wrestling is life
Seriously.
I remember being a tiny kid watching Rock N Wrestling (the cartoon).
I remember fangirling Roddy Piper when everyone else was a Hulkamaniac.
I remember being like 7 or 8 and watching Wednesday nights on CHCH (the Hamilton station) as they showed WWF Superstars. Basically every week Hacksaw Jim Duggan would main-event.
It was such a staple of my childhood. I used to watch the hourlong Saturday afternoon show with Jess on the phone and we'd discuss what we were seeing. Our first crush (probably) was Shawn Michaels, and we had a fistfight to determine who got to claim him (she won, I was awarded Marty Janetty as a consolation prize). We used to play house (kind of) where she was the daughter of the Million Dollar Man and her husband was Shawn, and I was her neighbor who was married to Marty and all the baby dolls I had were the kids we'd had and were raising as best friends.
When I was in high school and stressed all to fuck, I'd watch wrestling. Monday Night I'd watch RAW live, then at midnight I'd watch the rebroadcast to try and fall asleep. When we finally started getting Nitro, I'd stay up and watch that instead. Tuesday after school, I'd watch the RAW rebroadcast too, just to see all the moves in the match where I might have been distracted by announcing or maybe had been out of the room. I would watch Thunder and Smackdown.
After high school, some friends and I went to a few live events. I know we were at a RAW taping (the one where you could see my brother shaking his head in dismay at Booker T during his entrance, haha) and maybe a second one? And definitely a Smackdown taping where we had a giant RVD sign made of cutout letters and wrapped in holographic wrapping paper. That was the one with RVD vs Mr Perfect shortly before he passed away. A technical/lighting glitch happened and they had to restart the match, it was cool and weird to see the business exposed like that as they had to redo all the same spots.
I was a member of Lance Storm's Book Marks book club. I won a giveaway on his site, and even got a couple of Christmas cards from him and arranged for a birthday card to be sent to my friend Dan.
After I moved here, I got Chris into it (sort of. He's such a good dude, he doesn't have the love for it I do but because I do, he supports it) and we made the over-6-hour-drive to Edmonton for Backlash 2006, where Benoit won the title in his hometown. Also where Randy Orton (in his Legend Killer gimmick) fought Mick Foley in the last WWE thumbtack spot until this year's Extreme Rules pay per view.
In 2009 I started watching Ring of Honor on HDNet, and it got me interested in the indies. I gave TNA a try when on Spike TV, but it was so inconsistent it made WCW look sane and once Christian went back to WWE and Samoa Joe was being booked stupidly I cut my losses, even with Sting and Jeff Hardy still there.
I got back into wrestling hardcore back in April. It was literally the only thing I looked forward to, and the only thing I had an attention span for. I started buying indy DVDs, some PWG, some ROH, some Evolve, and some old DGUSA. Marked out hard for Jon Moxley and Kevin Steen, bought some Best Of DVDs for each of them. Both are in WWE now, as Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens, I'm so glad both of them made it, and made it to the top of the mountain there. We subscribed to WWE Network, and I'm working my way through some of the PPVs every other week. I still have DVDs to watch, plus 6 hours of current WWE programming on TV every week, and it's my also-beloved figure skating season. So many of the great indy guys are in NXT now, like Samoa Joe, and hopefully they get moved to the main roster soon.
It's come and gone, there have been months where I didn't make wrestling appointment TV, I wouldn't record it and only watch if I happened to be home and nothing else was on. But when I've needed it it's been there. Something to distract me from my own head, something that makes sense (even if it's just its own strange internal logic) when everything else in life is spinning out of control. It's probably saved my life on occasion.
Thank you, wrestling.
I remember being a tiny kid watching Rock N Wrestling (the cartoon).
I remember fangirling Roddy Piper when everyone else was a Hulkamaniac.
I remember being like 7 or 8 and watching Wednesday nights on CHCH (the Hamilton station) as they showed WWF Superstars. Basically every week Hacksaw Jim Duggan would main-event.
It was such a staple of my childhood. I used to watch the hourlong Saturday afternoon show with Jess on the phone and we'd discuss what we were seeing. Our first crush (probably) was Shawn Michaels, and we had a fistfight to determine who got to claim him (she won, I was awarded Marty Janetty as a consolation prize). We used to play house (kind of) where she was the daughter of the Million Dollar Man and her husband was Shawn, and I was her neighbor who was married to Marty and all the baby dolls I had were the kids we'd had and were raising as best friends.
When I was in high school and stressed all to fuck, I'd watch wrestling. Monday Night I'd watch RAW live, then at midnight I'd watch the rebroadcast to try and fall asleep. When we finally started getting Nitro, I'd stay up and watch that instead. Tuesday after school, I'd watch the RAW rebroadcast too, just to see all the moves in the match where I might have been distracted by announcing or maybe had been out of the room. I would watch Thunder and Smackdown.
After high school, some friends and I went to a few live events. I know we were at a RAW taping (the one where you could see my brother shaking his head in dismay at Booker T during his entrance, haha) and maybe a second one? And definitely a Smackdown taping where we had a giant RVD sign made of cutout letters and wrapped in holographic wrapping paper. That was the one with RVD vs Mr Perfect shortly before he passed away. A technical/lighting glitch happened and they had to restart the match, it was cool and weird to see the business exposed like that as they had to redo all the same spots.
I was a member of Lance Storm's Book Marks book club. I won a giveaway on his site, and even got a couple of Christmas cards from him and arranged for a birthday card to be sent to my friend Dan.
After I moved here, I got Chris into it (sort of. He's such a good dude, he doesn't have the love for it I do but because I do, he supports it) and we made the over-6-hour-drive to Edmonton for Backlash 2006, where Benoit won the title in his hometown. Also where Randy Orton (in his Legend Killer gimmick) fought Mick Foley in the last WWE thumbtack spot until this year's Extreme Rules pay per view.
In 2009 I started watching Ring of Honor on HDNet, and it got me interested in the indies. I gave TNA a try when on Spike TV, but it was so inconsistent it made WCW look sane and once Christian went back to WWE and Samoa Joe was being booked stupidly I cut my losses, even with Sting and Jeff Hardy still there.
I got back into wrestling hardcore back in April. It was literally the only thing I looked forward to, and the only thing I had an attention span for. I started buying indy DVDs, some PWG, some ROH, some Evolve, and some old DGUSA. Marked out hard for Jon Moxley and Kevin Steen, bought some Best Of DVDs for each of them. Both are in WWE now, as Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens, I'm so glad both of them made it, and made it to the top of the mountain there. We subscribed to WWE Network, and I'm working my way through some of the PPVs every other week. I still have DVDs to watch, plus 6 hours of current WWE programming on TV every week, and it's my also-beloved figure skating season. So many of the great indy guys are in NXT now, like Samoa Joe, and hopefully they get moved to the main roster soon.
It's come and gone, there have been months where I didn't make wrestling appointment TV, I wouldn't record it and only watch if I happened to be home and nothing else was on. But when I've needed it it's been there. Something to distract me from my own head, something that makes sense (even if it's just its own strange internal logic) when everything else in life is spinning out of control. It's probably saved my life on occasion.
Thank you, wrestling.