Your first ‘favourite match ever’

[LaGoosh]

Rock vs Austin Backlash 99. It was my first PPV and I was blown away by it.

It's a brilliant match and still one of my favourites.

[The King of Old School]

It's Warrior/Savage at Mania 7 for me.

Don't think had been watching that long beforehand, first real memories are the team matches at Survivor Series so I must have seen that before this Mania.

Still up there for me on my faves, might be through pure nostalgia though as I haven't seen it for years.

[TheBurningRed]

I think the first match I’d consider my favourite as I rewatched it to death, was Shane McMahon vs Test at Summerslam 1999. The Love Her or Leave Her match. I’ve not watched it for a long time though so don’t know if it would be as fun as it was when I was a kid.

For the longest time after that it was Triple H vs Cactus Jack at Rumble 2000. One I watch yearly. 

[gmoney]

During my first period of being into wrestling (1990 - 1990, ages 5 -10) I honestly don't think I had a favourite match, the concept of enjoying one match over another based on anything other than who was in it was alien to me. And I liked Ultimate Warrior and Bret Hart best, so all their matches were tied for first. 

Getting back into it around the end of 1998, I think Rock vs Mankind at the Royal Rumble 99 was the first to blow me away. 

[westlondonmist]

2 hours ago, Chico Torres said:

It was probably Hogan vs Warrior at WM 6. Prior to that my entire understanding of wrestling was some musky old sport during the dull hours of Saturday afternoon on ITV before good things like The A Team were shown, that took place in grim depressing regional leisure centres with the fat OAP from Tiswas and some uncles in swimming trunks. Then I see this and it’s from the magical place America where all the cool stuff came from and it’s two superheroes in an epic battle in a stadium, and the challenger is some intergalactic muscleman with face paint and the champion was also some strange superhuman being who also (per our 1990 playground equivalent of Dave Meltzer) starred in the aforementioned A Team and had once been in a tag team with BA Baracus himself and had slammed a giant.

So yes that was mind blowing shit to see, and probably stayed as my fave match until the following year when that same otherworldly cosmic superhero put his career on the line against another bearded cocaine maniac and the superhero survived multiple flying elbows by getting power from the heavens and retiring the baddie who then got rid of his wicked witch manager and reunited with the princess.

Finally not long after that, whenever this VHS came out I saw this match and Warrior was forgotten and this became my new favourite:

 

I loved the Chamber of Horrors match as a kid, I rented it out several times, even as an adult I find it strangely enjoyable. 7 year old me seeing this for the first time and I was like oh my God he's electrocuted the guy. Thank fuck child me didn't watch any of Cactus Jack's japanese stuff. The heel team is almost entirely changed from what was advertised too, although the one that actually went out was probably better.

 

I do think Warrior vs Savage at Wrestlemania VII was my first love though. The drama, Macho King had already robbed Warrior of his title, was he going to rob him of his career next? After a long thought battle Warrior comes out on top, the relief. We aren't finished, Sherry turns on Savage and Miss Elizabeth can't take it anymore and goes for the save. That's it the King is reunited with his Queen. I had it taped off Sky Sports so rewatched the fuck out of this match. The emotions of it, somehow within 30 seconds of booing a guy, you're rooting for him and happy for him. 

[HarmonicGenerator]

7 minutes ago, gmoney said:

During my first period of being into wrestling (1990 - 1990, ages 5 -10) I honestly don't think I had a favourite match, the concept of enjoying one match over another based on anything other than who was in it was alien to me. And I liked Ultimate Warrior and Bret Hart best, so all their matches were tied for first. 

Getting back into it around the end of 1998, I think Rock vs Mankind at the Royal Rumble 99 was the first to blow me away. 

That is similar for me. I had favourite wrestlers but not a particular match I liked more than any other.

By the time I was fully back into things in 2000, it probably took until TLCII at Mania 17 for there to be a single match I watched again and again and again. I particularly remember Bubba and Matt’s four-table bump being rewound and replayed four or five times in a row. It’s still my favourite of that kind of match.

[NeverYield]

I loved Triple H vs Shawn Michaels, at Armageddon 2002 3-stages of hell, their match at SummerSlam 2002 was a belter as well. 

Things ebb and flow match wise don't they, in terms of favourites, I've got loads of matches growing up that I loved, and sometimes nostalgia is attatched to match as much as any drama or storytelling

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, TheBurningRed said:

I’ve not watched it for a long time though so don’t know if it would be as fun as it was when I was a kid.

It's still great.

[Callum1993]

Undertaker vs Mankind in the Cell at KOTR 98. I broke my arm in late 1998 and was off school for a month. I got the 3 Faces of Foley VHS from my Uncle and watched it so many times while I was off. Still one of my favourite matches today. 

[Lorne Malvo]

I was another who didn't really have one. I had favourite wrestlers, obviously, and favourite PPVs. But I don't think favourite matches was a concept I ever even acknowledged until I was in my ROH/PWG indy-wank phase.

Or it was Melina vs Alicia Fox.

[tiger_rick]

15 hours ago, NeverYield said:

I loved Triple H vs Shawn Michaels, at Armageddon 2002 3-stages of hell

You should have said a Seth Rollins match to hide the shame of this one.

[Merzbow]

I don't think I really grasped the idea of a great match for a few years and I probably loved squash matches as much as anything else, seeing Ultimate Warrior kill a jobber was as good as it gets!

But I'd probably go with Royal Rumble '92, the Keffer favourite. I distinctly remember waking up in the night and first watching it on tape with my father, it's just so perfectly paced and I don't think there's a single part where the action isn't fun or dramatic. It kept a kid with a bad attention span transfixed.

[air_raid]

43 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

I was another who didn't really have one. I had favourite wrestlers, obviously, and favourite PPVs. But I don't think favourite matches was a concept I ever even acknowledged until I was in my ROH/PWG indy-wank phase.

Or it was Melina vs Alicia Fox.

Different wank phase entirely then.

[NeverYield]

36 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

You should have said a Seth Rollins match to hide the shame of this one.

🤣, it's not a belter by any means, and like I said nostalgia can play a part, I remember going out and buying the DVD with my old man, but when I think back to watching wrestling growing up there is loads of matches pre my time I would watch on DVD over and over again,  I used to love most of Lesnar's appearances from that era as well and thought they were the coolest thing since sliced bread

I've still got an abundance of the old Silver Vision DVD's somewhere

[BomberPat]

I'm not sure I had one. First childhood phase of wrestling fandom was all about characters and the idea of wrestling, as I would have only been catching the odd C-show and highlights, so I had favourite wrestlers, but not favourite matches. For some reason, the earliest favourite wrestlers I can remember having were Bret Hart, 123 Kid, Razor Ramon and......Duke "The Dumpster" Droese.

Getting back into it around 2000, I tended to gravitate to midcard stuff more than the main event, but as friends were lending me videos of shows from 2000 that I'd missed, maybe the Triple H/Mick Foley Hell In A Cell would have been the first match I remember really loving - I saw that before I saw the Street Fight at the Rumble. Then, in terms of stuff that I'd actually watched as it happened, it would probably be TLC 1. I was big on the hardcore match and stunt show stuff initially.