#I find it overwhelming to convert historical thoughts on tumblr lol

[caterpillarinacave]

[leaveharmony]

@yungcrybby-anonymousbosch  Consider me near rambled out :) 1.       How old were you when you first started watching?

I wish I could answer that with 100% accuracy.  I know for certain I was by 1990 (8 years old), but, if my earliest memory is correct and not a falsely-implanted one than it would have been as early as 1986 (4 or so).  Probably I was casually aware of it as a very young child and then slowly got more fanatic about it (this might have coincided with the first real meteoric rise of WWF / more available programming).

2.       What company or companies did you watch?   Early-on it was exclusively WWF, I'd say around 1998 I started occasionally tuning into WCW.

3.       What is your earliest wrestling memory?   I would swear up and and down that I remember Hogan and King Kong Bundy in the blue steel cage at Wrestlemania 2.  I used to watch wrestling with my grandfather (pop pop) at my grandparent's house, I remember they had a textured green carpet at the time and I'd lay on the floor...I swear, that I remember at least some of the extended family going there to watch WM2.  But nobody else can tell me if this actually happened.  If not, then I very clearly remember one of Jake Robert's snakes biting Randy Savage, in the ring (1991?).  I definitely remember the brief time before the Undertaker's first face turn.  And I very vaguely recall everybody being really excited when Hogan bodyslammed Andre the Giant (WM3, 1987). 4.       What attracted you to wrestling?   Mmm...I really don't know.  There's sort of a chicken and the egg aspect to it, I'm not sure I could pin down exactly why I gravitated towards anything as a child, but wrestling is even harder to figure out.  Pop pop used to get quite involved with it and we didn't really have a lot in common, so that might have been part of it.  Conversely, my parents were openly mocking about it, so, it might have also been a touch of my old tendency to be fiercely contrary.  I can def. tell you that the Texas Tornado was one of my favs because of all the fringes on his boots, and I liked the Ultimate Warrior's facepaint and all of Flair's glittery robes, and the like...so bright colours and pageantry might have had something to do with it.  And I was nuts about Miss Elizabeth in all her dated finery lol.  Big-boom 80's/early 90's WWF was certainly geared towards kids and I was right in that target audience.   5.       What is your favorite aspect of wrestling? I've always been attracted to characters more than plots, yunno?  In books or films, or series, if I like enough of the characters I'll stick with it even if the plotting is kinda terrible.  So I think it's just the personalities and people, tbh.  For a very long time I wondered if I'd ever been a -wresting fan- or just an -Undertaker fan-, a question I can now answer with the former, but, it's the wrestlers I'm fondest of that keep me involved, I think. 6.       What do you think the general public gets wrong about wrestling? “They don't really get hurt” would be my number one pet peeve misconception.  My father, for instance, would be one of those guys JR was loudly denouncing during HitC/KotR 1998 who would completely sincerely say “Yeah, but they know how to fall.” after watching a man fall 13ft through a table onto a concrete floor.  Which is why I would never watch it anywhere near him. 7.       Do you have any friends who also watch wrestling? There's you!  :D  I have more now than I used to, I was a solitary practitioner for a long time.  Now I'd say as many as five, anyway...and I've converted my mother lol. 8.       Did you eventually start watching other companies? A very limited bit of WCW (1998-the end of the company)..I would sometimes turn it over during commercial breaks in Raw/Smackdown.  I watched some TNA (whenever they got the deal w/ Spike TV -2006 or so when I couldn't stand looking at Jeff Jarrett anymore). 9.       What has kept you interested wrestling? Every single time I've stopped watching and returned, the return was because of the Undertaker.  He’d be the catalyst to the reaction which would follow... 10.   Are you interested in any other wrestling companies? Gateway-drugged by Shinsuke, I'm currently consuming as much NJPW as is possible by one single mortal human being on a linear timeline. 11.   What, if any, barriers are there to you watching other wrestling companies you’re interested in? Availability, relative ignorance and time constraints, I suppose?  It's sort of...akin to jumping into a longrunning comic series with no sense of the history of the lore.  Can be a little bit overwhelming and I think I'd have to do promotions one at a time.  It was different with NJPW and Shinsuke, because I knew at least one face and name so I had a jumping off point, and then through his matches -with- other people, came to know others as well.  I took notes! 12.   Have you ever been to a live wrestling show? Yep!  I think my first house show was in 1993? in a hockey arena in Sudbury, Ontario.  My second was in 1999 at the Skydome in Toronto.  My third was last summer at Ricoh Colliseum in Toronto, then last November I attended Takeover: Toronto and Survivor Series both at the ACC in Toronto, followed by another house show in March (Ricoh again). 13.   Have you ever been to a local wrestling company’s shows? Oddly no!  There's a promotion that sometimes did shows in my old highschool's gym but I never actually went - probably because I had nobody to go with. 14.   Do you tell others (friends, acquaintances) that you’re a wrestling fan? Why or why not? Historically it would depend on the person - there was a lot of indefensible stuff going on in the Attitude Era and I think it pretty justifiably coloured public perception of wrestling fans, so, sometimes saying it outright was bracing for an argument.  Now I've got zero shame about it - I'm a lifer, I've accepted it. 15.   Aside from wrestling, what other fandoms are you involved in? That kind of depends on your idea of “involved in,” as I tend to stay fairly quiet.  But to limit the answer to things I've actively posted about and discussed on Tumblr (within the past year or so), the brief rundown would be Star Trek (DS9), Fallout 4, the Dragon Age series, and Mass Effect. 16.   Where does wrestling rank among your other fandoms? It's currently sitting at a pretty smug #1 but these things do fluctuate. 17.   What Is your least favorite thing about wrestling? The target audience doesn't do it many favors, if you consider the target audience to have shifted during the attitude era to mean “Entitled straight white men aged 13-35.”  Them being pandered/catered to was responsible for a lot of the things I found off-putting.  To some extent, those things have gone by the wayside in WWE due to public trading/sponsorship (I'm not for a second gonna credit them with ‘shifting attitudes’).  Misogyny, objectification, racism, homophobia, ableism, etc.  In those respects it's at least less cringeworthy than it used to be, but sometimes there's backsliding...I find the jingoism in American-based pro wrestling very irritating, as well. 18.   What is the first imagine or concept that comes to mind when you think about wrestling? It's funny, but no matter how many times they've changed the colours over the years, I still picture the ring with a red top rope, a white middle rope, and a blue bottom rope. 19.   What do you wish wrestling had more of?  In other words, what is lacking from wrestling that you wish were present? Does “Thought put into it” count? lol.  Honestly most of the criticisms I'd level at wrestling would actually be directed at WWE.  One of the reasons I'm enjoying NJPW so much is it just makes so much more logical sense from a booking standpoint and there's so much less fiddling around with awkward scripted ‘sketches’ and forced drama.  WWE books like a bad reality show whose megalomaniac scripters are passed out in a table full of cocaine and money, so trains of thought don't actually reach the station. 20.   Grievances? Anything that bugs you about wrestling or the way it is presented? Commercial breaks on the WWE Network? Teasing that a certain someone was “up next” but only showing a video package?” Hahahahaha is it possible this question was inspired by Recent Disappointments?  XD Again, a lot of this would be directed at WWE.  Commercial breaks during matches, god, I can't even tell you how wrongheaded that is.  It completely takes me out of the story; I remember when it hardly ever happened, and when it did JR would apologize profusely for it, but now you've got a match with 2 or 3 commercial breaks in the middle of it, if it's something I'm only passingly interested in sometimes I've forgotten who's even in the ring by the time we get back to the action.  It's the equivalent of a drama going to commercial while somebody's in the middle of a sentence, and returning after they've finished making their point. And again, with poor damned planning and stubborn refusal to accept criticism or feedback.  Time was, if something went over like a lead balloon, it'd be reworked or tweaked or dropped altogether, but now...if it's something they want to happen badly enough they'll stick with a plan no matter how disastrously stupid or actively harmful to their own interests it is.  I'm thinking specifically of the idiocy that is having a man hold your top title who will /maybe/ show up five more times this entire year, so he can drop it to a man 80% of the audience has absolutely no interest in seeing whatsoever, in a match that will probably be terrible.   Oddly, sometimes we have the same problem in the opposite direction - being dead set on an idea while simultaneously waffling on committing to it; consider the repeated delay of Eva Marie's “debut match” which went on over a month, culminated in her being suspended offscreen, and likely her retirement from active competition.  Also the entire debacle with “Emmalina,” wherein the writers were 100% behind the idea of changing Emma's gimmick apparently without even once consulting Emma about whether she was comfortable with the new direction.  Similiarly the endless -promo videos- for the Shining Stars, and Darren Young's reboots...lengthy wait times followed by lacklustre debuts followed by essentially, no actual plan for any of them.  (and yes, there is an unspoken fear here related to Recent Disappointments, I’m sure it’s shared) 21.   And finally, anything you’d like to add to this questionnaire? *thinks a moment*  Shinsuke is the bees knees.  That's all.   22. How active are you in the online wrestling community? Not at all or do you occasionally visit wrestling forums and message boards? Do you read wrestling newsletters or listen to podcasts?Once upon a time I will admit to being a member of the “Brides of Kane,” and that's all the information you're getting on the subject lol.  I've been delighted to find an active community on tumblr, as it turns out it's more fun to watch / bitch about wresting in company.  I check the news sites daily - this is always true when I'm watching.And I occasionally give Jericho's podcast a listen, or run through some of Xavier's gaming videos.