I started college fall 96. The summer before that, I was going out all the time, trying to get my little love-making on before I left town, and not watching much TV at all. So I was barely watching WWF or WCW. And I wasn't online until fall 96 (LSU computer lab!).

But I got saved. It just so happened that me and my college roommate were sitting around talking in August. It was just two strangers trying to find common ground. We both listened to rap music so we were good there. I said 'wrestling'. He said 'oh yeah, I used to watch that back in the day. What's going on now?'. We literally turned on the TV, saw Hogan wearing black and obviously acting a fool as a heel, and said 'oh shit, we have to watch this to see what in the hell is going on!'. Luckily, they kept showing the turn from BATB, so we got updated pretty fast. From there, we watched every Monday the whole time we were in college. So I just barely got to catch Bret going off the deep end, HBK crashing and burning, Stunning Steve Austin becoming big shit as Stone Cold, ECW, all of that late 90s shit that people go on and on about now (Hell in a Cells, Godfather, Goldberg, DDP, WCW cruisers, etcetera).

If my college roommate doesn't say 'oh yeah' when I say 'wrestling', there's no damn telling when/if I resume watching. WHEW!

And even after that, when I got back to Texas after graduating from college, my local friends had also all but stopped watching wrestling. That's partly how I ended up not going to FUCKING MANIA 17 in Houston 30 mins away from my house. ICK.

BUT

I knew very quickly that I had screwed up because I watched the show from the house. It sent me further into a rasslin nerd spiral. I got more into tape trading, the All Japan dudes (Kobashi is my fav), started filling in gaps with NWA/WCW/WWF stuff that I had missed over the years, and going back and rewatching things while still staying up with WWE and peeking in on TNA (too much Jarrett!). So I saw all of the Manias and Summerfests with adult eyes (and every Mania since) for instance.

>i went off to college in 2000 and i didnt make any wrestling
>friends. i watched RAW right up until the week before i
>moved, and then when i got there i just didnt have anyone to
>watch with. we did randomly watch WM 2002 bc we had a hacked
>DirectTV card and we were all just bored on a sunday, but that
>was it. my friends' minds were blown by how much background i
>gave them lol.
>
>i did miss the entirety of HBKs second run, all of the eddie
>guerrero run, peak Cena, all of the Benoit run etc etc. from
>what i understand 2002-2008ish was full of good stuff, but the
>longer i was away the easier it was to stay away and i became
>lapsed.
>
>by the time my life slowed down a bit in the mid to late
>2010s, when i tried to watch RAW it was just excruciating. if
>their business model allows them to do what they do and make
>money, then of course theyll keep doing it. but its not fun,
>and in a MAJOR indictment, its not even fun to crack jokes on
>like the terrible movies i love.