Your "day the music died" moment in wrestling

[Big BosskMan]

When I was a kid, I believed all the storylines and angles presented in pro wrestling as 100% legitimate.

Until a fateful day in 1987 when, in the course of looking through The News Journal sports section, there was a tiny item detailing the arrest of Hacksaw Jim Duggan and The Iron Sheikh over in New Jersey.



From that moment on, I was singing bye, bye kayfabe has died, drove my bike around until I pulled over and cried, those big ol' boys drivin' and gettin' real high, singing this is will be the day that I die.***



*** this did not happen but it fits the theme of the thread title.


What was your moment of (dis)enlightenment?

[CeilingFan]

Fingerpoke of Doom.

[Jaws the Shark]

I think part of me always knew. I properly came to wrestling in the late nineties so was deeply sceptical of the legitimacy of things like a man who called himself The Undertaker doing magic, or why his disfigured brother would pursue him and wreak his revenge on a wrestling television programme rather than, I don't know, Jerry Springer or something.

I do remember seeing a terrible holiday camp wrestling show (probably courtesy of Brian Dixon and All-Star) before that though, and my dad pointing out the schlocky ridiculousness of the whole thing. His point was proved when immediately after the match, the wrestlers came back out and dismantled the ring.

[The Trashman]

The first time I found wwfwcw.com (now nodq)

[thechase]

Shortly after the McMahon/Helmsley era peaked. The day I left secondary school actually. It just sort of dawned on me rather than having it triggered by a dirtsheet or magazine that used real names.

[jason1980s]

I watched wrestling for another 5 years but for me as an adult it is the Canadian Stampede ending. In terms of the Hart family only, it was such a perfect ending if wrestling had been a TV show with a series finale. There was so much tragedy in the Hart family life starting just a few months later and going on for several years after. Wrestling really took a turn for the worse not too long after that, once DX formed.

[genericusername]

Honestly, I can't think of one, when I started back into wrestling around 2009( to begin my on again, off again relationship with wrestling) I was a teenager, so I didn't have any belief it was "real" anymore.

[Slingshot Suplay]

When Kerry von Erich committed suicide. He was my all time favorite, a strong, athletic he-man figure come to life with a clean cut, wholesome persona. As a kid, I didn't know about steroids or his drug abuse, or even about his foot. Whatever the apter mags said, I would believe. Then when I read about the drug arrests and the suicide, that's when I knew for sure I'd never look at wrestling the same way again.

[The Summer of Muskrat XVII]

I'd have to say when Andre the Giant died. I was 6 or 7, and my dad sat me down and showed me the article in the news paper that Andre had passed away, and basically said that wrestling may not be real but the people are.

[Deleted]

The NWO beatdowns. I mean, Heel 101 has always been ganging up and attacking/injuring babyfaces, but when the NWO got big and it started happening near weekly, it dawned on my child brain that if this were real, Hogan, Hall, and Nash would be in jail for what they were doing.

Kayfabe died a pretty hard death for me in general around that time, just because things like the Undertaker gimmicks (teleportation, as an example) became just too fantastic and out there. I love the Undertaker, don't get me wrong, but that's the moment I started viewing wrestling in the same way I viewed the cartoons I watched at the time.

[Hypnosis]

www.wwe.com/videos/hulk-hogan-comes-back-from-the-darkside-world-war-3-1995

[A Platypus Rave]

I've said it before but... honestly I don't ever remember really believing it was actually real.

I figured it was like any other TV Show >_>

[Deleted]

I don't remember ever thinking it was real.

Infact, I think the fact that it's a performance art made it appeal to me more.

I loved the wacky gimmicks as a kid. Guys like Doink, Shango, Yokozuna and Hakushi stood out to me immediately.

[thecrusherwi]

I don’t really have one moment, but when I was around 8-9 years old, my brother and I used to try to wrestle each other. But every time we tried, we found it almost impossible to do moves to each other. The other would always counter and then we would just end up rolling around and someone would usually get hurt. Then one day we said it probably would be more fun if we decided ahead of time who was going to win and we’d just pretend to do moves to each other and try not to hurt each other. Then it clicked.

[fw91]

[Mozenrath]

I think the closest I ever thought of it as being real was I initially thought Ring of Honor was a shoot company when I barely knew what it was and hadn't seen it, and that's because I think I conflated it with Pride and other MMA stuff. I figured it wasn't "real" later when I saw it and it was a regular wrestling company, which made me much more interested in it.

[koreycaskets]

Can't remember the exact years but the late 80s.

Went to a house show in Newmarket Ontario. Next day went to a house show in Bradford Ontario. We knew the matches were the same people facing one another but seeing pretty much every result / finish was the same . Even at a young age I'm like ' yeah this ain't real'.

[Cyno]

Owen Hart's death. I knew wrestling wasn't legit since I was like, 7. But the day Owen died was the one where kayfabe completely shattered to me. And then you had the Raw Is Owen episode the next day where everyone completely threw kayfabe away to give tribute to a man they loved.

[ayumidah]

I started watching in January '99 when I was 12. Owen died in May, and Dad told me then that it was all storyline. I was so confused.

[Viking Hall]

I don't think it ever crossed my mind that it was real. I mean, say what you will about wrestling but it rarely resembles anything that looks like a real fight. By the time I started watching wrestling I'd already seen stuff like Power Rangers, Bond films and probably a fair few action movies with my Dad too, all of which depicted far more realistic fighting than your average WWF match did at the time. At no point did I think they were real, so wrestling was just the same in my eyes I guess.

I do remember the strange situation that I'm sure most wrestling fans experienced as children though, of cocky adults thinking they were so clever by saying 'it's fake you know' and me thinking 'well obviously it's fake, I have eyes.'