Playing wrestling at school

[BomberPat]

Bob Backlund's name has come up a lot more than I expected in this thread, obviously far more of an influence on our impressionable youth than I realised!

On 3/31/2023 at 1:38 PM, Gay as FOOK said:

We also had the token habitual liar who would stay up to watch the PPVs and come in saying all sorts of crazy shit like Ken Shamrock came back at the 2001 Rumble, and that the new entranceway was like a drawbridge going over water.

I've talked about this before, but we also had our couple of constant liars who definitely had all the insider gossip. One of them was smarter than most - he figured out before the rest of us that you could go on WWF.com on Tuesday morning and read the results from RAW, and "predict" what was going to happen when it aired on Friday for us. But he would still, at least once a month, say that Ken Shamrock was definitely coming back this week. You just couldn't avoid people bullshitting about Ken Shamrock.

One of the other bullshitters - one claimed that Lita was their aunt for some reason, but I don't think it was him - said that the 2001 Royal Rumble had come down to Bradshaw and Faarooq, and Faarooq won by tricking Bradshaw into eliminating himself, saying that they would both eliminate themselves at the same time and then not doing it. I don't think he realised that the Rumble was for a Wrestlemania title shot, and another kid asked him why Faarooq was going to main event Wrestlemania. 

There was a slightly unhinged kid in my form that tried to Chokeslam one of the frailer nerdy kids through a table in our form room, either not realising or not caring that a classroom table is considerably more heavy-duty and less inclined to break than the tables used in the WWF. Another kid got kicked out of an IT class for getting up on a table and trying to pose like Shawn Michaels.

 

I never did full-blown backyarding, but there were a couple of mates who would always insist on wrestling matches when we went round. Once was at a sleepover, and there was only three or four of us there, with a mattress and no real space to move around. We picked music from one of the WWF CDs, and tried to play those characters, but I don't remember much in the way of actual moves that time. Whereas at another kid's place, we'd move all the furniture around in the living room and have a mess of mattresses, pillows, duvets and cushions in the middle, and he'd be doing Swanton Bombs and all sorts. 

I was the only one who ever agreed to take Piledrivers, and one of the times there someone piledrove me in such a way that I ended up kneeing myself in the head, and a huge lump immediately appeared on my forehead that I had to try and cover up and pretend was nothing.

[HarmonicGenerator]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

I've talked about this before, but we also had our couple of constant liars who definitely had all the insider gossip. One of them was smarter than most - he figured out before the rest of us that you could go on WWF.com on Tuesday morning and read the results from RAW, and "predict" what was going to happen when it aired on Friday for us. But he would still, at least once a month, say that Ken Shamrock was definitely coming back this week. You just couldn't avoid people bullshitting about Ken Shamrock.

Absolutely. It was always Shamrock who was about to come back. Very end of 2001, feuding with Austin, that's what I was told. Maybe they were just getting confused with Boss Man, but after that, Ken was definitely going to be in the 2002 Royal Rumble.

Edited April 5, 2023 by HarmonicGenerator

[FLips]

Glad to see so many other mentions of the Crossface Chickenwing as my first foray into wrestling at all was a lad at school putting me in it. Lost count after that how many times we had to stand against the wall for giant swinging people and throwing each other around.

[The Gaffer]

It's interesting my chum wasn't the only one trying to project Shamrock lies. 

I'm choosing to believe it is because he went out like a light slap bang in the middle of WWEs biggest TV year ever. 

It just seemed...wrong. Okay he wasn't going to cut a classic promo but he should have been in there mixing it with the Radicalz in 2000. 

It just always seemed like he should have bounced right back in his blue underpants and belting entrance theme, looking and sounding the same. 

[Statto]

On 3/31/2023 at 11:02 PM, westlondonmist said:

In sixth form? 

Sixth form is where most of my play wrestling memories come from also. Before that matches seemed to consist mostly of arm wringers.

My mate Craig gave another lad ligament damage in his ankle applying the Walls of Jericho. Craig is every bit of 6'8" and the angle too extreme for the other lad's ankle to cope with. I had to ring his sister from the payphone in reception and get him picked up as he was totally immobile. He was off for a good six weeks at least.

There was a chair in the common room of which the backrest broke off, from that point it served as the primary weapon in hardcore matches. It was a padded chair so the intention was always to strike with the padded side, however on one occasion I caught another lad with the wooden side, causing a lump in his forehead akin to the Nigel Mansell one Murray Walker infamously prodded.

There was also a kid in my year who was quite outspoken about hating wrestling but did love to slap on a surprise Tazzmission from behind during someone else's bouts. He ended up going to the Olympics as a judoka.

[Panhead]

This didn't happen on school property, but my brother had a birthday party at our house when he was in Middle School. The magician Dynamo was in his class and therefore at the party. I landed a Perfectplex on him in our back garden. Claim to fame. 

[Guest]

There you have it. No one escapes the Perfectplex, not even a magician.

[Mikeymike83]

 

Back in the early 90's of peak fandom, me and my cousin (on the school field) during break/dinner time would put on our impromptu -5 star classics, me as Bret and him as Tatanka. This would have been year 5 (ish). Didn't take long for others to copy and subsequently all school wrestling got banned.

A few years later in secondary school (year 10), the next peak era, we started dabbling with some after school shenanigans of a case or two of the old ESP stubby bottles (there were a handful of us), and me and my other wrestling loving mate were a tad tipsy. The previous weekend KotR '98 had just aired, there was a sports utility out house at our school (our designated drinking spot!), Roughly 10 feet high I'd say. We were giving it the big 'un of we could do what Mankind did in the cell, boozed up we ascended the building and looked down. Yeah, instant regret, neither of us wanting to be the first to back out so we both timidly jumped off landing and rolling rather safely! No wonder kids get in serious injury scenarios when young!

Then fast forward a year to year 11. Due to our boozy antics on Friday evenings we'd ingratiated ourselves with the 'cool kids' for the final two years of school, so we were one big amalgamation of a group of 15-16 year old lads. For some unknown reason, myself and one of said 'cool kids' decided we were gonna get into some 'shoot' style wrestling every break time. Us probably thinking we were Shamrock/Severn but probably looking more like a slightly homoerotic artsy display of nothingness! This lasted for several weeks!

I've always been pretty strong too, so would take great delight in suplexing, tombstone piledriving and body slamming the fat(ter) kids to impress the ladies. Yeah, it didn't work!

[air_raid]

On 3/31/2023 at 1:38 PM, Gay as FOOK said:

We also had the token habitual liar who would stay up to watch the PPVs and come in saying all sorts of crazy shit like Ken Shamrock came back at the 2001 Rumble, and that the new entranceway was like a drawbridge going over water. 

And that’s the real thread.

I was another that always had a scoopster telling me Shamrock was coming back. Or Shawn was coming back to win the 99 Rumble and challenge the Rock at Mania. The Outsiders were showing up at both the 2001 and 2002 as well.

Forgive me, I know I’ve told this one before…. Bullshit or childish confusion? A kid at youth club told me The Narcissist had “come down in a helicopter, powerslammed Yokozuna and pinned him and now he’s WWF Champion.” I ran home and added “WWF x 1” next to “titles won” in felt tip on Lugers page in my sticker album.

[boshealecta]

I remember in junior school Dean Ward delivered a DDT to Michael Buckle on the playground which knocked Buckle silly. He was knocked out for a bit and when he came to he had the imprint of the gravel and stones on his forehead. The dinner lady who looked like Pauline Quirke ran over and sent everyone away like Earl Hebner sending a manager to the back and then wrestling was banned at the school.