We are all big wrestling nerds now - but how did our love of the graps come about? Let's dive deep into the memory bank to find out!
PETE HITCHCOCK - PSYCHOPATH KANE
My first wrestling memory is a short but distinct one. I saw a segment on whatever weird cable television we had in 2003 or so in hindsight it was possibly during the Kane vs Shane McMahon feud.
Kane ambushed Shane McMahon in the hospital and as far as I was concerned, he BEAT HIM TO DEATH IN HIS HOSPITAL BED. I am not going to lie, I was fucking horrified (missing the fact that Shane survived, I don't remember seeing that or maybe I changed the channel too fast).
Being before I learned that wrestling was "fucking fake, brother" I had worked myself into a shoot that WWE was some sort of disgusting snuff film programming where men were somehow able to murder people on camera without reproach or justice of any kind. Well, arguably they still are that.
I also did not know Kane was supposedly a demon from hell but I did think this seven foot tall huge musclebound pale bald guy looked a lot like the parade of psychopaths you would see on FOX News in the mornings at my grandmother's in Chicago whenever I was over there for torturing and killing children in a shack in Wisconsin or something.
Sorry, Glenn!
JCH - WRESTLEMANIA 12
My first wrestling memory is at my grandparents. They had sky. They also had two TV's in different rooms linked to the same sky box. We turned wrestling on in the room with the remote during the adverts and the adults in the back room didn't notice for about 15 minutes. The first specific memory I have is from Wrestlemania 12.
Again at my grandparents watching on I assume a replay. I remember Hart walking out at full time of the IronMan match, but my first memory was from earlier in the show. Goldust vs Piper. Fighting in an alley, then footage of the O.J car chase I think suggesting they were heading back and Piper stripping Goldie in the ring. Such a bizarre match.
Thanks Bret and Shawn for giving me another memory from that show.
BRUM - UNCLE RAY
Memory is elusive. Its cantankerous nature, as well as serving as a general frustration to our psyche, is arguably the fundamental building block to who we are.
Though I find it disorienteering to hear friends talk of a schoolmate whose name barely registers, or saddening when the image of what my wife wore when we first met is lost in the cognitive ether, I don't think I'd be who I was today without memory loss.
As the brain casts away these shackles of the past, it allows us to grow or at least adapt to our surroundings. This discarded history is rarely trauma but rather just simple personality foibles or outlooks that we no longer need.
If the brain is the emancipator of memory, then I dub mine Oskar Schindler, as it has freed endless memories from the trappings of my consciousness.
This is just a self indulging way of saying that my memory is really really really shit.
With that said, one memory which lasts is my first wrestling one: Wrestlemania VI. I was born 3 days after the first Wrestlemania, so I must have only been 5 at the time of watching, as I watched it on VHS later that year.
Apart from the main event, which is now probably just a memory of a memory, I had no real recollection apart from supporting Warrior.
That was until I was helping my Dad clear out his garage when I stumbled upon and old flywheel. This flywheel hit my brain like Proust's madeleine and memories came flooding back.
The main memory was of "Uncle" Ray. Ray wasn't a real uncle, just a family friend who was dubbed as such from an early age. Ray was a bit younger than my Dad and used to tape us The Simpsons before we had Sky.
One day, he gave me a copy of Wrestlemania VI that he had just got hold of and said I'd like it. I was captivated by the guys on the front cover so fast forwarded straight to the main event. I loved it and watched it over and over.
I called Ray and told him I loved it and thanked him profusely. It was only later when I even bothered to watch the undercard.
It was then when I became utterly bamboozled. Fighting a large man named Akeem, right in front of me on my screen was Uncle Ray. It didn't make any sense as the real Ray had a strong Pontefract accent and yet this man was billed from Cobb County, Georgia!
I went running to my Dad immediately who gave me a wry smirk and told me to take it up with Uncle Ray. Weeks later, when Ray was back in the country, I went to his garage to play darts with him and my Dad.
As he had barely had chance to open the door, I shouted at him "Is it true Uncle Ray? Are you really the Boss Big Man?!!"
I was quickly ushered into the garage where Ray confided "Yer reet lad, that's me on the telly. An' yer got me name half reet too!"
Over the following months, I used every spare chance I had, at least when Ray was back this side of the pond, to spend with him and talk about wrestling. Apparently he had started off on the Butlins circuit as "Flatcap Pete" before being scouted and brought over to the US.
Because people took the business seriously then, he pretended to the world he was American and only his close friends and family knew the truth.
Ray remained a big part of my life for the next 8 years, on and off. We used to bond over our shared loves of wrestling, metalwork, and engineering. This is why this abandoned flywheel has brought him right back in front of me now, and why I write this in tears.
We always used to build stuff in his garage, or at least fix old things. We would weld cool metal sculptures of the Midnight Express, or work restoring his old Austin Metro.
It's why, when watching the first season of Robot Wars, I turned to him and said "We could do this". The next few months went by like a whirlwind. He did most of the work but I'm proud to say I wasn't a spare part and did my bit. We ended up with something we were both quietly confident could have a chance on the big stage.
Due to the timings of tapings, we missed Season 2 of Robot Wars but we were ready by Season 3 and our submission was accepted!
As Ray had just appeared in a thrilling Kennel From Hell match with Al Snow, he was a major celebrity at the time, and I didn't want to leave his side, so instead of either of us appearing on camera, we sent some friends from the local pigeon club in our place, and we watched from the back with Philippa Forrester.
Our robot did great, we were so proud! The lads from the pigeon club that we'd trained up that past couple of weeks did well too and got it to the final!!
However, its run stopped there. In the final, it came up against the deadly Chaos 2, the only robot in the sport's history to win back-to-back championships. Our robot was good. Theirs was better.
Ray didn't speak at all on the drive home. When we got back to his garage, he took out the robot from the boot of his car and pulled out his welding iron. I thought he was going to fix it, maybe to try out next time. But his eyes showed me he was there to destroy it.
"No Uncle Ray! Don't! Don't" I pleaded! "Yer right lad, let's make it a fair fight!" he retorted and tossed me the controller. Surely he wasn't expecting me to control the robot against him? He was. He truly was.
My muscle memory kicked in and I charged the robot at him. He was a strong man and started pummelling it on top. But my conduit was made of Sheffield steel and shrugged him off.
The robot now had him cornered. Its flywheel churning like the devil's ratchet. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill my friend and hero. I let Ray up. He grabbed the flywheel and tore it from the top of the robot with his bare bear hands.
He tossed it to me and simply murmured "I never want to see you again, boy". I cried all the way home, clutching that flywheel, vowing never to speak to him again.
We both kept our word and I never heard from him again. I stopped watching wrestling that day and didn't watch it again for years. By the time I did, the memory of Ray was cast aside, like all the other shackles I mentioned before.
That is until now. My Dad is in the kitchen so I'm alone in our garage, not dissimilar to the one I spent years bonding in with Ray; cradling the flywheel like I did on that fateful walk home, over 2 decades before.
I've struggled to say its name so far, as it is one doused in sadness and pain, but the robot's name was HypnoDisc. Our beloved HypnoDisc. Mine and Ray's beloved HypnoDisc.
We learnt of Ray's passing years later. It didn't move me then but it does now. Ray was a troubled man but he was a good man. And though we ended badly, we will always have those times in the garage; we will always have HypnoDisc; and we will always have Wrestlemania VI.
Thank you, Boss Man. Thank you, Roboteer. Thank you, Uncle. Thank you, friend. Thank you, Ray.
NINETIES MIKE - WRESTLEMANIA 6
As mentioned in my Mixer Minute (go follow the WSBF Instagram, it’s ace!), my first experience of modern professional wrestling was Wrestlemania VI.
My school friend Lian had mentioned wrestling before and offered to a few of us to come over to his after school and watch some he’d taped the night before. Within the first two matches I had experienced the charm of Rick Martel, the colourful Koko B Ware, the dastardly antics of Demolition and the sheer might of The Colossal Connection. I was hooked already.
That I was then treated to future legends (deep breath)Mr Perfect, Roddy Piper, The Hart Foundation (best tag team ever), Tito Santana, Dusty Rhodes, Randy Savage, The Rockers (one of them anyway), Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Ted Dibiase, Jake Roberts, Big Boss Man, Rick Rude and Jimmy Snuka was just the appetiser however. My 11 year-old mind could not begin to handle the epic scope of The Ultimate Challenge.
I had obviously heard of The Immortal Hulk Hogan, but Lian had been telling me how big and amazing Ultimate Warrior was for what seemed like forever. He lived up to all expectations. A wound-up ball of seemingly limitless energy (I had yet to experience one of his torrent of 30-second squashes), Warrior almost made Hogan look a little puny with his bulging muscles, sinews and veins.
The match seemed to fly by as a kid, and I’ve re-watched it many times since, still loving the epic aura of the closing stretch and the reaction of the crowd as Warrior reached the top of the mountain. Limbs everywhere and screaming adoring fans filled the cameras as the torch was passed.
There have been better matches, better main events and better wrestlers, but you never forget your first Wrestlemania.
ROSS CASEY - PLAYGROUND STUFF
I cannot pinpoint the first time I saw wrestling, although I am certain that it would have been an episode of Superstars on Sky One after The Simpsons. However, I can offer you a definitive memory of being in primary school, around five or six years old and pretending to be wrestlers with my 'friends'.
I distinctly remember being The Bushwhackers and doing the walk, Hulk Hogan and doing the poses and for some reason Ax. I'm hoping for my sake that didn't involve me wearing a gimp mask on school premises.
SHAFI - WRESTLEMANIA 7
I don't remember a time before wrestling. Satellite TV was a new idea to the UK when we got Sky around the beginning of 1991. Sky Sports didn't exist at this point so their longstanding relationship with WWE hadn't begun yet and Wrestlemania 7 (and other PPVS) were shown on Sky Movies.
My parents taped it but I don't know why, I can't imagine I had any knowledge of Pro Wrestling at that point. Maybe my dad wanted to see what all the fuss was about and quickly became disinterested, I don't know.
What I do know is that they let me watch it and I was far from disinterested. I was four years old and I loved the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles but they were soon to be replaced as the obsession in my life. After watching this show wrestling was everything. The first match on the card was The Rockers vs Haku and Barbarian, it was the perfect underdog faces vs Goliath heels battle to grab my attention.
The good vs evil theme ran through the show and was easy for someone my age to understand as it wasn't dissimilar to the way the Turtles battled against the bad guys, WWE is praised for their video packages and they were great even in 1991.
They clearly showed me why matches such as the Blindfold Match between Jake 'The Snake' Roberts and Rick 'The Model' Martel were happening and I was invested in Jake enacting his revenge. That match is critically panned but it's another that sticks out in my memory 29 years later as being one I was completely drawn into.
The third match that I have vivid memories of is the Retirement Match between 'Macho King' Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior. Again the video package built this match up beautifully. If this match happened in 2020 I would probably complain that they ruined Savage's finisher by having Warrior take 5 of them and kick out but in 1991 I didn't care about psychology or work rate and I enjoyed wrestling all the more for it.
The story was great. Savage being unable to beat Warrior, Warrior having self doubt about his calling in life n the middle of the match and considering walking out before comprehensively retiring the Macho King. It was so compelling and yet that wasn't even the the most memorable part..
Queen Sherri would attack Randy after the match for failing to win. Miss Elizabeth ran from the crowd and saved Randy leading to their heart wrenching reconciliation. It was THE Wrestlemania moment and also the first turn I ever saw. When Savage lifted Liz onto his shoulders she was crying and the crowd were crying along with her. I'd be lying if I said I don't have a tear or two whilst writing this all these years later.
The VHS tape cut out before the Hogan Slaughter match so even though I would rewatch this PPV dozens of times I've still never seen it. Some might say that was for the best. Since that day wrestling has been a constant in my life, it was there when life was really hard growing up and it allowed me to escape. In the same way I can't remember a time before wrestling, I can't imagine a future without it either. None of this would have happened without Wrestlemania 7.
30 DAY CHALLENGE
DAY 1 - FAVOURITE MALE WRESTLER
DAY 2 - FAVOURITE FEMALE WRESTLER
DAY 4 - FAVOURITE TAG TEAM
DAY 5 - YOUR FIRST WRESTLING MEMORY
DAY 6 - FAVOURITE FACTION
DAY 7 - FAVOURITE PROMOTION
DAY 8 - FAVOURITE MANAGER
DAY 9 - FAVOURITE COMMENTARY TEAM
DAY 10 - FAVOURITE ENTRANCE THEME
DAY 11 - FAVOURITE MATCH
DAY 12 - FAVOURITE DEFUCNT TERRITORY
DAY 13 - FAVOURITE GIMMICK
DAY 14 - MOST MISSED WRESTLER
DAY 15 - FAVOURITE FACE
DAY 16 - FAVOURITE HEEL
DAY 17 - FAVOURITE FINISHER
DAY 18 - FAVOURITE WRESTLING GAME
DAY 19 - FAVOURITE STORYLINE
DAY 20 - FAVOURITE SUBMISSION
DAY 21 - MOST UNDERRATED
DAY 22 - FUTURE STAR
DAY 23 - FAVOURITE FEUD
DAY 24 - DREAM MATCH
DAY 25 - FAVOURITE HIGH FLYER
DAY 26 - FAVOURITE TOURNAMENT
DAY 27 - FAVOURITE TURN
DAY 28 - FAVOURITE PPV
DAY 29 - FAVOURITE REINVENTION
DAY 30 - FAVOURITE COMEDY WRESTLER
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