When did you stop caring?

[d-d-d-dAz]

I want to like it far more than I actually like it these days.

I keep up with what's going with the big names via Instagram, and watch the PLE matches I care about on the Sunday or Monday. 

Usually I have a real interest between January and April, but i've not really had that the last few years either. 

That said, when it's good I still have the capacity to care. Punk/Roman was thrilling, the first All In was the best event i've ever been to. The fire is still burning, even if the flame is a little low.

[davertfnewman]

Montreal took a lot of love out of it for me but I was undoubtedly still interested, just couldn't enjoy it quite as much. Then I got on the internet a year later and it revealed how the tricks were done. Beyond that, I would've watched any wrestling but the quality was getting so bad in 2000 with WCW that I could happily miss it. The later introduction of Stephanie McMahon to the creative team also equated to a style I didn't like. And the last WrestleMania I watched was the one that the Undertaker lost at because that was the last thing holy to go.

[Wretch]

2001

[Slapnut]

10 hours ago, Chico Torres said:

I stopped caring in 1997, 29 years and counting!

Out of interest, why do you come on here? This is like me posting on a Power Rangers forum to complain about everything post-Zeo.

[Chico Torres]

I still love this dumb thing, even if it’s the pre-1997 stuff. Shout out to my Vault people.

[RedTwoster]

2 hours ago, Chico Torres said:

I still love this dumb thing, even if it’s the pre-1997 stuff. Shout out to my Vault people.

That makes total sense. It’s very easy to consider the forum a place to talk about wrestling as it is now, but why should it just be that? I’m glad you still hold a fondness for how wrestling was, as the UKFF would be a poorer place without you. 

[Professor Paul's Bin]

WWE after 2017 was a really dodgy period. Recall Kurt Angle joining The Shield at one point and those horrible purple ropes for the CW matches. This went on till COVID and since then WWE has been on a gradual decline.

The Saudi shows started as glorified house shows but did get better with match quality and less rich folk at the front not there sat scrolling their phones. Initially the novelty of a live shows at a decent time on the UK was great but then DX had that stinker out there. The stories coming off the Saudi shows were always click worthy after as there was some drama. 

The PPVs began to get less and less on. I remember going to Clash In Cardiff and being surprised how little matches were on the show. Thankfully our mates Sheamus and Gunther put on a banger, this turned out to be an alright show. My general rule is a card has to to have at least six matches on a PPV which has changed over the last few years to 4. I love a random match thrown together last minute to a show to even to make these numbers. Sadly the reality is most of the cards are going between 4-5 matches. Tag belts are rarely on the shows, there’s 2 sets of tag belts and I don’t have a clue who’s holding them.

“The Big Four” felt homely for me as a fan for years. No matter where you were with being a fan casual or drifting out. Even personally in a good or a bad place I’d look forward to them and enjoy them. They had a feeling which has truely been stripped away. It’s hard to tell it’s a big four but you can see the Big Four logo sometimes buried in between some Sponsors somewhere. 
 

Thankfully AEW came and just at the right time. Whilst it’s not perfect it’s not in this format which feels predictive and feels like anything can happen. The talent wrestle on all shows and its made me feel invested in as a fan. Watching a raw you know Lesnar isn’t gonna have a match and whilst I understand he’s built as an attraction it makes me care less. I’d rather them do something better with a build which AEW manages. Without getting going into the AEW too much. I just am very glad it’s there. Thank you TK. 

[wandshogun09]

On 5/8/2026 at 11:19 AM, tiger_rick said:

I watch old stuff on YouTube most days, I listen to wrestling podcasts and I read this place.

This is the extent of my wrestling fandom in 2026 summed up. Actually, it’s been like this for years and years now. There has been the occasional time I’ve dipped in for a WrestleMania or a certain match but it never lasts.

Thinking back, I think the first signs of my ‘obsessed fan’ period cracking was when the Invasion angle wrapped up in late 2001. Something about that first half of 2002, the brand split and all that, just really felt shit to me. After years of the Monday Night Wars, Raw vs Smackdown just wasn’t gonna cut it. I never stopped watching at that point but it was never the same for me from 2002 on. Even though the roster was arguably as stacked in 02/03 as it ever was, before or since, something was missing to me. I guess it was the lack of a real alternative. There was always WCW before. Now there was fuck all else but WWF, and even that got changed to WWE. Then over the next year or two, seeing most of those big names we should’ve got in the Invasion come over, and nearly all of them except Hogan getting buried, was probably the moment when I subconsciously realised that the best days were never coming back.

There were obviously high points after that and it forced me to explore other stuff from TNA, Japan and the indies through tape traders. The Wrestling Channel launching played a big role in keeping me watching as well. But nothing quite recaptured my own personal ‘boom period’ of WWF/WCW fandom from when I first started watching in 1992 up to late 2001. My obsession with wrestling and not being able to miss it probably fizzled out a little bit each year from 2002 up to 2007 and then the Benoit thing kind of properly finished me off. Again, I didn’t stop watching completely overnight. It wasn’t like I was actively taking a moral stand or anything. This also coincided with my early 20s and a lot of other shit was going on for me by 2006/07. But I guess I just became fine with missing weeks of WWE at that point after the Benoit stuff, without even really thinking about it. Then that became missing months at a time sometimes, before a SummerSlam or something would pull me back in for a few weeks again. And that’s been it for the last nearly 20 years. My wrestling knowledge gets really hazy from 2003ish on and kind of stops at 2007. Anything I know after that is either from a brief return to watching or, more likely, through this forum. Honestly, if it wasn’t for this place, I don’t think I’d bother to keep up with anything these days. 

But it’s funny, to this day I can whack a random 80s/90s WWF or WCW show and thoroughly enjoy it. I love what it was, just not keen on what it became. Every now and then I can jump in for a show, my nephew loves wrestling so whenever he’s at ours, I’ll watch it with him and I do mostly enjoy it for what it is. I find that’s the best way to watch the current stuff for me, with my nephew. His enthusiasm and excitement for it is infectious and makes me enjoy it more. There are current wrestlers I like. But I’ve tried to get back into it properly a few times and came to the conclusion that my days of watching regularly are never coming back. It’s probably also a sign of just getting older. I’ve found myself turning into my parents as I’ve gone through my 30s and I’m now 40. Where even with stuff like music and films and TV shows, I’ll listen to or watch new stuff but I find I’m mostly happier just sticking with the older stuff I’ve always loved. 

Edited May 9 by wandshogun09

[Merzbow]

I still care, I just haven't cared about WWE for over twenty years now really. The Triple H promo of death era was pretty much when I stopped and only started watching again for CM Punk's Straight Edge Society gimmick and continued watching for a few years until around 2014 but was never fully invested in the majority of the show.

My love today is mostly in older shoot-style, deathmatch and the golden era of indies. I still keep up just through this forum though, it's genuinely far more fun reading what you guys have to say about the current shows be them good or bad.

[TibBo]

I really lost interest around 98/99 and stopped watching completely.  I got a bit of a nostalgia kick around 2009 when I started completing all my toy collections from when I was a kid, which got me back into watching the old stuff.  I find the modern product completely unwatchable and only really have a knowledge of it from here or if something is mentioned on a podcast which sounds worth googling.

[westlondonmist]

19 hours ago, Slapnut said:

Out of interest, why do you come on here? This is like me posting on a Power Rangers forum to complain about everything post-Zeo.

Fuck off, Lightspeed Rescue is quality. 

[warrior4life]

2006-2010-ish.

I’m 50, like many of the uk fans I was a “hardcore” fan. Observer subscriber from 93, online from 94.

i was a HUGE WCW guy.

from 91 onwards I went to virtually every WCW and WWF, I only missed one WCW tour in all the UK ones they did.

i was 30 in 06, attending a lot of UK shows and enjoying it. I went to smackdown taping in late 06 and it was the worst show I’d ever been to, from then to 2010 I drifted out. Cancelled the observer when Dave became a total dick on twitter. 
 

like most my age I follow everything, all the news, listen to the podcasts and fall asleep to old shoot interviews but I rarely watch actual current wrestling. When I do it feels very far from what it once was, a fan base built around fantasy, anime and comic culture rather than combat. 
Everything feels far removed from a guy like Bret Hart. It all seems like a dance, like a parody of the pro wrestling I love… that being said this morning I saw a clip of Pac vs Darby on a golf course having a match and it looked very solid. 
 

I loved British wrestling and transitioned to WWF in 90. I very much doubt a 14 year me would have any interest in wrestling how it is today. 
 

Currently I love WSI and James Romero, Corny, Hannibal (his shoot interviews at least), Bryan Alvarez, Brian Last, Stevie Richard’s, Cafe de Rene. These are the main guys I follow. 
 

I desperately miss my Powerlam Thursday (usually the Monday after) routine that I had for many years. Buy Powerslam, grab a McDonalds and read cover to cover. 
I had some dark times in my teens and twenties and pro wrestling got me through.

my mum passed away yesterday and I’ve been clearing out all my old wrestling stuff… that’s what brough me here. I read the thread on 93 British wrestling and actually shed a tear thinking of 17 year old me, the WCW tours I attended that year. 
 

deep inside I do still love pro wrestling. 

[wandshogun09]

Ah sorry to hear about your mum @warrior4life 

[Carbomb]

My deepest condolences, @warrior4life

[Your Fight Site]

WWE? Around 2004-ish. It was always a struggle for me to watch WWE as we didn’t have Sky, so the only shows I got to see were at friends’ or if I had managed to badger a family member to remember to set the VHS up to record a PPV at 1 AM. I think I’ve then just read results the day after ever since out of sheer habit.

I do watch it more now it’s on Netflix, but wouldn’t say I overly enjoy it. The presentation of the current product just doesn’t do anything for me at all. Each episode of Raw and SmackDown is the same: cold open with superstars “arriving” backstage with the same 20-second loop of music, short match, adverts (or dead air whilst I assume an advert not cleared for the UK is rolling), short match, cut to crowd to show some sponsor mascot or random “celebrity”, short match, more promos, then show-ending brawl. I watched Backlash last night and even PPVs PLEs have the same formula that—if it didn’t have “Backlash” on the LED boards—would be indistinguishable from an episode of Raw or SmackDown.