Squared Circle

I started watching in the mid 90s when I was around 5 years old. We'd always get everyone in the family together to watch it such as the grandkids, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I remember when Hogan joined the NWO and I cried.

For PPVs everyone would pitch in so we could afford it to watch it. When I got to high school I grew out of it. Then after college I made some new friends who happen to be wrestling fans and I got back into it. It was great after college as I'd watch it then call my grandfather to talk about it with him.

I started watching in mid 90s as well. I vaguely remember one of my first memories of wrestling as a kid being Kane scaring the hell out of me while making an entrance shortly after his debut.

I’d watch whatever VHS I could find at the local video store, definitely out of order and spanning several different years and eras. Eventually I stumbled upon RAW and the Monday Night Wars.

Good times. Branched out into indies in the early 2000s. Joined the military and soaked up as much different content over the years that I could find, ordering Chikara DVDs while deployed, watching PPVs months later on mailed flash drives. Wrestlings been such a thoroughly engrained part of my life, seems silly that I’ve followed these guys for so long sometimes, but they feel like far off friends in a way.

Late 90s for me. Found WCW Worldwide on Channel 5, then Sunday Night Heat on Channel 4. So I mainly got to see the jobbers & a few highlights. First proper memory was Royal Rumble 2000 which was on free to air tv in the UK, I had it taped and to this day Cactus Jack vs Triple H in the Street Fight is one of my favourite matches ever. Randomly flicking about channels on TV I found some very indy wrestling, FWA. It had CM Punk vs Colt Cabana on it, which showed me there was other wrestling than the big companies on TV. From that the Wrestling Channel Launched in the UK so I watched NWATNA (weekly PPV days were crazy), ROH and MLW as well as some Japanese wrestling, but it was all Japanese commentary, so I didn't have the brain power to concentrate for that long. I've dipped in and out over the years, I mainly stick to watching AEW at the moment as there's just too much to keep up to date with on a weekly basis.

I saw Vader on Boy Meets World and thought he was awesome. Became a loyal WCW kid until Undertaker threw Mankind off hell in a cell, then this little Stinger got bit by the Texas Rattlesnake. I stuck with WWF well past the Attitude Era into early Ruthless Aggression but somewhere between the brand split and all these stupid new faces replacing my old favourites I made like my hero Stone Cold, took my ball, and went home.

2016 comes along and my stepson is getting deep into WWE with his older brother on his dad's side. I agreed to take him along to a local NXT house show which gave me a taste of everything I'd been missing in the 12 years since Goldberg and Brock at Mania had driven me away for good. The house show introduced me to Balor, Bayley, Becky, Joe, Nakamura, etc. My love was reborn.

Turns out that was a pretty good year to get back into wrestling. AJ, Ambrose, Bray, Sami, KO, and on and on. We went to a few TV tapings and some more house shows whenever they came by, and I ate it up more than my kid.

But a few years on, late 2018ish, the sheen had worn off again. Too much time spent on r/sc left me smarky and jaded. My stepson had long since moved onto UFC without looking back and I was ready to tap out again too. Thank god for AEW.

Since the Elite came into my life I've gone back and embraced all I missed in NJPW, even taking a few baby steps into the deep end with the vintage puro King's Road stuff. I occasionally have the odd month where I sub to Wrestle Universe too.

But life gets in the way and these days I have too much work and too many kids to really keep up with every little thing like I used to, though I do still follow the highlights for my favourite promotions. That'll probably be the hardest part of losing r/sc for me if if never comes back since it made keeping up to date so easy. So for now it's mostly just AEW. That was longer than I meant it to be. Oh well. Hi, anyway.

Started watching in the mid 90s as a kid trading VHS with friends and mostly watched Heat on TV. I feel like I saw Taz quite a lot. Kane was my favourite.

Carried on into the early 2000s, remember the Invasion storyline blowing my mind but I didn't know much about WCW back then. Caught up on history via the internet and probably stopped watching just before the rise of Cena. Checked in from time to time and got back into it around the Summer of Punk. Had lots of catching up to do but it was easy to get into.

After Punk left, I was reading more about wrestling than watching but dipped my toe into NJPW and briefly subscribed to their streaming service instead of WWE Network. Got into AEW and here I still am. I'll still watch the rumble and mania every year but not much else besides that WWE wise. I had high hopes for HHH taking the reigns but look how that turned out and post mania, I haven't bothered.

Hoping Collision breathes new life into AEW as well as that's felt a bit lacking to me too. Not sure wrestling will ever capture me like it did when I was a kid but I'm still fascinated by it. As an adult sometimes 'the business of the business' is more interesting than the product itself.

I remember the buzz when I started high school in 1998 and at that stage only WCW was on NZ tv at the time and it was on at 2amish on Sunday mornings. Stayed up one time and was hooked by the crusierweights and Kevin Nash of all people.

I first recall watching broadcast shows, I believe the saturday night main event as a kid, in the early 80s, the introduction of Ultimate Warrior, the heel turn and redemption of Sgt. Slaughter during the first gulf war, and later the battles between WWF and WCW. Only ever got to a couple live shows but watched Undertaker along with Paul Bearer enter the arena... I haven't been heavily invested in recent years but have introduced my own kids to it still. Real life hero/villan stories to follow.