Anyone tune out when their childhood favorites are gone?

[ChitownKnight]

I grew up on guys like Eddie, Cena and Punk and when I was in my 20s I was quite entertained by the shield guys. But now all the guys coming up are younger than me and seem kinda lame compared to the above guys I mentioned. That along with WWE PPVs switching to ESPN, it doesn’t really seem to be worth watching except for Cody’s eventual heel turn. Anyone else feel the same? Less invested as time goes on and the guys you grew up with retire

[Duke Cameron]

Yes and no. I’ve left, but never for that reason or permanently. My childhood favorites were guys like Hogan, Warrior, Ware and Demoltion, so I would’ve been gone for awhile now if I had.

[HIM]

I stopped watching from like 06-11 when I got a job and started really working in the real world. Once I became settled in life, I then returned and I've been back since. I don't care if my childhood favs are here. Its dope seeing people as adults, similar to me in age pursuing their passion in life.

[mj0mn0m]

I actually prefer today's faves to past, so I'm fine.

[Ryback on a Pole!]

I have stopped watching, but it wasnt because my favorites were gone but because of Roman Reigns. He was awful, and I just couldnt be arsed to watch a show centred around him and seeing better and more entertaining wrestlers job out to him, so quit watching in the early part of his super push (around the time of his Suffering Succotash promo). I have barely watched since. I think because in that time I watched guys left, new guys joined and I dont know who the f*** most of the roster is any more.

Plus I saw some clips/matches on YouTube and I really hate the finisher spamming and kicking out of finishers constantly. It sucks. Finishers should be finishers where kicking out of them is a big deal. Not someone kicking out the finisher four or five times in a match.

[Perd]

my fandom started all the way back in the 1900s. And I've had the watched on at least a semi regular basis, ever since. And I’m always able to find at least a few grapplers that can hold my interest.

[msc]

My favourites were Owen Hart and Mr Perfect and they've been dead over 20 years.

[Bo Rida]

I don't think WWE was ever the same for me after HBK retired and the streak ended, the later in particular as it was the last thing I was invested in that was linked to the earlier part of my childhood fandom. It goes a bit beyond the wrestlers though, the company offscreen, the presenation, devaluing of titles, over saturation etc. I've accepted it's not the same company I liked as kid, that WWF/WWE has gone even if there's a few remnants left. I don't watch but keep up to check how wrestlers I care about are doing, while the number is dwindling and I guess it will continue as people will always move between companies.

Now I generally prefer things to be far removed from even my teenage years, I crave something new, it's a large part of why I love TJPW so much, almost completely seperate from anything that came before (Aja Kong being the exception) and why I'm down on AEW whenever they put history in other companies over making their own history.

That said I'm not against the odd old guy in supporting roles and taking inspiration from the best bits of the past, I just grew sick of WWE not being able to move on from the attitude era.

[HMARK Center]

I was actually just thinking about this; the only point in my life where I followed WWF/WWE really closely for an extended amount of time was when I was a little kid, so basically through the early 90s, but by mid/late 1994 I lost interest in WWF. I was a big Bret Hart fan, but the rest of the New Generation did very little for me, and I noticed that tons of the guys I knew from my childhood had gone to WCW. While I didn't turn into a big WCW fan at the time (I didn't *really* get back into being a fan of either company until 1998, and that didn't last too long), I did watch Saturday Night here and there circa 1995-1996 to see what those guys were doing.

What's kind of funny is that eventually ROH got me to be more of a big time fan around 2004-5, so while I was in college, and so many of the top guys there at the time were just a few years older than me, so it felt kind of like being a freshman in school watching the seniors do a bunch of cool stuff. Even now, watching things like NJPW and AEW at age 40, a lot of the big names are only a few years younger or older than me, so it doesn't feel too weird.

But there are younger talents coming up, obviously, and I don't feel any super big disconnect with them so far.

[The Ghost of Zombie Mod]

nope because I'd have stopped watching in the mid 90's, mid 2000's, mid 2010's, the next couple of years.

you wouldn't stop supporting a football(soccer)/basketball/baseball/American football/nhl/tiddlywinks team because your favourite player leaves/retires so why should wrestling be any different (though there does seem to be a much higher level of scummy behaviour simmering under the surface of wrestling and a hell of a higher mortality rate than other sports).

I understand there being times where no one grabs your attention and losing interest in wrestling (it happens to all of us) but it's never too long before something happens that drags you back in.

[KingPooper]

I remember watching KO as champion in like 2016 and saying "This feels like WWE: The New Class." A lot of additude / ruthless aggression main eventers retired or went part-time around 2010-2015 after being in the spotlight for over a decade, almost 20 years in some cases. So it made a void, and I wasn't interested in the Roman or nothing booking of the time. As much as I enjoyed Finn or Bray or Ambrose, a lot of their booking was terrible. So I lost a lot of interest around that time. Then again, I also stopped watching around 08 when it was just an endless cycle of Cena, Orton, or Triple H. So yeah when my favorites like HBK, Punk, Edge, Jericho (he had a habit of disappearing for a year or so at a time) started calling it quits, my interest started to wane. While I'm happy these guys are back and healthly and still competing, outside of Sting (my other favorite), part of me wishes they stayed retired (seriously, that terrible HBK match woof.) So while I enjoy the product as a whole, and there's a lot of talent I enjoy, outside of Sheamus and Roxanne, I wouldn't really call anyone else a favorite. Like anything else my fandom of wrestling ebbs and flows, as awful as some of the product was at the time, pro wrestling got me through the Pandemic.

[mcstoklasa]

Of course. And then occasionally check back in

[fw91]

don't tune out, but it no longer becomes mandatory appointment viewing

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

I'm almost 40. Almost 0 of the people wrestling during my childhood in general, let alone my favorites, are still wrestling.

I'm almost 100 percent AEW and NJPW at this point, but that doesn't have anything to do with wrestlers leaving. Those products just click with me much more.

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

my childhood favorite is in his 60s and has been retired since an errant mule kick from a bald idiot ended his career. if I followed this logic I wouldnt be watching wrestling at all anymore. I DON'T watch WWE and havent for over a decade but thats for different reasons entirely.

[tirtefaa]

While there's always favorites, there were times where someone else who was more interesting than said favorite. Honestly, that was a good thing because it at least could potentially drive my interest once my favorites disappeared. Wrestling should function that way anyways.

What actually drove me to tune out was the overall production of the show. Let's look at Raw in 1993, Raw in 1998 and Raw in 2003.

Now, I didn't really like the product very much in 1993, mostly because there's only so much you can do in an hour and the roster was pretty depleted. You got maybe 2 matches, and people would routinely disappear for weeks or months, and many times the champion wasn't even on the show.

1998 on the other hand was able to have a strong roster from top to bottom, with almost everyone being given purpose and goals. The show was 2 hours, but I'd say they quadrupled the amount of segments, matches and characters on screen. Nothing felt like a slog.

2003 felt like 1993. All the sudden the undercard was there just to supplement the main event, if even used at all. People would disappear or just have random matches without any storyline or reason. You had a rotating door of talent that was constantly used the same way without any long-term effect on the product. You also would be lucky to get 4 matches in a 2 hour show.

And yet...by 2008 it's even worse. By this point, just about everyone on the roster is utterly unenjoyable because they're either not pushed, over pushed, or stale. The only reason I was even watching at this time was simply because Santino Marella was on a roll, and was almost exclusively the only highlight of the show.

In the coming years, the show would eventually become background noise or become irrelevant entirely due to other demands in my life. For that, I have no regrets.

But if anything killed my interest, it was the lack of effort Vince McMahon put in his product. He is rested on his laurels, and increasingly felt the need to push his vision for what he wanted, arrogantly believing that he would retain his audience no matter what nonsense he put on the air.

[schma]

My brother has largely tuned out because the guys he knew are all retired.

I've gone through phases. Watched as a kid in the 80s and early 90s. Came back in late 97 until I headed off for university in 2002. I'd half keep up through the website over the years until relatively recently when watching WWE without cable was no longer a giant chore in Canada. Since then I've been in and out. I always ended up finding new favourites to replace the old.

I'm on a break now, maybe I come back some day, maybe not. If I do, I'm sure some of those favourites will be around. If not, I'll find new ones.

[Big DSR Energy]

Something about my brain for this is that I'm always on the lookout for new favorites. Like, I'll still acknowledge what my childhood favorites meant to me, but I'm not so beholden to them that I can't love somebody new's work. Same thing with music. My favorite band when I was 8 was KISS, but if my appreciation of music arrested there, I'd have shut myself off to the following 33 years of music.

[chazraps]

Aug 7, 2025 20:35:30 GMT -5 ChitownKnight said:

I grew up on guys like Eddie, Cena and Punk and when I was in my 20s I was quite entertained by the shield guys. But now all the guys coming up are younger than me and seem kinda lame compared to the above guys I mentioned. That along with WWE PPVs switching to ESPN, it doesn’t really seem to be worth watching except for Cody’s eventual heel turn. Anyone else feel the same? Less invested as time goes on and the guys you grew up with retire

I think it's just you need to take a break. We all do, burnout hits all of us eventually. The worst thing to become would be one of those super bitter guys who force themselves to watch and just complain loudly at indy events and online, chasing a dragon.

There's no shame in just taking a few weeks/months/years off and now it's easier than ever to catch-up when you want to get back on the horse. The matches and moments will always be there. We'll save you a seat.

[BorneAgain]

There comes a point where there's just a lack of emotional investment because you're watching talents when you're less impressionable and the presentation just isn't hitting you the same way. I remember seeing the first episode of NXT 2.0 and realizing that I had basically no connection to any of the people there because they were so new and the style of the show did nothing to draw me in. That's not a knock against those featured just that the context ensured that even when the product was entirely competently made, none of it really felt like it mattered.

There are exceptions of course, but even now a decent portion of the Raw and SD roster just feel like those I can recognize are talented and aren't really inclined to go out of my way to watch.