2018 Pro Wrestling thread

It didn't rise to the level of booing, but, like a lot of fans, I wasn't crazy about the Honky Tonk Man when he first emtered the WWF.

And I got tired of Hogan around 1988.

 

Hogan for me, too. Even at the tender age of 12 I saw through his act.
The weird thing was, I barely knew who Hogan was until around 1986. I became aware of wrestling during Backlund's title reign and then did kid stuff for a few years. Hogan became champion but rarely wrestled on the Saturday morning shows that formed most of my wrestling viewing in that era. I remember horsing around with a buddy in third or fourth grade, 1985 or so, and he was talking about being "The Hulkster" for our schoolyard match and I had no clue who it was.
So I remember the IC and tag team title feuds from that 1985-87 period better than a lot of stuff Hogan was involved in. I remember Orndorff turning on Hogan, but the first big feud I can remember details from is probably the one with King Kong Bundy leading up to Wrestlemania 2.

 

Probably Lex Luger for me. Lex Express version

 

That's a good question, first face I started booing.

I'm almost certain it was Rocky Maivia as the "Die Rocky Die" chants weren't foreign to me. Of course, little did I know he'd turn it around.

 

Even as a kid, I remember thinking, "Hey, he was a bad guy just a few months ago!" Luger is like one of those NBA draft picks that has tons of talent but never really puts it together. Seems like he should have been a bigger deal, and he constantly got pushed by promotions too. He was still at least serviceable though, especially as a heel and as The Narcissist. So I guess that would make him like wrestling's Christian Laettner?

 

Luger was pretty good, relatively speaking, from '88-'92 as part of the main event triumverate of himself, Flair and Sting.

The Narcissist role was pretty good, but he wasn't helped by having to debut in the WBF instead of on the actual roster. His babyface run, frankly sucked. Speaking of tired storylines, I was tired of the USA vs. Japan crap in 1993. (Don't even get me started on how they made such a huge deal of Duggan knocking down Yoko. I thought to myself, 'So? He got knocked down. You still have to beat him, so stop celebrating!"

 

Setting something up for Sunday?

 

An exclusive from Mean Gene's hotline:

 

Since my earlier question got some great answers, let’s change it around. Which heel do you first remember cheering for?

For me, it was probably “Classy" Freddie Blassie. There was just something about him that I could not get enough.

 

This is a bit nutty, but when I first started watching wrestling, I wasn't too familiar with the characters, or how they had a concept of good guy/bad guy. So, when I first saw Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff against a couple of jobbers, I cheered for them because I had vaguely heard of the Iron Sheik from somewhere.

Of course, this ended very quickly.

Otherwise, I rooted for Jake Roberts, even though he was a heel. I thought the snake thing was cool.

 

That's just German for, "The Rocky, The."