The date: November 20, 1995 (I had to look up the date)
The reason: Shawn Michaels' "collapse" on RAW
(I was - and still am - a complete "mark" for Shawn Michaels )
What happened: When RAW went off the air, I freaked and began trying to find out what hospitals were in Richmond and how to contact them. I begged my boyfriend to use his computer to see if he could find out what happened. He dialed in and went to Usenet - and that was my first experience with rec.sport.pro-wrestling and the online "smart" community (my brothers, being pro wrestling fans, already subscribed to several sheets).
Steph
I'm going twenty-four hours a day...I can't seem to stop - "Turn Up The Radio", Autograph
Would you believe me if I said I left the errors in to maintain the authenticity of my original article? 'cause that's the best I can come up with at 4 in the morning...
Well my first major exposure to the Internet Wrestling scene was with Wrestlemaniacs, specifically Online Onslaught. My friend had given me a link to a newsboard and it had a link to Onslaught on it. So I followed said link and was hooked. Then came Wrestlemaniacs and my introduction to CRZ's work, Wrestleline and now I'm here.
Mine is pretty much far less "romantic" than everyone else's. In 1996 I was on AOL and I was regularly lurking on their WWF Insider forum. I seriously thought that was a source of reliable information. Yeah. Point and laugh all you want.
I quickly realized -- after someone posted that Rick Rude and The Ultimate Warrior were going to turn up on RAW -- that it was basically a bunch of 13 year olds congregating, making up lies and generally flaming each other all over the place for no reason. But I had heard mention of this site called "Scoops" and tracked it down.
I pretty much stuck with Scoops until mid-1998, not knowing there were any other "reliable" sites out there -- I even did a phone interview with Al Issacs for a professional piece I did on the pro wrestling phenomenon.
At any rate, my co-worker's husband once mentioned "Micasa" and I immediately went there. From there, I discovered OO, CRZ, Keith and the whole shebang.
Jason Baldwin Head Writer, 4-Color Review And the guy behind PAPER CUTS! TRUTHFUL comic book commentary Every Thursday, only at 4-Color Review http://4colorreview.com
My internet debut was in 1996, I don't really remember the sites I went to. But I do remember hearing rumors about Yokozuna's return, and from then on every week I would tune in to Raw and wait...
As for the nWo angle. My gpa during the nWo angle was a 1.8!!!
But then again it was still a 1.8 after the nWo angle.
AWESOMETACULAR article, that really captures what I was thinking when I saw it. I was a few weeks away from ever getting on the internet and getting anything halfway 'insider' about the industry when the angle happened. It was really boggling my mind as to whether or not it was a work, but I think I had sort of been 'desensitized' by ECW at that point because probably half the things they'd done that year made me wonder where the works stop and shoots begin.
And more importantly (though completely off topic but I refuse to take it to the music forum, nyah nyah!) I HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO THE BETTER THAN EZRA SONG 'ROSEALIA' FOR TWELVE STRAIGHT HOURS and I AM LOVING IT!!!!
But anyway, I should also add that the second thing I ever saw wrestling-related on the internet happened to be Scott Keith's RSPW FAQ. I printed that entire bad boy out at the local library and by the end of the day I was a bona fide smart mark, and got to skip the 'embarrassing questions on wrestling forums' stage.
I am now on the 'embarrassing rants on a wrestling forum' stage, BTW.
And, I am DRUNK!
...with love for the Better Than Ezra song 'Rosealia'.
Back in 98 or 99 I saw a copy of WOW (World of Wrestling) in the grocery store. I picked it up and liked how they didnt pretend wrestling was real (for the most part). I then got a subcription and upon reading discoverd wrestline.com. Wollla!
Thus pandoras box was opened, and i'll never look at wresling the same againg. THANKS ALOT APTER!!!!
I first got internet access at work back in the summer of 1994 and immediately found www.ottr.com - off the top rope - the guy eventually shut the site down to go to work for Sunshine Wrestling (?) - from ottr.com it was on to Solie's and DDT Digest (always wished that there was a WWF equivalent) - from there it was the original onlineonslaught.com and then into Wrestlemanics where I found crz.net - the rest is history - can't watch anymore (the wife) so I get all my news from slashwrestling and the new onlineonslaught.com
Stylin' and Profilin' - Custom Made from Head to Toe.....courtesy of Michael's of Kansas City
I first got internet access at work back in the summer of 1994 and immediately found www.ottr.com - off the top rope - the guy eventually shut the site down to go to work for Sunshine Wrestling (?) - from ottr.com it was on to Solie's and DDT Digest (always wished that there was a WWF equivalent) - from there it was the original onlineonslaught.com and then into Wrestlemanics where I found crz.net - the rest is history - can't watch anymore (the wife) so I get all my news from slashwrestling and the new onlineonslaught.com
Stylin' and Profilin' - Custom Made from Head to Toe.....courtesy of Michael's of Kansas City
My internet wrestling addiction was about six months before the merger of Rick and Mike to form wrestlemaniacs. Way back when I was on the lowly AOL. Of course, not that I am much better now on the lowly MSN. But hey, when they offer three hundred dollars for a three year contract and you need a new computer, what are you going to do. One year left on the contract and I can finally move up to broadband. Does anyone remember the old yellow and blue WWF site? So childish looking and it to so damn long to load.
I think I first started looking at wrestling websites with the Montreal incident. I'd been watching wrestling since probably late 88/early 89 (WM5 was my first PPV), with a little break in watching during 94-96... Anyway, when I was watching Survivor Series and the Hart-Michaels match, the ending happened and I looked at my dad and I said, "Hmm... something just didn't seem right there at all..."
So, that night and then the next day after school, I went digging for news on the Internet. I started with a copule of those infamous cut-n-paste sites, TWNP (I think thats what it was called) and Big 3, but eventually got hooked on Wrestlemaniacs, which became the corporate whore WrestleLine.
My first exposure was Ringside Seat (or something like that) back in 96. There was a chat room there and I got to know alot of people, some of who I still communicate with today. We had a fantasy wrestling board, etc. I was also a faithful reader of DDT Digest. I was always more of a WCW fan - Kevin Nash was the man!
Looking at usenet in '95 then in '96 hooking up with Herb Kunze and Mike Micasa's websites. I first read Hyatte's mop-ups at scoops, but then soon moved onto the Z-caps instead, thanks to wrestlemaniacs.
Count me in the "legitimately lurking RSPW in the early 90's" demographic. I don't remember exactly when, I just remember one of the many incarnations of the RSPWF going strong, the "who would win in a real fight" Thread of Doom, the "Shoot, Vader, Shoot" fund...
Damn, I'm old...
Website-wise, I don't honestly remember... it was probably Kunze, but I couldn't tell you for sure. For a long time I only had USEnet through a BBS, and they accessed the 'web with Lynx... which was rather underwhelming to my graphics-hungry eyes. So I didn't surf until much later, when I got my WebTV.
Stop laughing!
Kansas-born and deeply ashamed The last living La Parka Marka: He drove the hummer!
August 98. I had just got a new job where I would work for the 1st 3 hours and then have nothing to do for the remainder of the day. I didn't have a computer at home, so this was my first exposure to the actual benefits of being online. Warrior had just debuted in WCW, Goldberg was champ, Flair was about to make his return. Netscape had a connection to the newsgroups but I didn't find RSPW immediately. I think it was wrestling.wcw.groups maybe. It was something with ALOT less traffic than RSPW. I have no idea how or why I got to the first site that I did, but I remember it being some geocities type of fan site with a black bulleted background. They had a link for "news" and I checked it out and here were all of these rumours about who was coming back and who was injured. That site dissapeared pretty quickly, but I remember checking out TWNPnews after that (is that site even around anymore? That used to be my one stop for rumours until I realized that it was probably a bunch of 17 year old kids gathering news from other sites), and then just by hopping around I found Wrestlemaniacs and Scoops. The good old days.
They gotta bring these back!!!: "talk to the hand because the man don't understand." - "The Crippler" Chris Benoit "...and that is the LAST WORD." - "The Big Nasty" Paul Wight and of course: "Don't hate the playa...HATE THE GAME~!" - WCW World Champion Booker T
I'm a newbie smark. I had watched wrestling pretty much my whole life, but got bored with it when the nWo angle started to peter out. Last year, I decided on a whim to watch Raw after a three-year viewing absence, and found that WCW had been absorbed and the "two-man power trip" was being fought tooth and nail by Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. It was pretty darn cool, so I decided to look for wrestling sites. Found Wrestleline right away and relied on it. Then one day Rick dropped the initials "CRZ" in his column and my interest was piqued. So I went to a search engine and found Slash and I've parked here ever since.
For the record, I hate knowing so much about wrestling sometimes. Other times, I love knowing the little details.
So theoretically, MVP would beat Kennedy to get revenge, right? But then wouldn't that just make Kennedy look like a huge loser to get beaten by the guy who hasn't won a match in six months? Kizarny looked good, not great in his debut.