Originally posted on January 6th, 2006. New Introduction.
Hello everyone at TVW, I now would like to somewhat proudly present to you the first wrestling column I ever wrote. It was originally posted at another site. (or forum to be more specific) I am currently in the process of posting all of my previous columns here for posterity's sake. That way if I ever catch on big you will all be able to say you were there to read my very first words. So it is with that being said that I now present to you the column that pulled me out of the womb of wrestling fandom and into the world of wrestling columnists. (But I still try to maintain a healthy level of that previous fandom in all my efforts)
So with all of that being established, I hope you all enjoy my first true attempt at becoming a serious writer.
Jules
( end of intro)
What's up surfers? Jules here, I've been wanting to jump into the Columns Foray for quite some time now as this seems to be quite the hip fraternity at the moment. But seriously though I have been reading alot of the writers here for about two years now and this is indeed a talented pool of wrestling savants. I do not claim to posses such all encompassing intelligence about wrestling statistics nor could I tell you the exact date that Harley Race body slammed Andre The Giant. But what I can assure you of is that I am as loyal and committed of a wrestling fan as your likely to meet anywhere.
This being my first column, I figure I should give you all some insights on my own wrestling fandom. How it has evolved over the years. Wrestlers I have been into, people I've grown to love, and also people I have loathed and detested with every fiber in my body. So, clear your mind for a moment and lets begin to drift back a few years, the exact date I am thinking of is about 1987. I was all of about three years old and just learning my A's and B's when Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation was at it's peak. Yet this is the era of wrestling I grew up watching, mostly through the video tapes I would rent at local stores around town. I saw what in my mind at the time were the most amazing men on Earth, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Jake Roberts, The Ultimate Warrior ( Hey I was a kid remember) and they were all heroes to me. I hated the very ground that Ted Dibiasi walked on, and Andre the Giant scared the ever livin' piss out of me. I'd "mark out" every single time The Macho Man would drop the Flying Elbow into someones chest, My favorite however had to be Mr.DDT, Jake Roberts. I was a huge fan of his from the very first time I saw him. Even though the cool thing to do was to cheer for Ricky Steamboat when he was DDT'd on the concrete floor I secretly LOVED IT! Jake was probably the most badass thing my five year old eyes had ever seen. From when he was fighting the Honky Tonk Man to wrecking the Macho Man's wedding with Miss Elizabeth at Summerslam 91 ( at least I think it was SS anyway.) I couldn't get enough of it.
I remember besides The Snake Man, my biggest vice was probably Hulkamania.. god help me I loved the Hulkster. Except when he was fighting Randy Savage whom I loved more than him, I always rooted for him. I remember being stunned and angry when he lost to the Warrior at Wrestlemania six. It was just beyond belief even though to my then five or six year old mind, The Warrior was still a pretty cool guy. I hated the fact that he was allowed to beat the Hulk. Even though I hadn't quite yet reached the age of realization that the Wrestling business was a "Work" that instance must have planted some pretty serious doubts. Because how could this man who had Body Slammed giants and who had NEVER been defeated cleanly in pretty much his entire WWE run be defeated by this young upstart who could barely f***ing speak English. Also during this time the Undertaker debuted, he was a menacing force indeed and he like Andre before him scared the dickens out of my childhood mind.
The tag team division was also blossoming in these days, I was a huge fan of Demolition. ( I hadn't seen the Road Warriors yet so I didn't know they were just an imitation tag team) Like Jake Roberts, Demolition is a team that I could never root against no matter how evil the announcers played them out to be. They were mean and menacing and I loved them that way. There was also The Hart Foundation, The Rockers and a few other teams I was into back then and I few that I thought personally.. sucked ass. The Powers Of Pain especially. And also I never got into the Bushwackers, I thought they were especially retarded even for a little kid's taste.
Now moving on, I hadn't discovered WCW until I was almost lets say Ten or Elevenish. And while it was something new at the time. I didn't really get into it until much later on in the decade. The year is 1993, this is the first year I can really remember watching live wrestling on television. I never saw an episode of Saturday Nights Main event on TV in the 80's or early 90's. But once the WWE started up with RAW on the USA network, I was hooked and an obsession was born that lives on until this very day. It was around the time of Wrestlemania 9 and Bret Hart was the World Champion, I was suprised to see this because up until that point it had never entered into my mind that Bret was anything but an IC title and Tag Title guy. In that nights Main Event he was facing the monstrously imposing Sumo wrestling sensation known as Yokozuna. He was definitely what you would call an underdog going into this match. I wanted him to win since I liked Bret, I mean hey who didn't he was a good wrestler and he actually gave away his shades to kids in the crowd. How I longed to get a pair of those shades. I finally did buy some when I went to see Summerslam 94. And they were a cherished possession of mine until the day they mysteriously vanished from my room. I cried that day. I was pissed. But anyway, On that day Yoko pulled off the underhanded win.
Then in came my old personal Hero to set things right. The Hulk made quick work of Yoko and won his fifth World Championship belt there in front of 15,000 screaming idiots who were all wearing toga's.
Later on that year at King Of The Ring, Yoko smashed Hogan and he wasn't seen in a WWE ring for quite some time afterwords. It is around this period that I most vividly begin to remember watching the WWE product. Even though by now, The Macho Man was an announcer ( which I hated) , Hogan was gone, Jake Roberts also gone, The Warrior was gone and in their place was THE NEW GENERATION. It is only now after the onset of years that I have begun to appreciate how much this time changed the wrestling industry forever. Shawn Michaels was a cocky bastard, I thought Razor Ramon was going to be the next big thing for sure. And that guy who I had once relegated to tag Team mediocrity was the WWE champ ( after defeating Yoko at WM 10) and a credible one at that this time around. Bret Hart was the man...Owen Hart was a favorite character of mine at this time too, He was always good for a laugh or two no matter what kind of dastardly deed he was perpetrating against his older sibling. R.I.P man, you are truly missed.
Kevin Nash then known as Deasil was starting to pick up some steam and he ravaged the WWE in 1995 winning all three of the major titles in one year alone. I was a mark for him back then indeed, and I am not going to shame myself by trying to deny it now for sake of appearing "cool" for the IWC. I mentioned earlier that all my favorites were gone from the WWE during this fabled era of the New Generation Era but they did return (some of them anyway) to my television. Jake Roberts came back as a bible thumper and this man whom I had once loved was now nothing more than a sad joke to me. The Warrior came back, but it wasn't the same. He had lost "it" and once you lose "it" that intangible that is undefinable I guess, you never get it back and you never reclaim the glory that you once had. Randy savage as well as Hulk Hogan were in WCW doing their same old Schick, The Macho Man wasn't the same Macho man whom I had loved in the early 90's and Hogan's say your prayers, take your drugs and don't sodomize any hookers gimmick was finally getting old to me.
I had by that time started watching old tapes of WCW from back in the early 90's. I thought Sting was pretty cool, but I f***ing LOVED Vader. Here was a guy who epitomized everything it meant to be a tough S.O.B. He showed no compassion, and had no fear. When he beat Sting for the WCW strap while other kids must have cried I marked the f*** out. Then I saw him Job to The already aging Hulkster and I was dis-heartened.. It was a major blow to my wrestling fandom indeed. I wouldn't give a rats ass about WCW again until the nWo angle started. But before then in the WWE there was still the New Generation to keep me entertained, I marked out heavy when HBK won his first world title. And then later on in that same year I got to see him go mano -a- mano against the Mastodon himself VADER! That was a very cool treat for me personally. And it was a great match too. That was Summerslam 96, and as mentioned earlier the nWo was at it's arguable peak then. Hall and Nash had left WWE for the greener pastures of Ted Turners wallet and once again, wrestling changed.
There was seriously so much shit going in WCW back then that you HAD to watch it. DDP was starting to get popular, The cruiserweights were wowing audiences with their death defying antics and there was still the old staples such as The Stinger ( in his new ultra bad-ass crow get up) On the downside though the nWo got bloated and boring eventually and WCW never found anything ( until Goldberg) to replace the magic they had found with that angle. Speaking of Goldberg, I know I'm only digging my IWC grave deeper here by stating this but in the days before everyone was logging onto websites and moaning about "work rates" Goldberg was a fierce wrecking machine and when he demolished Hogan for the WCW title I was delighted. Unlike when the Warrior beat him ten years prior to that event and I had been shocked and appalled at the site. Goldberg just seemed so "real" to me back then. And you wanted him to crush everything in site. And he pretty much did.
Shifting back to the good old World Wrestling Federation at the time, Steve Austin was fast becoming the most popular superstar in wrestling history. I really dug that character of the non caring cold blooded Rattlesnake who would attack anyone, anywhere for almost any reason. I even loved it when he tried to break the leg of Brian Pillman. that was as extreme as anything I had ever seen up until that point. Speaking of EXTREME, I caught my first glimpse of ECW in 1999 with Hardcore Heaven. ( yes the one with the legendary RVD-Lynn match) I had read about ECW in wrestling magazines for as long as I could remember and desperately wanted to see it. Even though by that time it was a shell of it's former self, I was hooked immediately. By those fans, those f***ing fans. Finally I saw people who were just as devoted to wrestling as I was and not ashamed to let it be known.. In my opinion ECW had the greatest fans in the history of this business. THEY made ECW great fun to watch. I marked out heavilyy for the violent style ECW offered up, The Sandman was a favorite, not the best worker ever but one of the best Characters of all time. And just plain fun to watch ( especially the entrance) Taz as Andre, and Taker before him scared the shit out of me. Even though I nearly dwarfed him in size and I was no longer by any means considered a "kid" This man literally intimidated me. Even now that he's just a color guy on SD I would still NEVER want to cross him in a dark alley. The tazmission was the coolest finisher ever back then. Simple, yet effective and very DEADLY.
After I had caught the ECW bug (before seeing it even), it wasn't long before my beloved WWE caught it too. Mick Foley who I already developed a strange admiration for due to his quirky personality was putting on matches that made you wonder if wrestling hadn't just about gone too far in the violence department after all. A person I forgot to mention by the name of The Rock also became popular around this time. But really.. f*** the Rock.. He never was a favorite of mine, Sure he's charismatic and he could cut a good promo but there was always just something about him that bugged me. I never could put my finger on it. For one thing The Rock Bottom was about as convincing as a finisher then as the FU is now. So maybe that was it, or perhaps it was the fact that he was rushed into the title scene WAY too soon for my tastes. Whatever it was, I never cared about the Rock. Until about 2000 when he had a pretty good fued with HHH. But the year 2000 was aside from Foley's matches with HHH early in the year a shitty one for me to watch pro wrestling.
ECW was dying, as was WCW, Steve Austiin was injured and nothing really clicked for me. ECW had gotten a deal on TNN but the show's they were putting out were of very poor quality. I still saw a few glimmers of hope every now and then. RHINO was a monster, I loved the series of matches beteen Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka from 1999 to 2000. These were a few fleeting glimpses of what was for me anyway the last great period for pro wrestling. This was the death rattle indeed for an era and for two companies that had dared to compete with the Almighty VKM. And for a while.. did a pretty good job.
After the collapse of ECW and WCW I still watched wrestling albiet with less enthusiasm than before. Especially after the f***ed up debacle that was the Invasion angle. You can still be sure that I will still tune in every time I get a chance to watch wrestling anywhere, Why? Maybe because I just don't know any better. Maybe because it reminds me of a time in my life when things were simpler. Perhaps I'm just a sick f*** who likes seeing people suffer and bleed? I hope it's not just the latter. But I think in the end it's that I have developed a real connnection with the performers wether they entertain me or not. I have the upmost respect for all of them and for what they do. So to everyone who's had the spaldings to lace up a pair of boots in the last twenty years and enter into the squared circle to perform for all of us, This column is for you.
Well... my friends that is as they say, The End. I hope this first attempt into becoming a writer hasn't been totally devoid of merit. Any feedback of course is always greatly appreiciated. Thank you all for reading.
See ya next time when hopefully things will be a bit more in order and I will actually have a topic to write about. I'm brainstorming as we speak so until then.
Take care and Happy New Years!
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