Congrats man, long old time!
Can you remember any matches or angles from around that time that really surprised you or you enjoyed? Did you stick just with WWF/E or watch other shows?
I've not been able to pin down the exact time because I can't recall what matches I saw first, but I know for me it was roughly early 1993, when ITV here started to show WCW Worldwide late at night.
So 31 years since seeing my first show for me. But my most intense watching period as a fan was not so long, probably only about 5 or 6 years when I watched everything or as much as I could. The internet and YouTube have been a huge help in me becoming more of a browse watcher.
Surprises. Kurt Angle's vast improvement. When he showed up, I thought he was going to be one of those flash in the pans like Chaz or Tiger Ali Singh. This view was already wiped out by Rumble 2000 but even throughout 2000 the common call would be us going "how is he getting this good so quickly?" I also never saw The Rock winning the title at Backlash coming, and was a young Rock fan at the time, so that was a thrill.
Back in 1999? The Corporation and the Ministry joining forces shocked me, as did Vince being the Higher Power because it made no sense whatsoever, even to a twelve year old. Billy Gunn winning the King of the Ring surprised me because we felt for sure X-Pac or Kane were winning it. Jarrett jumping ship to WCW was the first major switch I remember having seen them in both companies. Jericho debuted in WWF in August 99 (I wasn't impressed, it took him ages to win me over), but I didn't see any of WCW till he was gone.
I remembered seeing the Hardy Boys as job guys on Shotgun at the weekends, so them showing up on RAW and getting the start of their big push was a surprise.
Stuff I enjoyed? Well, I was a huge Rock fan early on, and Mick Foley was hard to dislike, so the Rock n Sock stuff was made for me at the time. I really liked D'lo Brown as mentioned earlier. I remember getting so worked into the Ministry story that I woke my mum up early on a Saturday morning watching RAW. "What's happened?" she said. "THE BROOD HAVE TURNED ON THE UNDERTAKER. THIS IS AMAZING!"
Loved The Brood. Edge and Christian did OK, career wise, since, I guess!
There's a RAW main event that the Reliving the Wars YouTube series is getting close to, end of June or early July, HHH v The Rock in a cage match, which I still remember frame by frame, and how invested I was in every single moment.
Matches I enjoyed? I still think the Acolytes v Hardys is a very fun pairing. High flying vs clotheslines! Their Fully Loaded match was a lot of fun, even though I was annoyed at the winners at the time. The X-Pac and Kane team had some really fun matches too. Al Snow was a blast at the Hardcore matches.
Something odd now? We loved Mideon. Yes, he sucks at wrestling. But he was so funny as that useless Taker henchman. The way he interfered in a Hardcore match by tiptoeing up to someone, or the way he became European champion ("I lost my belt, you've got a spare one, can I have it?") had us in stitches.
WCW. Well, to be honest, early on I took the WWF propaganda that they were evil. Then one time during an ad break in summer 1999, I flipped to the channel Nitro was on (they showed them simultaneously for a bit here, which was nuts as both were tape delayed) I saw some cruiserweights and decided I had been grossly misinformed about evil. I forget who they were, it was either Blitzkrieg or Psicosis (if he still had the mask by then). Around this time, Sky had been showing classic early 80s WWF shows, so I had seen very young Curt Hennig getting squashed a lot, and we had got a copy of Summerslam 1992.
So I turned over during one ad break and who is in WCW? Mr bloody Perfect. Wow, I thought, and kept watching.
It was a watch against Brian bloody Knobbs btw.
Shortly after this, Channel 5 started doing WCW recap shows so I can say the first WCW match I saw was some combination of Malenko/Benoit/Saturn v Rey/Eddie/Kidman, though I can't find the exact combination of Revolution/Filthy Animals on Cagematch to say when that was. iirc it was during the Kevin Nash title run, because Channel 5 were showing stuff months behind schedule.
By September 99 I was flipping between the two shows, and tbh, the big 32 man tournament for the WCW title had my eye more than HHH's early title run. I've always been a sucker for wrestling tournaments.
I *think* ECW was shown over here back then but I only found out about it in early 2000 (Bravo, iirc) and it was the era of no RVD, no Sandman, no Sabu because they were all injured. Raven briefly showed up, and they kept trying to put over Scotty Anton.
I did try and give up wrestling, when Hennig died. People kept keeping me involved though, like my mum accidentally taping PPVs (which by then she had to pay for), and "Oh I guess I'll watch the Rumble then" and so on, so it never properly left me. I knew my Great Gran was a wrestling fan (huge Mick McManus fan) and I found out since my grandfather was one too, so it clearly runs in the family.
