be selfishly avoiding doing jobs to young talent.

Most likely yeah, my mates and I did that shit.

 

Shortly after that time period though, things started changing. In Year 6, every fucker in the grade was raving about the Elimination Chamber at Survivor Series. The next year, high school started for us, and everyone became too cool for wrestling, so I started reading online and bought into the "Triple H is an evil puppet master OMGZ" idea.

 

I found out later that everyone of those guys at school still watched wrestling. The day Benoit died, I checked the Torch at lunch time to find out the breaking news (this was before the details came out). I went back to class, and a couple of guys came up to me and gave me a hug, knowing Benoit was my favourite at the time. Bloody closet fans

[spotlightmagnet1]

I'm not sure, I always remember being a bit of a pedantic twat about things. To this day one of my earliest moments was me and my friend drafting a letter to Gorilla Monsoon (or Roddy Piper) explaining Undertaker technically won the boiler room brawl as the rules stated 'whomever touched the urn first' but never said it had to be with hands. Therefore, when Paul Bearer hit Taker with the urn, Taker touched it and ergo won.

 

I didn't get onto a forum until mid-2000s but I was one of those people who... well was an arsehole. I hated anything that wasn't Benoit or cruiserweight or indie, but still watched it. I think at some point I suddenly realised I was invested in JBL after his title run was over and found him hilarious. I think after a while you learn it's a laugh and a drama, take what you want.

 

I do enjoy a good bitch and rant though.

[Pier Six Brawler]

Very soon after starting watching it. Even in 1990 I was pissed off about a lot of the kiddie gimmicky stuff that seemed to be taking over, that wrestlers just seemed to disappear and stop being mentioned every again, that there were hardly any ever competitive matches on TV save for one star vs star match on PTW (which I remember one week being a JIP Hercules vs Black Bart match that went about 90 seconds). I always remember being critical of stuff like cartoons and comics even as a young child when their continuity didn't make sense, such as how the Transformers could fly in the opening episode of the cartoon but later they couldn't and it was a plot point.

[herbie747]

Around 2003 when WWE started getting really crap, I just stopped watching. I kept recording RAW but found it being a chore to watch each week, and realised I didn't enjoy it anymore. Can't say I actively moaned, but was certainly bummed out by the whole lameness of the Cena & PG era.

 

This sums up that era for me - and I never managed to get back into it.

[gadge]

I feel like I'm in both positive and negative camps, as for some reason I'm still subjecting myself to 15 month old Dragon Gate USA and EVOLVE, but to spare my sanity I don't watch TNA any more and only follow news of what's going on there if it happens to appear on my social media radar.

 

On a happy note, the WWE product satisfies me greatly in recent years for the majority, to the point I've just gone and got the Network for Main Event and saving cash on the PPVs as much as the back catalogue. The British scene is stronger than at any point since I started following it in 2002, as well, which gives me regular doses of live entertainment around the country, which is easy to do if you can afford it and have a good knowledge of which shows to avoid.

 

That doesn't mean I can't or won't complain about stuff, but the good outweighs the bad in most of pro wrestling at the moment, it seems. Heck, even ROH seems to have positive vibes again.

[Sphinx]

Started properly watching in 2001 at age 10. I remember feeling the whole Survivor Series '01 Winner Takes All thing was odd, but not to the extent of moaning. I still had a little doubt in my mind that WWF would win, but my reasoning was that they were WWF shows so they'd surely win.

 

Probably 2003 when I was 12. Powerslam, EWR and hormones combined to make me more cynical. I still disagreed with opinions though - I liked Lesnar vs. Big Show stretcher match at Judgment Day 2003 for example whereas they said it was shit. I've kept to my own opinions for the most part. The times I've swayed to online opinion, I've been burnt. 'Nah, honestly, Matt Morgan's decent [in TNA]' for example.

 

I used to have a great time seeing mates on the weekend and laughing about shit that had happened on TV. Not 'someone's been held down' or anything moany like that, more botches, shit characters and promos. Kenzo Suzuki in general, shit tag team mash-ups like...well, Kenzo Suzuki - again - and Rene Dupree, Booker T and RVD (It's the Booker Man y'all. Can you dig it (one of a kind!)' and shit angles (you think this is about coffee?!?)

[King Pitcos]

Probably 2003 when I was 12. Powerslam, EWR and hormones combined to make me more cynical.

I forgot about EWR's part in it as well! If ever there was anything to convince you that the way they were doing it was wrong and the way Fin Martin wanted it doing was the route to success, it was that game. I'm not sure I ever raged at their refusal to call up Dinsmore and Conway as a pure wrestling team, but I knew that was the reason they weren't at 82% global popularity like I was on EWR.

[HarmonicGenerator]

Great thread idea Pitcos.

 

My turning point was probably two turning points happening at around the same time - JBL, and the Wrestling Channel.

 

I remember reading moans for a couple of years beforehand - though I can't recall if this was in Powerslam, online or on that old Sky Text page - but usually either didn't pay them any attention or didn't agree. Austin's heel turn? I believe people moaned, but I vastly preferred heel Austin to Attitude Austin. Undertaker holding people back? Fuck you, he's the best. (I still think that, as readers of the FSM thread know). The Invasion? Yeah, I never watched WCW so I just treated it as a crazy months-long WWF storyline and quite enjoyed it all. HHH dragging down RAW? I watched The Bottom Line so he was generally just edited down to highlights and that was fine. There was the odd thing that miffed me a bit (I thought Brock won his first title too early, I didn't like how most matches in October 2000 seemed to end with an Austin run-in) but nothing to convert me to a proper moaner.

 

But JBL going, in a period of a few weeks, from losing to Rikishi & Scotty 2 Hotty to challenging, and then winning, the WWE Title? I complained about that until he lost the thing the following year. Didn't deserve it, pushed too quickly, never won cleanly, champion for too long, right-wing-nutjob WWE.com columns, there was not a thing I liked about JBL in 2004-5 and he was the focal point of the brand I could watch, so that push sent me well on the way to moanerdom.

 

Pair that with TWC arriving at around the same time, and suddenly... TNA! ROH! FWA! Here are all these other promotions I'd only ever read about. Fuel and ammunition for complaining about WWE. Why watch that shit where undeserving twats like JBL or Orton are World Champions when you can watch Ultimate X and Low Ki kicking the shit out of Special K and Burchill? When TNA went to monthly PPVs, I had started to use forums, and every month (at least for a while - I think I stopped after they got on Spike. I still maintain their summer where they were online only was TNA's creative high point) I'd try and convince the Americans to turn away from WWE and watch TNA. The Bagpipe Report was handily around to confirm my complaints were valid.

 

Luckily, I soon levelled out and started to appreciate WWE again - though even at my moaniest I still enjoyed the majority of it. By 2008 I was fully back into enjoying WWE, and now I probably wouldn't watch anything else.

[UK Kat Von D]

Oh fuck you HG. You have literally just stolen my entire life and wrote it out perfectly. Dammit

 

I think becoming more cynical is just part of growing up. While I have never taken an interest is shit like football, I have seen a few people have conversations about it. From what I have gathered all footballers and managers don't have a clue what they are doing and should be listening to fat middle aged men down the pub for strategy tips. Kinda like how Vince and co do stupid stuff, and it is our place to complain about it and discus what could have been done better. Wrestling is actually the perfect man sport, because we have the options to complain about every single little detail, in a much more dramatic way.