What was your first live wrestling show?

[simonworden]

My first show was in Bournemouth Febuary 2002, Scott Conway's The Wrestling Alliance (TWA) just starting to slow down before its close in 03/04.

 

The card is vague in my head and there is almost no record of it now online however.. it was something like this

 

Robbie Brookside vs ????????????? (Tournament semi final)

Karl Krammer Vs Adam Angel (Tournament semi final)

Doug Williams Vs Dave Taylor

The UK Kid Vs Julio Torres Vs ?????? (possibly an FWA rookie at the time like Simmons, Tighe, Ghosh)

Robbie Brookside Vs Karl Krammer tournament final tables match

 

I remember being super excited and getting into the chanting with some old followers from back in the day who were always at the Bournemouth shows. 3 years later after no shows in the town for some time WAW promoted and we saw the old man and his family again. Sadly the next time I saw them in 2007/8 he was not with them anymore sadly.

 

Was super excited to see the table spot and because it was unreserved seating we bagged front row. We didn't even know of Dave Taylor then. Interesting to think that from the card Taylor was on at least 1 WWE PPV  a few years later, Brookside is now a trainer, we know what Doug's done and a few names have also dark matched or jabbered for big promotions too.

 

A show a few months later was amazing however and looked like this. Was supposed to be a 4 team night. Allstar Vs TWA Vs WAW Vs International

 

The Shooting Star Vs Jodie Fleisch

Johnny Storm Vs Doug Williams

Robin Knightwing Vs Ricky Knight

Zebra Kid Vs Juventud Guerrera - With Phil Powers and Ricky Knight causing a DQ

Robbie Brookside Vs A German guy who was awesome and name escapes me

12 man tag elimination which was almost too big for the ring

Storm/Fleisch/Brookside Vs Williams /Knightwing/ Adam Angel (not 100% sure)? Vs Phil Powers/Zebra Kid/ Ricky Knight Vs Shooting Star/ Juvi/ German Guy

 

Strangely it was super heated for such a small show. Wish I could remember a few of the extra names

[air_raid]

That was a good match. Bulldog and Owen Vs. Furnas and Lafon I enjoyed to.

 

 

I hate to break this to you mate, but Owen and Smithers wrestled the Godwinns.

[Slapnuts]

I was 10 and having watched a few friends vhs tapes my Mum took me to this as it was in our home town

 

WWF @ Peterborough, England - Planet Ice Arena - March 30, 1994

Kwang defeated Koko B. Ware
Diesel defeated the 1-2-3 Kid
Earthquake defeated IRS
Bam Bam Bigelow defeated Tatanka
Jeff Jarrett defeated Doink the Clown
WWF Tag Team Champions Men on a Mission defeated the Quebecers
WWF World Champion Bret Hart defeated Owen Hart

 

 

Knowing tour dates and house shows like I do now, I checked to see where the other half of the roster was too

WWF @ Zeltweg, Austria - Aichfeldhalle - March 30, 1994

Adam Bomb defeated Rick Martel
WWF Women's Champion Alundra Blayze defeated Leilani Kai
Randy Savage defeated Crush
WWF IC Champion Razor Ramon pinned Shawn Michaels
Sparky Plugg defeated Bastion Booger
The Smoking Gunns defeated the Headshrinkers
Lex Luger defeated Yokozuna via count-out

 

I think Bret VS Owen tips the balance for me personally as I'm a huge Hart fan but seeing Savage/Crush and HBK/RR would've been insanely cool.

 

Writing this has also made me realise that this was just 10 days after Wrestlemania X in MSG so alot of this card is taken from that event it seems.

I'm now even more proud of my first ever live show!!

[MungoChutney]

The first live show of any kind that I attended was a holiday camp show at either Haggerston Castle or Ayr Butlins so I assume it was All Star who ran it wither way.  I can't remember which one was first but at the Haggerston show they had a Scotland vs England match which split the crowd before they brought out a 'German' heel with a manager for a kind of 2 vs 1 and a half handicap match.  I remember the crowd heat being unreal and the heel manager had about 20 pints of lager poured/tossed over him.

 

All I can remember from the Ayr Butlins show is that the top face had a pink and black tassel outfit so it may well have been someone like Phil Powers.

 

I went to a tribute show in Coatbridge at the Time Capsule that was the shits and then my first WWE show was the 'Mania Revenge tour in 2004 at Braehead.

[Ant]

 

Writing this has also made me realise that this was just 10 days after Wrestlemania X in MSG so alot of this card is taken from that event it seems.

I'm now even more proud of my first ever live show!!

 

 

Yeah I went to the Glasgow show exactly a week after Mania 10. From MSG to the SECC in a week

 

At 9 years of age I thought that would be the last show I'd ever see, as the arena was half empty, with black curtains hiding most of the tiered sections.

 

Unlike every other trend the WWF never did completely lose a presence in the UK, albeit in the mid 90's when to catch a show or PPV was a bit scrappy at times!

[Phil Austin]

First show I went to was the first WCW tour. It was the show that featured William Regal's tryout match against Giant Haystacks. It also had pre-Outsider teaming of Oz and Diamond Studd v the Freebirds, Scott Steiner v Mr Hughes and a main event of Sting and Rick Steiner v Lex Luger and Rick Rude.

 

Sadly this also means my very first live match was, and always will be, Bill Kazmaier v Terry Taylor.

[Snitsky's back acne]

Does anyone else recall that the Undertaker made an appearance on CBBC while the WWF was over for this tour? He showed up one evening prior to the lead in to Neighbours. It seems to have been lost to time as I've never seen any footage of this appear on youtube, but I know I didn't imagine it. 

 

I genuinely have footage somewhere on VCR of The Undertaker and Paul Bearer on The Big Breakfast from 1994.

I remember they did a game in the garden in a large paddling pool called 'Get Your Nobbly Nuts Out', complete with catchy jingle and a guy dancing infront of Bearer and Undertaker. After the jingle / dance finished Undertaker grabbed the guy by the back of the neck and marched him off,

Bearer was then tasked with throwing the oversized nuts into the pool for the contestant.

 

If I knew how to upload shit from VCR onto Youtube I wuld post it but that is 100% true.

[Liam O'Rourke]

 

 

That was a good match. Bulldog and Owen Vs. Furnas and Lafon I enjoyed to.

 

I hate to break this to you mate, but Owen and Smithers wrestled the Godwinns.

Goddamn. No wonder I'd changed it in my childhood memory.

[ElCece]

 

 

That was a good match. Bulldog and Owen Vs. Furnas and Lafon I enjoyed to.

I hate to break this to you mate, but Owen and Smithers wrestled the Godwinns.

Goddamn. No wonder I'd changed it in my childhood memory.

Ha ha. Theres no shame in enjoying the Godwinns. I went to a Smackdown houseshow in about 2005 with a good mate and last year I was reminiscing about how great the

Booker T vs Christian match was we both had seen and he broke it too me it was Booker T Vs Heidenreich that night and Christian wasnt even on Smackdown at the time. I was 19 at the time so I don't know how I managed that.

Edited July 15, 2015 by ElCece

[garynysmon]

I grew up in north Wales, which was obviously Orig Williams territory.

The first show I remember was at Holyhead Leisure Centre, which would have been around 1992 or so. My memory is quite sketchy but I remember a fake Ultimate Warrior on the card as well as the "third" British Bulldog, who used to team with Dynamite Kid in Japan but his name escapes me. At school the next day though, we were all convinced that Sean South was actually Road Warrior Hawk, and "not a fake like the rest."

 

I remember going to a few "Reslo" TV tapings in Beaumaris as well as more of Orig's summer shows in Llandudno, and was lucky enough to see Giant Haystacks wrestle.

 

My first American promotion show wasn't until the first ever UK Raw taping in Manchester, October  2004. I forgot that I'd seen Shawn Michaels wrestle live until I searched for these results now. http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/results/raw/041011.html

[Doctor Whos Next]

The European Rampage Again Tour in Birmingham, April 17 1992

 

◾Owen Hart defeated Skinner

◾Bret Hart © defeated Shawn Michaels by Count Out to retain the WWF Intercontinental Championship

◾Sgt. Slaughter defeated Col. Mustafa

◾Randy Savage © defeated The Mountie to retain the WWF Championship (Savage dedicated the match to a kid who had died, and his family was in the front row as I recall)

◾El Matador defeated Dino Bravo

◾Papa Shango defeated Jim Duggan

◾The Legion Of Doom (Animal & Hawk) defeated The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs & Jerry Sags)

[Sergio Mendacious]

 

Goddamn. No wonder I'd changed it in my childhood memory.

 

 

I love the idea that HOG and PIG traumatized you so much that you mentally switched them out for a much better, less smelly team.

 

Sadly this also means my very first live match was, and always will be, Billy Robinson vs. Tiger Mask.

[DCW]

Outdoor summer wwe show in Dublin in 05 or 06. Vince gave a prerecorded speech in Irish on the big screen, and the main event was JBL vs Cena vs Angle with Austin as guest ref. Don't remember all that much of it, and only time I've been to live wrestling since was when I won tickets a few years back during Swaggers reign as big gold champ.

[Big Benny HG]

My first ever live show came in February 1994 at the Hambleton Community Centre in Northallerton, North Yorkshire at the age of 12.  Over a decade later the venue would be re-christened The Forum and become a regular host of 3CW and now NGW shows.  At the time, it was just was one of those AMERICAN WRESTLING shows that I didn’t really think much of, but over the years and becoming more knowledgeable I have been really interested to try and find out more about what I saw that night and the wrestlers on the show.  I saw some information online years later that suggested it might have been either a ‘Midland Promotions’ or a “BWF” show, but don’t know if that’s accurate.

 

There were 5 singles matches, followed by a 10-man rumble to end the night.  I don’t remember the exact individual pairings, but I do know the 10 guys were:

 

UK Earthquake (Scrubber Daly doing a hillbilly character)

“The Hangman” (who may have been Shane Stevens, which leads credibility to the BWF conclusion)

“The TV Rocker” Pete LePaque (old-school former World of Sport villain)

College Boy (Pete Bainbridge)

Barbarian (who at the time I was convinced it was the dude from Powers of Pain/WCW, but it was actually the British guy who was also known as Tarantula)

Zulu Warrior (black guy, with face-paint, spear and shield)

Billy Joe Brannigan (generic shouty baddie, who I never saw ever again)

Tiger Kashmir Singh (British middleweight champion, in his yellow-and-red Hogan outfit)

Rory Campbell (dude in a kilt)

UK Undertaker (Rick Masters, who I had a polaroid taken with in the ring during the interval).

 

Undertaker eliminated Earthquake last to win the rumble.  The ring announcer would start chants over the PA system (“R-I-P!  R-I-P!”) to try and get people to join in, and I think every single match featured the heel unhooking the single turnbuckle cover from the corner.  One of the weird things I distinctly remember noticing about the show was that there were absolutely no near-falls during any of the matches – the only pinfall attempts were the actual winning 3-count.

 

I attended my second ever show later that year in August; part of the then-annual summer series at the Spa Ocean Rooms in Scarborough.  It might have been Ring Wrestling Stars (the successor to Joint Promotions), since they were selling all kinds of Big Daddy merchandise (even though he wasn’t on the show) given I’m fairly certain the ring announcer was the guy I would later recognise as Max Crabtree, thoughCagematch.net recognises that summer run in that building (though doesn’t have specific details of my show) as All Star Wrestling shows.  British Bulldog was top attraction, just mere weeks before he would go back to WWF at Summerslam.  He teamed with Tony Stewart to “represent the WWF” against ‘Iron’ Duke Lynch and Johnny Angel, who were “representing the WCW”.  The match went on in the first half, to allow polaroids with Davey Boy during intermission (of course I got one).  Tony Stewart then came back later for a main event singles match against Pitman’s Hercules.  This was a big dude who was also known as Crazy Dave Adams, and was also actually Johnny Angel’s dad.  Angel (who would later have a mid-00s run in FWA) kept interfering in the match, leading to Stewart making a challenge for he & Bulldog to face Hercules & Angel in a tag match there the following week.  I didn’t get to go to that 😞 As it happens, I believe Crazy Dave and Johnny were also the ones behind the face-paint of ‘Doom & Gloom, The Undertakers’ who were a regular tag team I never actually saw but always used to see on posters around that time, and friends had seen on shows and would ‘play’ them in our schoolyard wrestling matches.  Elsewhere on that show was Zulu Warrior again, Count Von Zuppi (masked guy... no idea), Cowboy Ross Hart (as in Bret, Owen, Bruce etc’s brother) and I think maybe Ian McGregor.  It was only a 4-match card, fought under proper old British rules with rounds, multiple falls etc.

 

I kept attending the Northallerton and Scarborough shows over the following couple of years, seeing people like ‘Rock n’ Roll Express’ Blondie Barrett, Doink The Clown/Happy Humphrey (who I think was Barrett done up), Legend of Doom (Ricky Knight??), The Power Ranger (who oddly once wrestled in the suit but without a mask... it was Rory Campbell), The SWAT Team (??? Two dudes in black vests and black/grey/white camouflage trousers) and the likes of Angel, Singh, LePaque and Barbarian again.  I saw Giant Haystacks once in Northallerton, and even Shadow off Gladiators after he was kicked off for his drugs shame.

 

My first ‘proper’ big arena show was WWF Insurrextion 2000 from Earls Court, after we spotted a poster advertising an organised coach trip to it in Middlesbrough bus station.  My brother and I went down on the 6-hour bus journey, staying in a hotel next to Tower Bridge as part of the trip.  The bus was slow getting from the hotel to the arena, so we arrived almost exactly as the show was starting.  I will absolutely never forget the real chill and goosebumps hearing the “ROCKY!  ROCKY!” chants from the packed arena echoing through the concourse as we rushed to find our seats.  I’d never experienced anything like it – it was awesome.  Main event was a triple-threat between The Rock, Triple-H and Shane McMahon, though in reality is was obviously more of a handicap match.  Amazing atmosphere, though funnily enough the crowd chant I remember the most was “SHE’S A MAN, SHE’S A MAN, SHE’S A MAAAAN!” towards Chyna.  I think this was also the show where British Bulldog made an unadvertised surprise comeback, coming out to a massive ovation to beat Crash Holly for the hardcore belt.  I enjoyed the whole experience, and the organised coach trip dealy was something I repeated for ‘Rebellion 2001’ in Manchester the next year before I worked out it wasn’t that difficult to sort out my own tickets, travel and accommodation and end up with a better deal (and not have to spend a 6-hour coach trip stuck with knobhead ossessive wrestling fans trying to impart their knowledge and talk in catchphrases).

 

I went to various WWF/E and WWA arena shows over the following years (trying to go to at least one card on each European tour they ran), but the first show that got me into following the domestic British scene (and travelling for the purpose of following specific British promotions) was the February 2002 ‘Revival’ show at Crystal Palace.  I’d been following FWA on videotape from Strong Style Tapes after listening to the TalkSport radio show and made this my first one to go and check it out in person.  I’d go to similar GWF (Jon Farrer), NEW (Dann Read) and ‘British Uprising’ (FWA) events in Preston, Ipswich and London respectively over the rest of 2002, before jumping on-board the FWA train full-time with effect from ‘Seasons Beatings’ that December (which was the first of my what I think has now been TWENTY-EIGHT visits to the Broxbourne Civic Hall).  The rest, as they say, is history...

 

 

Edited Sunday at 02:49 PM by Big Benny HG

[HarmonicGenerator]

Mine was the SmackDown WrestleMania Revenge show in Newcastle in 2004. I could only remember half the card by heart so have had to google what happened:

 

Billy Kidman def. Rhyno - not a bad first match to see live, even if there was no Gore. There was an SSP though.

Billy Gunn & Hardcore Holly def. World's Greatest Tag Team

Chuck Palumbo def. Orlando Jordan - I'm not surprised I forgot this one

Nidia def. Jamie Noble

Chavo Guerrero def. Rey Mysterio and Nunzio

Paul Heyman segment, which turned into John Cena defeating JBL - only this was before he'd become JBL on TV, so I assume this was a test of him as the new heel character but was quite confusing to me because he was still Bradshaw from the APA on TV at this point. I never would have guessed this would be the WWE Title match at the following WrestleMania!

Rikishi & Scotty 2 Hotty def. Basham Brothers, and danced for ages afterwards

Torrie Wilson def. Dawn Marie

Eddie Guerrero def. Big Show - I really enjoyed this one. I liked Eddie as Champion and was a big Show fan at the time. Nostalgia tells me it was a pretty decent match, anyway.