Falling Under the Spell of Wrestling

 Hi all,

I am new to blogging. I've been fretting to blog for years and have finally decided to be brag and share my wrestling brainfarts with the world. 

I was born in 1984 and my very earliest memories of wrestling are in 1990 when friends at school who had Sky were talking about wrestling. I finally got exposed to this magical, tanned, colourful world of WWF when my family visited family friends and they had Sky! 

These characters that I was only aware of through Wrestling Trading cards were suddenly brought to life. I was transfixed and wanted to see more. However, we didn't have Sky. However, not long after, I saw an Ad for something called World Championship Wrestling on ITV. The only problem being that it was on at 1.45am on a Saturday morning. However, my dad had the idea of lending me his alarm clock so that I could wake up to watch it. Looking back, it was a very sweet and thoughtful thing for my dad to do.

So, there I was, 7 year old me, crouched in a corner, at 2 in the morning, trying to not wake up for 11 year old brother.  I succeeded in not awaking my brother. I also succeeded in falling love with the man they call Sting. This awesome super hero wearing neon pink tights and bright face paint! The 2am wrestling viewings became a regular occurrence for  a few weeks until ITV saw sense and moved WCW to a Sunday afternoon slot! This meant that my dad reclaimed his alarm clock!

My firm favourites around this time were Sting, 2 Cold Scorpio (probably the most underrated wrestler of all time), The Steiners, Flying Brian Pillman and Ron Simmons. I think purely because I had access to WCW and not WWF, I was always more of a WCW kid and have a deep affection for WCW until this day.

Even at 8 and 9, most of my conversations with friends were in regards to either Arsenal or wrestling and not much has changed on that front if I'm honest. The names of the players and wrestlers have changed, but the passion remains the same. 

There was a dark time in 1994, when ITV decided that it was no longer going to show WCW. I thought my love affair with wrestling was over at that point and I came to accept over the following weeks and months that wrestling was no longer part of my life.  I then focused on Gladiators! 

In early 1996, Cable London decided to bequeath my Hackney Council Estate with it's services. I knew that I would be able to watch WWF as we were getting Sky Sports. But, to my surprise, we also had access to WCW as it was randomly on channel that played old movies! 

WCW in April 1996 was very different to the product I watched two months earlier. And I was a bit weirded out by Sting's new hair style. However, I did enjoy the wrestling still. The whole Hall and Nash invasion angle was lost on me as I had never really watched WWF at that point and had only vaguely heard of Razor Ramon and Diesel. When Hogan Turned heel at Bash at the Beach,  12 year old me felt robbed seeing Hogan as a good guy and I'm still slightly bitter about this to this day.

In addition to WCW, I also had WWF Raw to watch! For me, WWF was the far superior product in 1996 with the better wrestling. And I fell in love with WWF at this time also. Bret Hart was and is the coolest wrestling I've ever seen. I was randomly a big fan of Savio Vega and Ahmed Johnson. I was convinced that Ahmed Johnson was heading for greatness, but how wrong was I!

So, this is a brief introduction to me and my love of wrestling. Going forward, I'm looking to do more focused pieces on my favourite wrestlers and also some reviews of shows that I've seen as well as share my experiences of watching wrestling in the States, the UK and Japan.

I hope that you enjoyed my rambling and I hope you return when I post further ramblings!