Era's you always go back to

[garynysmon]

Does anyone else have a specific time period they always go back to when watching classic stuff?

I imagine much is dependant on when you first got into wrestling, or your favourite promotions. But the two I always seem to go back to represent a time of great change in the industry as a whole.

 

Rock 'n' Wrestling

1984/85/86 WWF is a common theme when I have a spare few hours etc. I can't get enough of Tuesday Night Titans and the period leading up to Wrestlemania 1 then onto WMIII. It doesn't hold any nostalgia value as 84 was the year I was born, but its just fascinating to go back and look at Vince's empire building and growing pains they had.

TNT is just a wonderful showcase of throwing stuff at the wall and see what works. And as the show progresses up to 1986, its evident how the company grew from taping in little arenas in the north east, to a more national product. It just comes off as a magical period, Rock 'n Wrestling, the growth of Hulk Hogan, Cyndi Lauper, Piper in his pomp, and the debut of Randy Savage. 

The era finishes with WM III for me, but from Hogan's debut in late 83 to mid 1987, its just a lot of fun.

Birth of Attitude

1997 is easily my favourite year of TV. The nWo being chased by Sting is a rare example of a promotion not pulling the gun too early, while the seeds of Attitude were truly being planted on the other side. The stark difference in the presentation of Raw between January and December 1997 is unbelievable really, from the dying embers of the New Generation and the OTT cartoon character wrestlers to the madness of Vinny-Ru's Crash TV.

Again, anything between the spring of 96 and Wrestlemania 14 is a regular stopping point with compelling stuff in both the WWF and WCW really. Having downloaded every episode of Raw and Nitro (+ PPV's) from the period, its definitely another easy watch.

[air_raid]

It's 91-92 for me.

I can watch any PPV from Rumble 91 to Mania VIII and thoroughly enjoy it. The first three shows of 91 are loaded with talented wrestlers and enjoyable matches which either deliver for just "being good" or have feelgood babyface wins, and you've got some great storyline stuff with Virgils face turn, Liz and Randy etc. The Rumble is one of my favourite tapes to pull out when I'm back at the family home with my VCR because you can go from the fantastic Rockers/Orients match to daddy Hogan winning big via Virgil turning babyface in 2 hours and have your faith in wrestling restored completely.

If anything I enjoy the landscape even more between SummerSlam and Mania VIII. Flairs being Flair, Pipers back in the ring, Savage is back in the ring, Jake is far more effective as a heel, Sids murdering job boys dead, they've gone balls deep on LOD and Bret in their respective divisions, Owen's dragging the Anvil to some decent tags, Gorilla and Bobby are on a tear in the booth and Sherri has started wearing EVEN LESS. Also, the 1992 Rumble is the best hour of wrestling ever.

[SpursRiot2012]

I love watching mid-late 80s WCW/JCP/NWA. I haven't even really watched it all but what I have of it always has me drawn back for more when I'm looking for a wrestling fix. I love the contrast to what the WWF was doing at the time, too. It was real, gritty, sometimes bloody stuff that even now, 30 some odd years later, I can find myself invested in.

I am currently doing my first ever watch through of WCW and WWF TV and PPVs from 1995 until WCW dies. I was watching at the time, but surely missed lots of stuff - especially on the WCW side as I usually wouldn't get to see the PPVs as quickly as WWF ones and I was way more into Raw so if it came down to a choice of what could fit on a video cassette recording on Friday night, it was going to be Raw. With the additions of Thunder and Saturday Night, this could end up being quite the project as I'm also reading the Observer for the relevant week and then listening to SCG's take on things.

I'm going to soon be starting a podcast where I review (generally) any random show that the Network throws at me in depth, with any notes that I can find (especially if it's really old stuff), stories from that time, perhaps even get anyone still alive who might have been involved in the random show to be a guest.

 

[Fatty Facesitter]

I'll occasionally go back to 2000 and rewatch old Raw's, SD's and PPV's from that year. It's the first year I started watching it religiously so it's natural I'd revert back to that period. 

Assuming I'm still a fan in the years to come (it's been 18 years so surely I'm in it for the long haul now) I genuinely think I'll look back on what I'd call this modern era of NXT, stretching back to roughly just after the Shield debuted and through to the present day. Hard to gauge how you'll feel about something in the years to come, but it's a big reason I'm enjoying wrestling more now than I probably have in a long time. The introduction of the UK arm of the brand will likely on heighten that. 

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I'll be honest, the Rock n Wrestling era I never go back and watch. Not that I'm against it, but my era was always from WrestleMania IV onwards. I dont know if that's because that's about when I started gettng the videos, but that era really kick started my fandom. Just never got into 85-87 as much as I really should have.

I remember seeing Hulk vs Andre as a kid on one of the videos they released, and didnt really get the significance at the time. I was like "yeah, pretty straight forward victory that", after seeing Warrior throw him around for months. Andre was a knackered old man when I was a kid. I think Hogan's crowning moment in my timeline was when he beat Slaughter. It was like "finally we can all put a lock on the bomb shelters for a while now. Hogan's brought us world peace."

[garynysmon]

TBH, I can't get enough of silly old shit like this. 1984/85 is full of it.

 

[tiger_rick]

Genuinely don't think there is anything from 1988-1998 That I wouldn't watch on any given day. PPV, episode of Superstars, Raw or Prime Timeor just a match, promo or skit.

Obviously there is stuff in there I prefer to others and some I absolutely adore but that's my era. Even the terrible bit in the middle holds so much fondness because it was a time when wrestling was so hard to get hold of for me so I just adored anything I did manage to see. 

[Porkchopcash]

Im with Garynysmon 100%. I could listen to 84/85 Piper talk all day. 

Akeem/Slick/Martel/Roma aswell.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

88-96 is the period I still go back to and watch clips and shows from, there's a lot of good pages on Instagram that put up stuff from that time period and just last night I had the Monsoon Classic YouTube channel running continuously for an hour or two featuring stuff like a 6 man between the teams of The Smokin Gunns and Tatanka and the Headshrinkers and Bam Bam from a 1994 episode of Wrestling Challenge that overran into the next week's episode and the jobber match between Terry Taylor and Lanny Poffo in which Heenan rechristened Taylor as the Red Rooster

[The King of Old School]

11 hours ago, air_raid said:

It's 91-92 for me.

I can watch any PPV from Rumble 91 to Mania VIII and thoroughly enjoy it. The first three shows of 91 are loaded with talented wrestlers and enjoyable matches which either deliver for just "being good" or have feelgood babyface wins, and you've got some great storyline stuff with Virgils face turn, Liz and Randy etc. The Rumble is one of my favourite tapes to pull out when I'm back at the family home with my VCR because you can go from the fantastic Rockers/Orients match to daddy Hogan winning big via Virgil turning babyface in 2 hours and have your faith in wrestling restored completely.

If anything I enjoy the landscape even more between SummerSlam and Mania VIII. Flairs being Flair, Pipers back in the ring, Savage is back in the ring, Jake is far more effective as a heel, Sids murdering job boys dead, they've gone balls deep on LOD and Bret in their respective divisions, Owen's dragging the Anvil to some decent tags, Gorilla and Bobby are on a tear in the booth and Sherri has started wearing EVEN LESS. Also, the 1992 Rumble is the best hour of wrestling ever.

This, really.

It's why I would love them to put all the Primes Time's, Superstars and Wrestling Challenges up on the network from this era.

[HarmonicGenerator]

Oddly, if I go to put a random PPV on on the Network for some background stuff while I’m cooking or something, I’ll usually plump for something full-on Attitude from 1999 or 2000. I wasn’t even watching in 1999, and though the quality’s not always there, it’s quick and easy to watch and follow (if not from a storyline perspective!), and doesn’t require my full attention. 

[Your Fight Site]

I’d love to go back to 1996–8, and see the formation of the nWo, DX, and the WWF not being top dog play out in real time. I didn’t start watching wrestling until WCW’s dying days (c. late-1999).

[air_raid]

11 hours ago, Your Fight Site said:

I’d love to go back to 1996–8, and see the formation of the nWo, DX, and the WWF not being top dog play out in real time. I didn’t start watching wrestling until WCW’s dying days (c. late-1999).

It wasn't quite the same over here. Those of us that considered Nitro the better show and were aware of WCW "winning" in the States were heavily outnumbered and derided. The WWF was still THE wrestling even if more people were prepared to watch WCW than ever before.

[Love-Wilcox]

Probably not much of a surprise but whenever I fancy watching a quality women's match it's 90's All Japan Women's every time for me. No other company or time period comes close IMO.

[Your Fight Site]

2 hours ago, air_raid said:

It wasn't quite the same over here. Those of us that considered Nitro the better show and were aware of WCW "winning" in the States were heavily outnumbered and derided. The WWF was still THE wrestling even if more people were prepared to watch WCW than ever before.

Oh, yeah. I know the WWF was the “hotter” product in terms of popularity. I just meant top dog in the business sense as opposed to what was the most popular in the playground. Through school I was the obligatory WCW supporter until the very end.