My Perspective on Wrestling

January 27, 2001.

That was the day I can say that I fell in love with this crazy sport we call professional wrestling.

On that night, I attended the 2001 WWF (not E) Royal Rumble which took place from my hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. There were some good to great matches which included Chris Jericho v.s. Chris Benoit (yeah I said the name so what) in a ladder match for the I.C Title, and Triple H v.s. Kurt Angle for the WWF Championship. But the undisputed match of the night was the Royal Rumble match, which I would certainly rank in my top 5 rumble matches of all time. In one of the greatest moments I have ever seen live, Stone Cold Steve Austin eliminated Kane to win and go on to the main event of Wrestlemania 17, which in my opinion, is the greatest Wrestlemania of all time. The Royal Rumble was the first really big wrestling event I ever attended. After that night, I was hooked and I never turned back.

I have been watching pro wrestling since 1997. The first promotion I watched was WCW, while the N.W.O was in full swing and the company was dominating WWE in the ratings. Later in the year I started watching WWE, during the time when Steve Austin was on the rise and Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were embroiled in their blood feud. As the years progressed, I began to watch WWE as much as I did WCW. I also watched small amounts of ECW and own both ECW video games on the original Playstation…there’s your nostalgia fix of the day! I watched both major companies until WCW finally folded in 2001.

Following WWE’s purchase of WCW in 2001, I began watching wrestling on a more consistent basis. While WWE’s business began to wane following the end of the Attitude Era, the in-ring product improved immensely. During my teenage/high school years, my perspective on the wrestling business became more jaded as I learned more about the “dirt sheets” and other forms of wrestling news. There was a brief period where I stopped watching wrestling; that was when I was forced out of New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina. Around that time I was introduced to TNA Wrestling and that became my other alternative to WWE. As the years progressed, I came to discover other indy wrestling promotions such as Ring of Honor and PWG.

Fast forward to my college years and it is somewhat challenging to be a wrestling fan these days. WWE is so focused on being a publicly traded entertainment company – more so now than in the past – that some of the stuff that they put on television turns off the viewers. TNA, well, do I really need to go into detail at this point? No? Yeah, I didn’t think so. However, my love for pro wrestling came full circle this past April when I attended my second big wrestling event in nearly 15 years…Wrestlemania 30 in New Orleans. It was then that I returned back to where it all started for me. I had realized why I had become a wrestling fan in the first place; moments I witnessed live such as The Undertaker’s streak ending at the hands of BROCK LESNAR to Daniel Bryan’s ultimate victory gave me memories that will last me for the rest of my life, just as it had been 15 years earlier. In a way, wrestling helped me find my passion for New Orleans again, as it had been lost since high school.  For once, it was wrestling that gave back to me.

Hey everyone! My name is Joey Evans aka MrShadowAcers. As stated in the article, I am originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, but moved to Central Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. JP asked me if I wanted to contribute to the blog, and I accepted. I am excited and humbled to be a contributor to PW Manifesto going forward, and I thank JP for the opportunity to write about a thing I love. Be sure to comment and tell me what you think of my first piece!