The Twilight View- Part IV

I think that my level of interest in wrestling moved to the next level when I purchased my first wrestling magazine. Prior to that my wrestling world was confined to the world of the WWWF and I was always confused about how the business worked. The first thing that the magazines taught me was that there was a ton of wrestling outside of the Northeast. Back in those days wrestlers would enter into the WWWF sometimes with big fanfare and they might stay around for 6 months to a year and sometimes longer but then they would disappear. Once In while they would return and that would be exciting. But I always wondered what happened to these wrestlers when they weren’t around my wrestling world. Wrestling magazines allowed me to figure out what the deal was. In a strange way magazines functioned like the net of today as a provider of information but in a much lesser way of course. So through these magazines I learned how there were all these other federations and promotions. I learned where all these wrestlers who were coming and and leaving were when they weren’t wrestling for the WWWF. I loved learning how there were so many other wrestling stars outside of the WWWF although it was frustrating to realize that I could never see or hear about these personalities except through the magazines. But every once in a while one of these stars whom I had heard so much about would show up inthe WWWF and that was so incredible. For example few things excited me more than when the Sheik showed up to challenge Bruno. Then there was the debut of Ernie “the Cat” Ladd all 6’10″ of this world class athlete. There were many things that I enjoyed about the “mags”.

There was usually a section called “RESULTS” from around the country and it would list results from numerous shows around the USA. It was in this context that I figured out the game-plan of the WWWF at that time which was to debut new stars who usually competed for titles but always first in Madison Square Garden. I was disappointed to find out that the the same card that would be shown in MSG would appear with minor tweaking as a show in Boston Gardens but 3 months later or in Pittsburgh or in Maine all prominent WWWF areas. The promotion really focused around the Garden in those days as virtually all title changes occurred there. What made me uncomfortable is that my very few wrestling fan friends knew nothing about the same card being shown numerous times all over the place. We naively assumed that what we saw was the whole thing and everything and that we weren’t missing anything. But of course we were and it was the mags that enlightened me to the truth. But I really loved devouring results from all over the country enhancing my knowledge of wrestlers in this country. When really big stars elsewhere debuted in the WWWF most fans knew little about the newcomer. But my appreciation was on a much higher level as I understood the enormity of some of the great stars who would pass through the WWWF. The other thing I enjoyed about the mags were the ratings which were pretty awesome. Sometimes they rated all wrestlers from around the country both singles and tag-teams. More often the ratings were by the 3 major promotions of the era the NWA, the WWWF and the AWA. Anyway it was the wrestling magazines that gave me a lot more insight into the wrestling industry. The stories themselves were always in character and usually dated about 3 months after they happened so little was up to date in regards to story-lines in the magazines. There were probably about 6 or 7 monthly magazines of the times but if you read 3 a month you didn’t need to read the rest as they were very repetitive.

After my first ROH experience in Philly in 2002 even though enthused I still didn’t quite know how to dive into the promotion as the shows were few and far away. At that time I was net illiterate having no experience with websites and the such. So I went to a couple of more shows and enjoyed them. Then my friend who introduced me to ROH introduced me to the ROH forum and website. This was a brand new experience for me and I hesitated to get involved. I simply wasn’t a web person but because of my love for wrestling I observed for a while before actually enrolling in the middle of 2003 on the ROH board. I actually remember my first post as it was kind of obnoxious even though it was my view. It was “Red is fat”. Red had gotten hurt a while earlier and pretty seriously as he was an incredibly high flyer in his early days with ROH and elsewhere. When he attempted a comeback he was noticeably heavier and much less flexible and athletic because of the extra weight – thus my comment. As a newbie my comment was assailed by one but mostly ignored. That was my first experience on the ROH board. In time as I got used to the experience of posting I gave more insightful views and some analysis. I started a series called the history of wrestling and I got through 3 lengthy parts but I started to feel some hostility from a certain quarter. When challenged who I was I gave a touch of my background and apparently that triggered a big controversy. In future pieces I will refer to this development. In any case the ROH forum enhanced my interest in the product and it motivated me to go to more shows and I did. I loved those Rexplex shows and I looked forward to coming to the ROH board to hear other views. So in spite of some early troubles on this board for me personally in time it became a good thing and I felt that it did help the promotion. It was through this forum that I came to believe that ROH really did care about its fans something which I consider to be true to this day. It is why I have always called ROH “the people’s promotion”. It is also the reason that I initiated the concept of fan gatherings. More about that later. Thanks for your time.

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