So there's a few wrestling event that I can say I remember watching as a kid, but to say what was the first one is hard to say. I can remember seeing Summerslam 1994 because of the Bret Hart vs Owen Hart title match and the Undertaker vs Underfaker match, or events after that.
But the first one I know for I watched for sure is Survivor Series 1996, which happened today 25 years ago. But of course since I grew up in Singapore, back then we'd only get wrestling show 3 weeks after it happened but also back then, it wasn't live. We'd get them on a Sunday Night so my parents recorded the event for us on a VHS tape (remember those?).
There were 3 tapes I can remember watching, Survivor Series 1996, Royal Rumble 1997 and Royal Rumble 1998. We might have a few other, one being Wrestlemania 1997 but I really can't remember if I saw it on TV or on tape. But this event was one of my earliest memories of wrestling. Plus, Survivor Series 1996 was held in Madison Square Garden, what a place to host a wrestling event right? MSG events always felt special with how different the settings always were, even during the late 00's.
Loads of things happened in the event. The big thing being the debut of Rocky Maivia, now known as some guy called Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. He wasn't the only debutant thought, we also saw Flash Funk (formerly 2 Cold Scorpio in ECW), Doug Furnas and Phil Lafon all making their WWF debut there. But 100%, Rocky made the biggest impact. That haircut of his back then sure was funny though.
Those were just the typical Survivor Series matches but the 3 single matches were quite memorable too in all honesty. The first one being the Undertaker vs Mankind. Undertaker came out with a Batman-style outfit and it's the first time we see him in an all-black attire! Also the first time I've see a shark cage used in wrestling with Paul Bearer in it.
Then comes on of the best matches you'll see in all of Survivor Series history. Stone Cold Steve Austin vs the returning Bret "The Hitman" Hart. Bret had been out for about 7-8 months and this was his first match since that famous Ironman match at Wrestlemania vs Shawn Michaels.
Steve Austin was still not the top guy at this point but having a match with the best wrestler in the world sure put him on a new level, he felt like a star after that match, especially with the next PPV in mind (Rumble 1997). Any Bret match is always a treat to watch, my favourite of all time.
And then we get the main event, Psycho Sid vs the WWF Champion Shawn Michales. Like Bret, Shawn was a favourite of mine too so of course I was pulling for him. This was one of the first times I remember being confused by the fans since they were booing the hero Michaels and cheering on the bad guy Sid.
Also side note, I've always known about handshake stuff as a 6 year old but Sid was the first guy I saw doing the fist-bump. I thought it looked cool, and sure enough during my Army days, I started doing that too and have been for almost any occasion.
Of course I was sad to see Michaels lose the title, this was one of the first time I can remember being sad about how the main event of a wrestling PPV event happened (it's quite a common thing watching WWE PPV these days now, am I right?). But also one of the first surprise results since I didn't think Sid would actually win so imagine my surprise thinking "wait he's the champion now???". Yup, wrestling can be fun when done right. Good memories from back then.
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