10 Things Only 90s Wrestling Fans Will Understand

It happens to us all, life moves on and you're stood there thinking, what on earth happened and why does nobody play with a pog anymore? You better embrace it though because it is coming and if you were loving wrestling in the 90s, well let me perk you up a little bit because here's 10 things only you will understand. 10. Survivor Series Being Important So the good news is that this is finally changing, although for about two decades WWE did not care about the Survivor Series, Triple H does. Sounds like it's going to be the permanent home of war games and in 2023 CM Punk returned, the love is back. To stress how much Vince McMahon went off this event too, he actually thought about scrapping it altogether at one point. That's right, November was planned to welcome a brand new named pay-per-view, before thankfully we saw sense. So many gimmicks were thrown at it too, like the whole Raw vs Smackdown madness, but I tell you, if you wind back the clock, you will find something else entirely. I mean back in 1991 The Undertaker defeated Hulk Hogan for the WWE title, Bob Backlund did something similar in 1994, and of course we all know about 1997, nobody shuts up about it. There is a reason after all it got cemented as one of the top four, but again, in the modern day, I feel like it's going to be treated as such and thank goodness for that, the Survivor Series rules. 9. Must See Monday Night Raw So the three hour length has affected this, that's just a long time to do anything. Much like the Survivor Series however, recently Raw has become a really good show again, we've got stars, stories, drama, it's fun. There is no doubt that it would be better and more watchable at two hours though, and when you throw in a crazy hype crowd and sheer mayhem, well this was Raw in the late 90s. It really did become a major event that people would chat about the next day, and even though today a lot of it is questionable, you can't complain about that atmosphere, it's incredible. To balance the books, you do have to go through a very bad period around 1995, but you also get the debut in 1993, and that wonderful transitional year in 1997, that still holds up. Without this crazy period as well, Raw wouldn't be the institution it is right now, so let's just hope the current momentum continues, it really has been quite the turnaround. I get very excited about Monday nights. 8. It was WCW who decided to take pay-per-views to one a month though, and because WWE had to copy everything they did, they did it too. People at the time thought this was nuts as well, no way fans would pay for all of these. We are talking more about the early 90s here, and this is why The Big Four were called The Big Four. The WWF would use the Raw, Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and the Survivor Series as huge tentpoles to look forward to and make them must-see events. The In Your House series changed all that, and it's why in 1993, The King of the Ring was a huge deal, a brand new pay-per-view that was a tournament? Wow. There's no way the company would ever go back to this today because the structure is in place and works, and even AEW is edging more towards this. Whatever makes money. There was a genuine fear if you were a kid during all of this though, your wallet was about to get a lot lighter, and you didn't have any money to begin with. 7. The importance of VHS boxes. This is quite timely. Silver Vision, who made these home videos, recently announced that there's no more DVDs, there's no more Blu-rays, meaning we have come to an end of an era. When the VHS tape was the people's choice, however, man did we have all the fun with these, because if you collected them all and lined them up on your shelf, they would be all themed. It looked great. The cost argument does come into the frame again, because one of these costs more than the current price of the WWE Network, so oh how times have changed. You also had to wait months for these, sometimes years, and it was a genuinely painful process. As you were a kid as well, there wasn't much internet, which we will talk about later, but sometimes it meant you didn't know what had happened. Just sat there like an idiot, hoping Lex Luger won the Rumble. We should all be ashamed. 6. Tape trading. If you did want to see wrestling from places far, far away, you had to start tape trading. I mean, who has the time? Even one Dave Meltzer from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter is said to see what was happening in Japan. He would have to have a system like this set up, and closer to home it was the same with something like ECW. I think that's the reason why it had this cult following, trying to see it was like dealing drugs. You just didn't have an endless library on demand back then, which was another reason the WWF could dominate, they had the best TV deal. Mick Foley has also talked about how his IWA King of the Deathmatch Wars became a collector's dream, and think of this, once it was gone, it was gone. No one was mass-producing these, which is why it's important to save such footage, that cannot be lost to the passages of time. 5. Pre-booking the TV Because yeah, there was no DVR or Magic Live recording back during the 90s, so if you weren't going to use a VHS, you had to make sure the TV was free. It was even more crazy over here in the UK, as while Raw aired on a Monday, we didn't get to see it until Friday night. Kind of worked, as you'd invite your friends around to start the weekend, but imagine that The other issue, of course, was what if somebody wanted to watch something else? Given you were likely a kid, no way you're telling your parents tough luck, you just had to miss the wrestling. It's why we really should appreciate the on-demand world we now live in, it's just made everything so much easier, and there's a lot less arguing. 4. Seeing WWE Live once a few years at best So this is another British-focused entry, but we count too. The reason I say that is because during the 90s, it didn't really feel like we counted for much. Because while today, WWE loved coming over to our shores, this was not the case 30 years ago, as Vince McMahon mostly kept an eye on his American operation. SummerSlam 1992 only happened at Wembley because US business wasn't all that great, and that's why it sold the place out. The World Wrestling Federation in our backyard? That's a huge deal. Any other shows were few and far between, which is why that Royal Albert Hall event is talked about so much, it was just such a novelty, whereas now at the very least WWE will be this way a few times a year. And good, this should be the way across the globe. 3. ECW So we kind of touched upon this earlier, but ECW was something you had to see at the time. Context is so important, because if you were used to the WWF or WCW, seeing Extreme Championship Wrestling go bonkers blew your mind. Who were these people, and how the flub were they getting away with this? It was everything that the more corporate companies weren't, and it created an environment where you had to check it out just to have your own take on it. Then you would see how far they would push the envelope, and it became tape trading gold, especially in the early days, and it's likely why it still has a following today. You had to put in all the effort to see ECW, and that stayed with you. A lot of it has aged nowadays and become commonplace for wrestling, but that's why you needed to be there. Paul Heyman really did change the game. 2. Rise of the Internet In many ways, the popularity of the internet is what sent wrestling to the next level. Look how many people today care more about the backstage drama than what's happening on the actual screen. When it really kicked off in the 90s though, sports entertainment was right there along with it. Although my gosh, when you learned about these websites with spoilers, you better have some time on your hands. The connection speed was painful, it took forever, and I'd challenge you right now to go a day without reading about the industry at large, it's almost impossible. You would definitely be more happy doing that if you did have to deal with this back in the 90s though. Some people say that WWF AOL webpage is still loading. 1. It's much better now Because it just is. We've laid out a lot of reasons why, but it deserves saying again. A huge step forward to all of this is the in-ring work across the board, because you can pick any wrestling show and within five minutes, you're probably going to see an amazing match. The bar has been set so high. This wasn't what was happening in the 90s, because with the WWF especially, a lot of it was nothing, yep, people were just staring around. Now this was fine because it was expected and the schedule was way harder, but don't forget most of the TV had the likes of Mantar, Duke the Dumpster Drosy and the Dungeon of Doom. Thankfully, towards the end of the decade, the WWF realised this as we shifted into the Attitude Era. Even then though, it's not like the overall match quality was through the roof. So yeah, never forget this, today, we really are spoiled.