Your first ‘favourite match ever’

[HarmonicGenerator]

35 minutes ago, NeverYield said:

🤣, 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

I remember thinking Three Stages Of Hell was going to be a classic, partly because I'd loved the Summerslam match and partly because it was a really fun match mode on the Playstation games that they basically never did in real life (the previous one must have been Stone Cold vs Triple H at No Way Out?).

We didn't have Sky Sports at the time (or was this one on Box Office, if so then no way I was getting that), so I didn't see the show, and have still never got round to it. 

[The King of Old School]

3 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I remember thinking Three Stages Of Hell was going to be a classic, partly because I'd loved the Summerslam match and partly because it was a really fun match mode on the Playstation games that they basically never did in real life (the previous one must have been Stone Cold vs Triple H at No Way Out?).

We didn't have Sky Sports at the time (or was this one on Box Office, if so then no way I was getting that), so I didn't see the show, and have still never got round to it. 

I wouldn't bother.

Life is short enough as it is.

[NeverYield]

7 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I remember thinking Three Stages Of Hell was going to be a classic, partly because I'd loved the Summerslam match and partly because it was a really fun match mode on the Playstation games that they basically never did in real life (the previous one must have been Stone Cold vs Triple H at No Way Out?).

We didn't have Sky Sports at the time (or was this one on Box Office, if so then no way I was getting that), so I didn't see the show, and have still never got round to it. 

Yeah that definitely helped with my judgement of the match at the time, as like you say it wasn't a common stipulation at that time at all. Austin and HHH was the previous one yes, and the first one they ever did I believe? 

The early days of no Sky Sport's WWE fandom was taking what you could get 🤣I remember a post on this forum I think, where someone said seeing Essa Rios on Channel 4 was one of their earliest memories of WWE growing up and they thought he was great, and I found that so accurate, sometimes circumstances, and what you can get your hands on dictate good or bad memories as much as any actual quality of a match or a wrestler. 

[HarmonicGenerator]

4 minutes ago, NeverYield said:

The early days of no Sky Sport's WWE fandom was taking what you could get 🤣I remember a post on this forum I think, where someone said seeing Essa Rios on Channel 4 was one of their earliest memories of WWE growing up and they thought he was great, and I found that so accurate, sometimes circumstances, and what you can get your hands on dictate good or bad memories as much as any actual quality of a match or a wrestler. 

I used to like Essa Rios as well, because our On Digital package gave us Sky One, which meant WWF Metal every weekend. Essa, Crash Holly, Dean Malenko - basically the light heavyweight division by 2000 - and a bunch of regular jobbers like Julio Fantastico/Dinero, young Bobby Roode, and Arch Kincaid were as good as some of the main stars to me! 

[Lorne Malvo]

8 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

I used to like Essa Rios as well, because our On Digital package gave us Sky One, which meant WWF Metal every weekend. Essa, Crash Holly, Dean Malenko - basically the light heavyweight division by 2000 - and a bunch of regular jobbers like Julio Fantastico/Dinero, young Bobby Roode, and Arch Kincaid were as good as some of the main stars to me! 

There was a weird period where you would get Metal followed by Jakked or something, and they'd have the exact same jobber/squash matches on but just with slightly different Raw highlights. Really strange block of programming, that.

[wordsfromlee]

As a little kid, my only real exposure to wrestling was through merch and toys. So to me wrestling was purely all the larger than life cartoon-y wrestlers - such as Hogan, Warrior, Bulldog - as they were the ones on the t-shirts and lunch boxes. 
 

The towards the late 90s I’d heard kids at school mention WWF briefly, but as we didn’t have Sky at home I never got to watch any. So when I saw that Royal Rumble 2000 was going to be aired on Channel 4 I knew I’d have to see what all the fuss was about. 
 

The first match of Kurt Angle vs Tazz was fine. It was only 3 minutes long, had a bit of a screwy finish and there was a back story which I didn’t really understand as I hadn’t watched any of the build up and didn’t know who Tazz was, nor his reputation. But I could tell that this was serving a purpose to move a storyline forward rather than an actual competitive match so I was fine with it. 
 

Then it came to the Dudleys vs the Hardys which blew my mind. I’d never seen anyone go through a table before, never mind a whole match where it’s the sole purpose. All the wrestling is seen up to this point was punch, kick, body slam, clothesline, leg drop, sleeper hold, so to see guys using their bodies as weapons was completely new to me. Finishing it off with a balcony dive too was something I would never have thought in a million years would happen during a wrestling match. It absolutely captivated me. I was enthralled. 

[Lorne Malvo]

14 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

There was a weird period where you would get Metal followed by Jakked or something, and they'd have the exact same jobber/squash matches on but just with slightly different Raw highlights. Really strange block of programming, that.

Actually, maybe I'm getting this completely arse over tit and they were actually the same Raw highlights but just with different jobber matches. That would make much more sense. 

[Supremo]

I was hooked for life after discovering Royal Rumble 1996 whilst flicking through the Sky channels. Chronologically, this probably means my first favourite match was Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel at Good Friends Better Enemies.

I would have been eleven at the time, so will have believed them when they told me the Bret vs. Shawn Iron Man match was a classic. But even then, without being able to articulate it, I knew of a far better match from that same period. One I watched over and over again. It wasn’t Bret and Shawn’s boring nil-nil draw. It’s this absolute ripper!

Probably my first time seeing this type of weapons-based match. Chair shots. Choking with a belt. Fire extinguisher. A fucking prosthetic leg! Whole thing melted my brain.

Also, all these years later, there’s still a chance the first table bump I ever saw remains the best table bump of all time.

The monitors flying through the air! Vince’s headset pulling him into the pile of rubble! The wildest thing I’d ever seen!

To this very day, I probably think about this bump every single time someone clears the desk and moves the monitors before putting someone through the announce table.

You’re in the middle of a wild fight. Why the fuck are you tidying up? In your attempt to murder your opponent, why are you ensuring they have as safe a landing as possible? Has it ever been explained in kayfabe why wrestlers do this? The best I can come up with is they’re scared of Nick Aldis docking their pay for any damage done to the expensive equipment. I guess that matters more these days when your salary is half what it used to be.

Watching this match back just now, it’s even more fascinating knowing all the politics surrounding it. Diesel on his way out, doing everything possible to help his mate kickstart his title run. Shawn full of stress, spite and frustration as his mates abandon him. All the pressure in the world to make a point and carry the company. No wonder they went balls out. I wonder how many ECW tapes they studied in the weeks leading up to it.

Also, as loathed as I am to ever give him credit, this might be one of Vince McMahon’s best nights as an announcer.

”We said, “No Holds Barred,” but we didn’t expect THIS!”

Another final thing to appreciate with modern eyes. Whole thing goes just over twenty minutes, including entrances. Fucking yes, boys!

What do we reckon? Kevin Nash’s best ever match? It was that night.

Edited June 10 by Supremo

[jimufctna24]

35 minutes ago, Supremo said:

What do we reckon? Kevin Nash’s best ever match? It was that night.

I slightly prefer the Bret vs Nash match at Survivor Series the previous year. 

Both matches have aged beautifully though.

[BomberPat]

54 minutes ago, Supremo said:

To this very day, I probably think about this bump every single time someone clears the desk and moves the monitors before putting someone through the announce table.

You’re in the middle of a wild fight. Why the fuck are you tidying up? In your attempt to murder your opponent, why are you ensuring they have as safe a landing as possible? Has it ever been explained in kayfabe why wrestlers do this?

It's one of those many things that people used to make a point of trying to work into the match before the spot, and then just got lazy because everyone knows it's just signalling for an announce table spot, and hey, why not just do the spot then, everybody knows it's fake anyway. If you watch matches from 2000 or 2001 or so, chances are that one of the wrestlers will grab the monitor and hit their opponent in the head with it - it's a logical weapon spot and it clears the table for the bump - or a wrestler would get slammed into the table and kind of clear it up as they were selling. I expect it's as the big chunky monitors gave way to flatscreens and then to tablets that it became easier to just sweep them all out of the way rather than having to dislodge these big clunky bits of machinery, but it still wouldn't hurt to make a show of making the act of removing things from the table into something that makes sense within the story.

[Lorne Malvo]

4 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

it still wouldn't hurt to make a show of making the act of removing things from the table into something that makes sense within the story.

Unless the story ends with a wrestler attempting to use one of the flatscreen monitors as a weapon but forgetting it's plugged in, leading to it exploding in their face which costs them the match and makes them look like a massive idiot. Nobody would be daft enough to book that, would they?

Oh. 

[LaGoosh]

5 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

Unless the story ends with a wrestler attempting to use one of the flatscreen monitors as a weapon but forgetting it's plugged in, leading to it exploding in their face which costs them the match and makes them look like a massive idiot. Nobody would be daft enough to book that, would they?

Oh. 

I loved this dumb spot because it makes remotely no sense at all why the TV would explode. Especially like that. Something booked by people who think the real world runs on Tom & Jerry science.

[SuperBacon]

My first favourite match was, unsurprisingly, Bret vs Austin at Mania 13, and I absolutely rinsed it, and even presented it in school for a sort of show and tell thing, which my form tutor shat all over, the mark.

But I do remember thinking Bret vs Perfect was the first 'important' match I'd ever seen. The comms added to it, and then Bret celebrating with Helen and Stu, who hilariously keeps talking to Alfred Hayes as he cuts away so you can't hear anything he says, added massively to it as well. It really felt like a huge victory at the time.

[Lorne Malvo]

3 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

my form tutor shat all over, the mark.

 

Obviously a Shawn Michaels fan. 

[Carbomb]

Or a poster on here.

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

I loved this dumb spot because it makes remotely no sense at all why the TV would explode. Especially like that. Something booked by people who think the real world runs on Tom & Jerry science.

I still remember Orton basically being Wile E. Coyote, trying to blow up his opponent at one point.