If anyone asked me what happened in the world or in my life in 1992, I would stare at them blankly and silently. But if asked about Wrestlemania XIII from that same year, I could rapidly rattle off the full card, results, and the storylines/circumstances building up to each match.

Professional wrestling came onto my radar in early 1992 in a predictably toy-driven fashion. The Hasbro WWF line of 4” action figures was hitting its stride and starting to have more and more shelf space devoted to it in stores, and memorable characters like morbidly-obese Earthquake and the crown-wearing “Macho King” Randy Savage quickly drew my eye and a few of my dollars. Most of Hasbro’s figures featured some sort of spring-loaded punch or throw “signature move” action feature (which arbitrarily sometimes were or were not actual moves the superstars performed in real life).

Not knowing exactly how to properly play with these action figures since I wasn’t an existing wrestling fan, I started to bring home 99 cent VHS rentals of past WWF Pay-Per-View events to learn the histories and backstories of these colorful characters appearing on toy store shelves. One or two VHS rentals multiplied into dozens, and soon I’d consumed all of the locally available WWF videotapes—some multiple times!

Although I have a love of–and knack for–memorizing stats and numbers, I’ve never been at all able to get into any kind of “traditional” sports (with one exception as an adult that I’ll talk about later). “Real” sports just didn’t have enough of a narrative for me to sink my teeth into. I needed athletes who were larger than life, with a wide spectrum of personalities, backstories and alignments! As I delved into professional wrestling fandom, I discovered that it delivered all these and more, adding an overlay of good vs. evil onto a competitive athletics backdrop.

Before I knew it, I had memorized the stats and histories of every even somewhat notable wrestler in the WWF, and then turned my sights to the “lesser” major wrestling promotion at the time, WCW. (I knew it was a “ lesser” company since their action figures were non-poseable plastic chunks with many less characters produced, primarily being sold at discount stores near me instead of bigger toy retailers.)

There were far fewer easily-accessible video tapes of WCW around, so I had to learn about this company’s competitors by reading magazines at the grocery store and paying close attention to when WCW Saturday Night aired on TV each week.

Historically, people have been surprised if not openly disgusted when they discover that I’m a pro wrestling fan. Prior to wrestling briefly being “cool” in the late 90s, it was vocally regarded by many in my peer group as being a sort of “fake”, cartoony carnival sideshow. Once it became edgy and trendy during the “Attitude Era”, it temporarily became more socially acceptable to be a wrestling fan. But not for me, as my peers couldn’t reconcile that my Lawful Good, rule-abiding character could enjoy shows filled with copious swearing, raunchy themes and sometimes extreme violence.

On a side note, I cannot fathom why wrestling haters gleefully declare that “wrestling is fake!” with such frequency, thinking that such an argument should automatically invalidate others’ fandom.

I’ve never heard anyone say “Comic books are fake!” or “Game of Thrones is fake!” In attempts to suck the joy out of fans of those stories, and it’s a bit baffling to me why wrestling seems to be such an almost universally natural target for bullies.

Art is art, and wrestling is an art form that trained athletes participate in. Even if individual wrestling matches, shows and TV segments are oftentimes tawdry and poorly-conceived, as a whole, wrestling is still in the genre of arts and entertainment.

One goal I had in my life was to see someone win a wrestling world championship in-person. I’ve attended a fair number of wrestling PPVs with my wife and/or best friend, but I always came up short.

I was actually at the inaugural New Year’s Revolution PPV in Albany In 2006 where Edge cashed in the first-ever Money in the Bank briefcase to win the world championship from a weakened John who had just survived a grueling Elimination Chamber main event six-way match, but we left during the main event in an effort to beat the crowds out (and not anticipating the then-unprecedented cash-in). I was bitter about missing that historic event for a long time. (At least I got to watch the legendary “Live Sex Celebration” for Edge on TV the next night.)

Eventually, I did see a world championship win in June 2014, when my best friend and I watched John Cena ascend to the top of a ladder to win the WWE Title in Boston.

John Cena is easily one of the greats of all-time in my book, and this would be his 15th and penultimate world title reign. He would lose the WE World Heavyweight championship soon after at Summerslam 2014. In one of the most memorable matches I’ve ever seen in my life, Cena was absolutely destroyed by Brock Lesnar, eating 16 duplexes after being near-killed by an F-5 in the first 30 seconds. To me, this is the night that John Cena made Brock Lesnar’s career.

Around this time, Cena became a full part-timer and WWE Owner Vince McMahon became utterly obsessed with making a guy named Roman Reigns the next big mega-star on the same level as Cena, The Rock, Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin. (Reigns torpedoed the company for years being booed out of arena after arena as an insufferable “good guy”, but eventually reached his potential once a global pandemic allowed him to develop his skillls and character in empty arenas without a crowd).

Having achieved my goal of seeing a world championship victory already and having a burning hatred for Roman Reigns from 2015-2020, I lost a lot of my zeal for the company and didn’t attend a live show for over half a decade after TLC 2015 in Boston.

I would eventually see one more Pay-Per-View live in Las Vegas in 2021 right before my stroke quadrilogy, but that’s a story for another entry.