when did you start following puroresu?

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

I'm not talking about the oldest match you've seen. I'm asking when you actually started following the Japanese pro-wrestling.

[Yoshimitsu]

I noticed alot of the US polls for match of the year from 1994 onwards and as the years went by 4 out of 5 matches that were ranked as the best of the year would be gimmick matches. After watching afew of Misawa's matches a couple of years ago It was so refreshing to the silliness I was force fed elsewhere.

[ElGringo]

I've been a lucha fan for most of my life (my mother's family are from Monterrey, so I've watched cards there from an early age), and I remember reading about many luchadors going to Japan for Hamada's Universal/FULL promotion, so I tracked some tapes down; when Universal folded, many of the wrestlers started Michinoku Pro, which really got me into puroresu. At about the same time the UWFi had some US shows on PPV, and as I've always been a martial arts fan, I watched those.

Thus, most of my early collection was MPro and UWFi, which are at pretty much opposite ends of the spectrum. I got hooked on New Japan after watching the legendery fued it had with UWFi; the feud was kind of inverted for me, because I was cheering for the guys I knew (UWFi) against the guys I didn't (New Japan), whereas the UWFi were most definateley meant to be heels, the 'dangerous shooters' intruding in pro-wrestling rings. By this time I was following the small puroresu community, and got into All Japan after the rave reviews it got online. So, unusually, I bypassed FMW and deathmatches, which many peeoplestart off with.

[Exit]

I'll be honest. I only come to these forums for the title history stuff and a bit of WWE talk.
In fact, I've never seen a puroresu match in my life.

[Mars Hottentot]

I got into puroresu thru playing video games. I got Fire Pro Wrestling G for Playstation and needed to get a translation guide. That in turn gave me the basic ideals of puroresu and strong style. Couple that with the fact that most of North America's better grapplers cut their teeth in Japan and there you go. But as far as STRICTLY following puro-well that would be in the last year. Too bad as it seems that the state of puroresu seems to be in decline. NOOOO!!

Right now I'm stoked on WMF, if it resembles FMW circa '97-'98 minus death matches I'm gonna be in heaven!

[screwloose]

i had been into it for a while, but couldn't keep up as i was not even 14 at the time. when i saw hayabusa and jinsei shinzaki vs. rvd and sabu, i knew i had follow the japanese style again.

[Muiyan]

Well, i actually started watching pro-wrestling with WWF in 1999. I was just like all other average audiences: i mark for The Rock for his promos, thought Triple H was cool for his heelish angles, etc.

Then one day, this guy at school sez there's this thing called ECW and it's some hardcore stuff, blood and all that. He's not a wrestling guru either, but he likes it more cuz it's "hardcore". So i gave it a try one night on TNN and i saw the short commercial clip of RVD doing a flip into the crowd! I was like "HOLY SMOKES!" so then i started getting into ECW.

All these times, i've also been getting educated on the now folded http://wrestling.ign.com and learning the backstage. But anyhow, when i got my first taste of Yoshihiro Tajiri in that killer match against Psicosis, i was completely insane! The fast groundwork that's so very rare on WWF TV....the stiff kicks and strikes....the *WRESTLING*!

After that, i knew that Japanese wrestling has to be IT (i always knew of the existence of puroresu, i just didn't follow). I started to venture into forums that includes the International Scene and got myself educated on what is going on, who's who, etc. Now, i know ECW is not a complete representation of puroresu, and i was only a spotfest junkie back then. One mistake i did was to buy a "Best Of Benoit In Japan" compilation tape and thinking i would be seeing some lucha-style spotfest action! Hahahaha... i was bored to hell. So then i put the tape away and swam around the different styles for a while. To make a long story short, i eventually learned to appreciate technical wrestling and went back to the tape for a very enjoyable experience.

All the matches available on Hotline servers also helped me...a LOT.

And HERE I AM.

(to those 0 of you who took the time to read, thankyou)

[niniendo warrior]

Ooops... I thought when did I sign up for Puroresu.com. I voted for "2000 -"

Actually, I knew about Puroresu at around 1998. But I had my first taste of wrestling way back at 1985, I think. That was the Hogan days. That was the time when wrestling wasn't so wierd. I gave up on wrestling at 1991, disillusioned and branded the whole sport as wierd internationally. Little did I know that in Japan, wrestling is taken much more seriously where there are no crappy Ministry of Darkness, etc. I got back into the wrestling mania at 1997 when I got WCW vs NWO World tour. It was TR: Brave Spirits that lead me into puroresu. I hope it never changes, unlike American Pro-wrestling.

[Hisaharu Tanabe]

I watched puroresu several times in the 70s, but because I was a little kid, my parents didn't allow me to watch it (I was born in '71). I only got to watch some Mil Mascaras matches on All Japan TV show. Mascaras was a hero for just about everyone back then.

I didn't start following puroresu on a regular basis until '80. One Friday night, I accidentally caught New Japan show on TV. That was it. I've been an Inoki mark for more than 20 years since then. Those were the days Inoki feuded with Hansen, Singh, Andre, Hogan, etc. Bob Backlund was the WWF Heavyweight champ, and Fujinami was the WWF Jr. Heavyweight champ. Inoki held NWF heavyweight title while Sakaguchi and Choshu held NWA North American Tag Team title. There wasn't Tiger Mask, and Choshu was only a midcarder who constantly lost to bigname gaijins.

When I heard they were going to have a new wrestler "Tiger Mask" in '81, I laughed. You know, we're talking about puroresu.... Especially in the early 80s, it did sound a lot more stupid to bring in a cartoon character than it would today. Besides, I didn't think anyone could move like "Tiger Mask" and whoever in the mask would embarass himself. However, when I saw his debut match (btw, New Japan weekly TV show was live back then) against Dynamite Kid, I knew the guy deserved to use the Tiger Mask character. It was that incredible. Too bad he didn't last long. He "retired" few years later.

Also, Riki Choshu's "revolt" within New Japan took place around this time('82). Japan is a society where politics and hierarchy were more important than skill and ability, and the way they pushed Choshu, a midcarder, by turning against Inoki and Fujinami was great. I became a Choshu fan right away (while remaining as an Inoki/Fujinami fan) for a while until he jumped to All Japan.

When I came to this country back in '87, one of my biggest diappointments was pro-wrestling (others include "Japanese" and "Chinese" restaurants which I still call "Americanized Asian" restaurants ). I always heard the US was the mecca of pro-wrestling, and what they gave me was WWF and GLOW. Even in the JCP/WCW, I unfortunately caught the segment where Ric Flair was "playing" with a female manequin with other Horsemen surrounding him with smiles. Eventually, I had to learn how to survive with watching American wrestling as a different product from what I used to watch in my home country.

Thanks to my parents and friends in Japan who kept sending me video tapes, I was able to follow puroresu even when I was in the middle of nowhere in central Tennessee during my high school days.

By the way, UWF didn't impress me much. I always heard about the stories in New Japan dojo, where challengers from other sports come and end up leaving with broken arms. Most of UWF guys were from New Japan, and whatever the skill/style they showed didn't shock me. While I remained to be loyal to New Japan, I started having more respect for Giant Baba as a promoter of traditional puroresu.

Finally, during my college days in Texas, I, as a computer science student, had an opportunity to get access to the Internet even before the companies like Prodigy or AOL started the internet service. I started providing whatever I know about Japanese pro-wrestling through the Internet, CompuServe, and Prodigy. [note: "Wres. for Smarts" on 1wrestling.com used to be on Prodigy, and that's where I first met my long-time friend Dave Scherer.] I think it was around '91 or '92 when I started using the term "puroresu" to distinguish the Japanese pro-wrestling and American sports entertainment (remember, there was no ECW back then, and WWF & WCW were just gimmick fests with stupid storylines!). Of course, I didn't think the term would be this popular.

[frankp316]

Somebody asked me this on the joshi forum so I might as well repeat it here. I started seeing pics of joshi wrestlers in wrestling mags of the 70s. It was pretty obvious that they were much different from what we see here. When I bought a VCR in 1982, one of the first things I did was buy a joshi video. The first match I ever saw was Vicki Williams vs Jackie Sato and I've been buying videos ever since.

[RoadWarrior Yajuta]

I really got into puro when the Road Warriors first went to All Japan. I really liked All Japan as many stars I grew up watching were star there: The Funks, Bruiser Brody, Stan Hansen, Bamm Bamm Gordy, Abdullah, Steve Williams, Ted DiBiase, and of course the Road Warriors. This led to me to respect Japanese wrestlers for their hard work. In particular Jumbo Tsuruta, Genichiro Tenyru, Mitsuharu Misawa, Jun Akiyama, Kenta Kobahi, Team No Fear, Dangerous K(I always call Kawada this, it fits.) I knew of New Japan and really got into them when WCW copromoted shows with them in the early nineties. From there I was hooked.

[Peru-Yakuza]

Since 2000 when I tried the Best of the Super Junior. I then began renting All-Japan and then NOAH at the same time as New Japan.

[Taso from Brooklyn]

I can't say I FOLLOW puro/joshi, but I JUST recently got my first taste and its great. The only problem is it ain't free. SO I am going to at some point get a double decker vcr and start trading. I have some masters coming in the mail. I plan on collecting specific stuff at first, although I doubt I'll be able to and I'll just end up getting stuff that traders have. ARSION is the shizzy.

[Tradition Rules]

...as most of my posts are usually the length of a phone book but here goes;



Just like everyone else,my first real exposure was through certain wrestlers working here in the U.S...Tenryu in Jim Crockett's Mid-Atlantic wrestling,Inoki on NWF TV out of Cleveland and Buffalo,Tsuruta in the AWA,some various guys in Florida,Kabuki in Georgia,Mr Pogo when he was a Kabuki rip-off character under the name of "the fabulous ninja",and beleive it or not,he was actually quite the athlete.Of course we all were later able to see the "great MUTA" in NWA/WCW,the Crush Gals and Dump Matsumoto and the Jumping Bomb Angels in the WWF in the late '80s.ALL these workers just blew me away and made me want more.

I also became very interested in puroresu in '82 in George Napolitano's "The Main Event" magazine.He had covered the MSG Tag Team Tournement in New Japan in depth,and he really put over the respect the sport in given in Japan by the media,fans,workers and the promoters.

Anyways,fast forward to mid 1996.I was SOOO tired of the junk the WWF(and even WCW,POST HOGAN ARRIVAL) was trying to force feed to us as "good". I was really looking for a much more serious (and not embarrassing)alternative to this junk.I was surffing the net in '96 and decided to look under the heading "Japanese Wrestling". Several individuals (including our friend Hisa,...thank you!),had some great coverage and tape reviews.Ever since then I've been hooked and have a pretty nice tape collection,...which I'd like to convert to DVD once DVD recorders drop in price,as they take up MUCH less space than all those tapes!

And EVERYTHING George Napolitano reported was true.One of the reasons I like puroresu so much is because I enjoy all combat sports so much,and I had a little exposure to both Karate-do and amature wrestling when I was younger.Puroresu gets so much more respect athleticly because it deserves it.


I hope it always stays in its traditional style.

T.R!

[Insane Ninja]

I started following Puroresu around 2000, when I began watching Japanese wrestling (mostly FMW, because of the ease of availability here in America of their videos) just to see the style differences of the actual wrestling between Japan and America.

I don't follow Japanese wrestling a whole lot, I just check in with the various happenings every once in a while, but I don't fret over who won what which week or anything. I really only care about the actual wrestling itself, so I don't follow it the results too carefully.