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Your first memory of Pro Wrestling


Liam O'Rourke

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So, for this week's podcast, we're looking to discuss different people's first memories of pro wrestling, and would like to get some feedback to hear yours.

The question being not only what your first ever memory of exposure to wrestling, but what was your first impression, how did you feel about it at the time, how did it influence you as a fan, and in hindsight, how do you feel about that same first moment?

As always, the best contributions will be read on the air and we'll be crediting you accordingly. So what was it for you?

 

EDIT - Our show talking all about First Memories of Pro Wrestling, featuring many of your contributions, is now online and available to listen to at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/pgx7qk/SCG_Radio_86_-_First_Memories_of_Pro_Wrestling.mp3
 

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It was World of Sport for me, it was a staple of Saturday and I always liked it.  Then one day, a friend of mine said he had a tape of something called Wrestlemania 3 and did I want to go round his and watch it.  It was a different world!  I was instantly hooked by the larger than life characters, the razzmatazz and the scale of it.

 

Soon after we got cable and WWF was my favourite show, I was totally hooked, as were my mates and we used to talk about who we thought would win etc.  Ah, the innocence of kayfabe.

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First memory of it was my brother looking through the Argos catalogue and he'd always go straight to the WWF toys. I'd always ask what made them so much better than the WCW ones at the bottom of the page and was often told "WWF sounds way better, it's got two W's in it"

"So does WCW"

"Alright, it's the F"

 

After that confusion and thinking that it might just be a sport watched by the dyslexic, my brother borrowed a copy of WWF Summerslam 91. He was already watching it when I came downstairs that day so my first match experience will sadly never be something that involved Power & Glory or The Warlord. No, my first match that started it all was that Bret Hart vs. Mr Perfect match for the Intercontinental title. At that age (6 years old at the time) I was instantly absolutely mesmerised by what unfolded. "This is great, he was winning, now he's winning, then he was, now he won!...why is he ripping his clothes off?"

 

From that point, I sat glued to the rest of the show, and The Ultimate Warrior became my hero, which is still very much the case today (political ramblings and beliefs on sexual preference aside) with his 'Always Believe' mantra being something to follow. If I don't believe in myself, how can anybody else ever do so. So much so, I carry those words with me in the form of a Warrior inspired tattoo on my left calf

 

Looking back on that first viewing experience, could there a better place to start with as a young boy in 1991? Perhaps the only thing that could top it is Warrior/Savage from WM7, which I bought on VHS soon afterwards and it was kept at my grandma's for some reason. I must have driven her batty with the amount of times she watched The Mountie vs. Tito Santana against her will. (God rest her soul)

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Has to be a WWF Wrestling Challenge show from just before Wrestlemania 7. I always remember watching "The Viking" have a match, who turned into "The Berzerker" a few weeks later. I'm sure I also remember watching a fake Queen wishing Davey Boy Smith all the luck in the world regarding his match with Warlord at the WM7 PPV too.

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In a word: merchandise.

 

To be more specific: The Ultimate Warrior Colouring Book.

 

I remember that colouring book vividly. I saw it at Toys R' Us and just had to have it. That guy on the cover in the face paint and tassels… I had no idea who he was, but he looked more like a superhero than actual superheroes! There were some other photos on the back cover which gave me an idea of which colours to use (all of them). Most of my early favourite wrestlers were because of that colouring book - I remember some of the middle pages featuring British Bulldog, Big Bossman and the Bushwhackers. But above all, it was the Ultimate Warrior.

 

That purchase was followed up by a couple of Hasbros (the Bushwhackers again, Hulk Hogan, and of course Warrior) and that big blue toy ring with the button you could press that said "break it up!" I loved those toys, and I'll hazard a guess that I put Warrior, Butch and Luke over the Ninja Turtles and the Real Ghostbusters in several matches.

 

My point is, having that merchandise - the colouring book especially, I've never forgotten how cool I thought it was - formed my opinions of wrestling as something awesome. Without those pictures of Warrior, or the way the Bushwhackers' arms went up and down, or "break it up!", I just don't think I'd have ever been interested in the real thing, let alone still be watching it over twenty years later.

 

(it was also the merchandise that helped me get back into wrestling in 2000 - the first SmackDown PS1 game, and the sticker album that was probably actually from 1999. They introduced me to a whole new cast of characters, their outfits, their catchphrases and their moves. I thought they were awesome, and I turned on the TV, got totally hooked, and this time I've never stopped. But again, without the merchandise, that may never have happened.)

 

More than anything, though, it was thirty-odd colourless images of the Ultimate Warrior and his mates - and one full-page colour photo on the front - that made me a wrestling fan. I really, really hope I still have it in the loft or in a box in the shed somewhere. I'd love to see it again.

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My first memory is seeing WCW on a German TV, whilst in Dortmund visiting my Uncle. I have no idea who wrestled, or anything, but I can vividly remember the shouts of the commentator "EIN ZWEI DREI" as they got the pin. I wasn't really interested in it. 

 

My first vivid memory is Royal Rumble 2000, with Cactus Jack and HHH going at it, and TAKA almost being killed when he interfered in the Rumble, as well as the Table Match between the Hardy Boyz and the Dudley Boyz, with Jeff's mental Swanton onto the stacked tables. Was hooked for a while, and Jeff is still one of my favourite wrestlers, despite all of his problems. 

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I have two older half brothers, but neither of them lived with me when I was a child, so wrestling was obviously their thing they watched together when they were at their mum's house.  One day they must have decided to bring Wrestlemania 7 with them to watch when they came to my house for a weekend or whatever.  They were watching it in the lounge, and this was definitely my first exposure to wrestling on a TV screen, but I have a very vague memory of some friends having trading cards and me not knowing what they were, so that must have been before this.  I walked in on the lounge, and despite it being 1991 and me being 8 and the show being very kid friendly, they were insisting I was too young for it.  They just wanted to keep it to themselves I think.  Good luck with that, as I loved it within a minute of watching it.  I didn't watch from the start - Hart Foundation vs. Demolition was the match on (the 4th of the show).  As it was a title match the winners left with a title belt.  Not knowing what that meant, I just thought the winner of every match got a belt and being confused why The Undertaker didn't take his belt with him when he won the next match (research tells me Jake Roberts vs. Rick Martel happened in between those 2 matches, but I have such a strong memory of that confusion, that I have to assume the version they had either had that match cut out, or the matches were shown in a different order on TV here).

 

I have such a love of Wrestlemania 7 for that reason.  My younger brother started watching soon after too, and he loved it almost as much as me, but both my older brothers had probably given up on it within a year, and gave me all their videos and magazines.  Both slipped back into it briefly during the Attitude Era, but for years after that all I'd get from them was the occasional "is Kane still in it?"

 

They barely even ask me about it these days, but I do wonder if I hadn't walked in on them that day if I ever would have ended up watching it at all.  You had to be rich in my opinion to have Sky in 1991.  For 4 years after that until we got cable, my only way of watching was on years old videos or borrowing from rich friends, or being lucky that my babysitter had Sky, so sometimes I could watch it after school there.  Kids these days, they have no idea how easy they have it.

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I'm sure I had seen it before, and had some interest in it, as I remember being super into a WWF Annual I had that had the Ultimate Warrior on the cover. However, my first vivid memory of watching pro-wrestling is Mankind throwing a fireball in Undertaker's face a week after WrestleMania 13. Age wise, that would have made me nine or ten. My cousin was a big wrestling fan at the time and happened to be watching, I think, Raw whilst I was there. I recall just loving it. Something like that's going to grab your attention. From there, I watched right the way through the late-90s to the mid 2000s before dipping in and out up to 2011 before finally watching pretty regular since the Pipebomb promo.

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I'm another who started on World of Sport and apart from the obvious of remembering the likes of Daddy, Haystacks, Rollerball Rocco (and maybe less obviously, Alan Kilby), I can't remember any detail though until Kendo hypnotising Robbie Brookside. Think I was about 9 or 10 when that happened and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Absolutely hooked me and helped trigger over a quarter of a centuries obsession since.

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The first memory of wrestling for me must have been in about 1998 when i was about 9 or 10.

It was a Saturday morning and as usual I walked round to my mates house. I got there and his Mum answered the door, told me my friend was in the lounge and to go on through. I walked in and there was no sign of him, but there was this weird thing on the TV with a ring and ropes and blokes in little pants rolling around in it.

I start looking for my mate and hear "psssst - Ollie - get over here now!" coming from behind the sofa. I walk over and my mate is lying on the floor peering around the furniture squinting at the TV. I asked him what the hell was going on, he looked at me with a white pale face and big eyes and whispered "I think The Undertaker is coming out next". I'll never forget how scared he looked and how fucking scared i then felt!

Next thing I hear a loud DONG and my mate screams. I look over the top of the sofa and see him, this evil demon man, walking slowly through the dark towards me. Fuckkkkk. I dive back behind the sofa and scream to my mate "HE'S SEEN ME!!!!!" and we both run up to his room booing our eyes out.

Managed to get through that traumatic experience and a few months later (when we got OnDigital with a dodgy card that unlocked everything) i came across an episode of Raw on Sky Sports.

I absolutely loved every second of it until there was something called a ladder match with this normal guy called The Rock vs an evil tramp called Mankind. Well during this match the tramp actually pulled out The Rocks tongue in front of everyone.

That really frightened me - all i could think about for a week afterwards was how this poor guy is eating without a tongue.

Luckily by the next week he had got a new tongue and was feeling ok. My love for wrestling had begun.

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Earliest I recall was watching a little random WCW shows on a Saturday morning around 1997 or 8 on a free to air channel, possibly 4 or 5. (can someone fill me in on what show that was? Think they showed it on T4) wasn't sure what to make of it, but was always curious. Next thing I knew, I had the original SmackDown game which I used to play with my Godfather every week. He even helped put a GameShark on to get the other unlockables because I wasn't good at playing it on my own then. At the same time, I built up quite the collection of the Poundland wrestlers. They lasted a while for me. They were mostly generic, but I recall ones being based on Shawn Micheals and Diesel. But the first proper figure I had was British Bulldog with the Union Flag tights and cornrows. Most of them ended up in the loft. For the ring, I made do with a plastic vegetable box which was great for them because they were thrifty in my house. Eventually, I was able to watch Heat when it was on Channel 4. My Dad used to tape it every week and I was happy to see it more often coming home from school every Monday to see it while finally starting a collection of the proper figures. At one point, the way I built up the collection was a kid the Year above me who went off it used to sell me his old ones for £1 each which helped for getting the guys I really wanted like Shane McMahon and Tajiri. Before he did, We used to play with his collection every Friday in school because they let him bring some in which was huge with another kid from the same Year who I'm still in touch with (the other moved to Arizona) because I had issues from time to time and it was something they let me do to keep me on track if I was on par which was a big help.

Fair to say, I always was intrigued. And looking back, I wouldn't have changed a thing.

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I have two... first was back in 1994 when I was 9 years old. I was at Butlins or one of those holiday resorts and came across my first wrestling experience live. I may be wrong but I am sure British Bulldog was on the card for one of the shows that night and he did some autograph signings afterward of the kids but my memory is a little hazy. 

 

My next wrestling experience came in 1997 when Sid and Bret Hart clashed inside a steel cage for the title on RAW. I was round a cousin's house and walked in on him watching wrestling and sat down intrigued. I remember the rant that followed the Vince McMahon being thrown to the ground, leading to my first every WrestleMania (13). 

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Inadvertently watching Summerslam 99 at a sleepover in my old best friends house after his pisshead of a dad had forgotten to rent The Mighty Ducks. We all thought that The Rock/Mr.Ass segment was hilarious at the time. Nobody had any idea who the hell Jesse Ventura was either, though I remember one of the lads saying he was Stone Cold's dad.

 

Despite it being a pretty poor show in hindsight (except Test vs Shane which still holds up well for what it was) it got me interested in wrestling and made enough of an impression on me that I started watching weekly on Sky, and began to pester my parents for videos, magazines and other assorted wrestling merch just a few weeks later.

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My earliest memories are from the very early 90s, I can't be more specific than that because I must only have been about 3 at the time. Every Sunday we would have a family gathering at my grandparents' house, where my severely handicapped uncle also lived. He was always into big dumb action and comic violence, so naturally he loved wrestling, and especially Hulk Hogan. Barely a Sunday went by where The Best of Hulkamania or Hulkamania Forever didn't get stuck in the VHS, and it always captivated me. I can vividly remember the video covers, but strangely nothing that was actually on the tapes. I guess workrate mattered to this 3 year old. My uncle also had a WWF sports bag with photorealistic neon cartoons of the Hulkster, Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage emblazened on it, which really drove home that these were colourful, larger than life characters that kids couldn't help but love, and a 12 inch talking Hogan pull string toy that I had countless hours of fun playing with. Christ, imagine if they made one of those today.

 

It wasn't long before I had WWF toys of my own - I got my own Hogan, a Jake the Snake with his patented springloaded punch, and LOD complete with flying Hawk action. I also had one of those massive rubber Bruno Sammartino figures, which... just defies logic, really. I count this all as one memory as it blurred together so much for me, being at that age, but the last things I remember of wrestling around that time are going to the shop with my dad one Saturday morning and him buying me a pack of WWF stickers, I was made up to get the British Bulldog and the Undertaker; then one Saturday afternoon watching wrestling on ITV (around 92 or 93, must have been WCW?) and my mum having to turn it off and ban me from watching wrestling because someone donned a crimson mask and I started crying my eyes out. I seem to recall the blader in question being colourful and wearing face paint, which suggests it was Sting? Being the memories of a child it's one of those things I'll probably never know for sure. I started watching again in 98 and my first memory from then is seeing Edge's debut, which isn't quite as interesting.

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