When you were younger....

[lechampion]

I’m just curious what wrestling organizations everyone grew up watching? I really believe our early experiences with wrestling influence our preferences for certain things in the sport. I grew up watching a variety of things like: WWF, wCw, International Wrestling, AAA, Stampede wrestling and AWA. I knew of New Japan but didn’t get into that until my 20s with buying tapes.

[primetime21]

Mostly WWF, but some AWA on ESPN (for example, I knew who the Rockers were when they came to the WWF, but I knew them as the Midnight Rockers which was much cooler), and some NWA/WCW (I always love the Crockett Cup I thought that was the coolest idea ever--that and War Games).

[Dark Mauler]

I got in to wrestling with late 2000's WWE

[Stanley The Weeb]

Me? I'm from Milwaukee Wisconsin. In the 70's, we were part of the AWA, and had a half hour show (or was it a full hour show?) called All Star Wrestling. We got to see Da Crusher and Dick The Bruiser. And occasionally Hulk Hogan (before he became the babyface he became in the 80's), Adrian Adonis, Jack "The Snake" Robert's, "Leaping" Lenny Popful (Wrestling's Smartest Man), among others.

Then after that, we seen the beginning of the WWF.

[jakevstheworld]

I was born in 1996, and I didn't start watching wrestling until around 2007. WWE was my only wrestling input for a year or so, then I discovered TNA. I didn't even know of NJPW, AAA, ROH, etc until a few years ago. I still mainly watch WWE, but I've recently gotten into AEW as well.

I feel so jealous sometimes when people talk about WWF, WCW and OG ECW; I know that stuff was before I was born/when I was too young to watch it, but I feel like I missed out on wrestling's heyday, and it sometimes messes with my enjoyment of the current product. I sometimes wish people would stop dumping on the '08-'10 period of WWE; I know looking back it wasn't great, but it was my childhood, and that already gets ruined enough by Reddit

[thatguyoverthere]

I started watching WWF and when I go visit my grandparents I would watch NWA & AWA. I know this is a little off topic but it is a shame that a lot of the wrestlers that were beasts in NWA weren't used properly by WWF

[dazzer]

It really depends what you're looking for. Comparing the periods is hard as they are so different. What I would say is that the actual wrestling was very different and whilst I enjoyed it in the 80's and early 90's the actual in ring product was worse.

Look at Steamboat vs Savage at Wrestlemania III. This is often lauded as one of the greatest matches of all time however I would say any recent episode of AEW Dynamite would have better actual matches in it.

[johnny3]

I was born in 83 so I was a Hulkamaniac. WWF all the way. I watched through the attitude era and got into WCW just a little during the NWO phase, though I always felt like I was being unfaithful when I did. I lost track around 2000 or so. I started watching a bit about 3 years ago again and I was amazed at the incredible athleticism and god-awfulness of the story telling, both in the ring and in match build up.

[Shock Pillman]

Jan 29, 2021 8:38:43 GMT -5 dazzer said:

It really depends what you're looking for. Comparing the periods is hard as they are so different. What I would say is that the actual wrestling was very different and whilst I enjoyed it in the 80's and early 90's the actual in ring product was worse.

Look at Steamboat vs Savage at Wrestlemania III. This is often lauded as one of the greatest matches of all time however I would say any recent episode of AEW Dynamite would have better actual matches in it.

U joking?

[Duke Mongoose]

Growing up in the shadow of Titan Tower, I only knew about WWF when I was a kid in the 80s. When I was old enough to stay up late enough to watch Monday Night Raw, I accidentally stumbled upon Nitro which was my first real exposure to any other wrestling company. A friend of mine knew a guy who was a tape trader and I found out about ECW and that ECW was on a local channel at like 2am or something so I started taping that every weekend. When I was in my late teens some online friends of mine from Canada were really big into All Japan and they used to make music videos of 90s AJPW but I never got into buying/trading for Japan tapes and I've only recently started watching the classic 90s AJPW on YouTube and I love it.

As far as influencing our preferences, I guess that's true to a degree. My favorite shows in the 90s were WCW Saturday Night, WWF Superstars, and WCW Worldwide because they were mostly squashes and promos but they got people over so when they were on RAW or Nitro you were excited to see them face real opponents. Plus I always loved the endless parade of jobbers. Since no show like this exists (I don't count AEW Dark because it's on YouTube and once wrestling is back in a real arena in front of fans and touring they won't be doing 2 hour squash shows anymore) I long for those types of shows. Nobody gets over anymore because it seems like no one in AEW or WWE has a clue what they're doing. Case in point - WWE's biggest face is Drew McIntyre and their biggest heel is Roman Reigns, so of course they're on different shows and don't interact. Ugh.

[Red Pirate Rogers]

Dang, johnny3 that's eerily similar to my experience. My brothers and I would often make a weekend of watching old WWF pay-per-views, reenacting favorite matches, and built a real affinity for that late 80s early 90s intercontinental/tag-scene (Steiners, Smoking Guns, Tatanka & Mr. Perfect esp.).

I actually have a soft spot for that "New Generation" era prior to Attitude, DX and Austin actually turned me off, and while I liked the NWO wars, I checked out after the "Fingerpoke of Doom". But pandemic has brought me back in.

[Pierre The Enormous]

I became a fan around Money In The Bank 2013 (My ex best friend was doing an impression of Goldust and I finished it and we clicked from there)

[Dyno]

At secondary school in the early 90's I had a mate who had loads of WWF videos, I remember borrowing things like Wrestlemania IV (2 tapes!!) but also visiting my mate who's parents ran a care home so we'd get to watch WWF Superstars on Friday nights. (They had Sky in the care home but neither of us had it in our own homes at this point).

One of my earliest "live" memories of WWF (as in not a video tape of old PPVs) was when the Undertaker locked the Ultimate Warrior in his casket.

I then ran across WCW Worldwide late night on ITV I think. So I used to tape and watch that. Tom Zenk used to be on all the time coz he was the TV champ at the time, although I have memories of him dropping it to Arn Anderson one week...no idea if I've dreamt this tbh lol.

Eurosport also started showing wrestling from Japan, no idea which show, which advertised a load of folks from WWF who only rarely appeared but I got to watch a lot of Chris Benoit as Wild Pegasus.

[Thumper Moore III]

When I was a kid, my friends were all Hulkamaniacs, but me... I was a little Stinger. For me, seeing Sting get betrayed by his “best friend” Lex Luger for the twenty-sixth time didn’t get old. And all of the other guys at that time in JCP/WCW— the Horsemen, Funks, Dusty, Windham, Cactus Jack, Nikita Koloff, Vader— to me they were more believable than the cartoony guys WWF had.

Not to say WWF didn’t have some cool stuff. The most memorable match of my childhood was Warrior v Hogan at Mania 6. I begged my dad for that PPV, and darned if he didn’t cave. So I guess main event-wise, WWF was strong, but their undercard was filled with guys who, while legitimately tough, didn’t come across that way.

The guy who killed kayfabe for me as a kid was Battle Cat. The guy behind the mask didn’t look like he could hurt anybody, but here were grown men selling like they’d just been shot from a punch that looked like it wouldn’t hurt a small rodent. I credit him with further destroying my childhood innocence.

[primetime21]

Jan 29, 2021 9:44:55 GMT -5 johnny3 said:

I was born in 83 so I was a Hulkamaniac. WWF all the way. I watched through the attitude era and got into WCW just a little during the NWO phase, though I always felt like I was being unfaithful when I did. I lost track around 2000 or so. I started watching a bit about 3 years ago again and I was amazed at the incredible athleticism and god-awfulness of the story telling, both in the ring and in match build up.

I was born in 1976 so a little older but was never a Hogan fan.  I also leaned toward the heel--Piper, Savage, Jake The Snake were some of my friends (I will admit to liking the Ultimate Warrior though).  It's always crazy for me to think that The Undertaker was around when I was in high school and just retired...