It all started way back in 1990-something when I was a young child at my mother's house. I was upstairs in the TV room and she was down in the kitchen. What struck me then was the excitement of matches and more specifically the promos. The words the wrestlers used to describe to tear each other down had me captivated. As I recall the first one I was Stone Cold in a camouflage hat. I don't remember who he was trash talking but the colorful nature of his vocabulary shook me to my core. Little me couldn't help but think, "this is badass!". I remember the first match I saw and Jerry the King pointing out that wrestlers who primarily used kicks fought like girls. I ran downstairs to tell my Mom and she told me it was professional wrestling.
I had a passing interest in wrestling after that but I didn't really know when to watch it and I didn't understand what RAW is WAR meant. The moment I got hooked on wrestling was when I was at my cousin Donny's house a little later on in my childhood. He was saying something about a Rock and Sock Connection and was talking about Mankind. He was trying to explain to me that in a way Cactus Jack and Mankind were the same person. Later that night we were watching Raw and I remember a promo where Stone Cold took the Rock's world title and threw it over a bridge into some water along with an oxygen tank, a snorkel mask, and an oxygen tank. I thought that was badass.
Also along the way I got my hands on a copy WWF Wrestlemania Arcade for my Super Nintendo (thank you Dad). I found that pretty captivating and remember vividly swinging a bat with Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon's weird arm swipe along with Doink's cleated diving attack. I'd say it was about 1998 that I really started consistently paying attention to wrestling (Monday Nitro excluded) and from 1999-2003 I was completely absorbed. I had the action figures, the ring, the hell in a cell attachment, the weapon accessories, the steel cage attachment, and my very own replica of the WWF Tag Team titles. I had a slew of wrestling games from WCW/NWO Revenge to Wrestlemania 2000 but nothing got my attention more than the No Mercy video game.
My interest level in pro-wrestling dropped off a bit until I found out Wrestlemania was coming to Seattle. I got my grandma to take me, painted my face like Goldust and watched Stone Cold Steve Austin's last match. That was one hell of a show.
But for whatever reason as I turned 14 I lost all interest in wrestling but I was always fascinated by the industry itself. It wasn't until my senior year in college that I started watching more and as soon as the Rock returned to face John Cena I was amazed at the goosebumps on my arm and my love for WWE has been fully restored. Since then I've been reading lots of stuff on Bleacher Report and often thinking to myself: "These guys have some interesting things to say but just don't seem to get it and there's a lot more they can say." After a few months of reading opinion pieces on Bleacher Report I decided it was time for me to make my opinions known. My favorite thing about wrestling was guessing outcomes and fantasizing about different storylines. Now that I'm almost 24 not much has changed. Maybe only my family and a few of my friends will read what I write here. Otherwise I want to share my caged up brilliance and ignorance and maybe just maybe I'll make someone's day or spark a sports entertainment revolution.
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