10 Things Only '90s Wrestling Fans Will Understand
5. Wrestling Used To Be Big
Pro wrestling was once bigger than virtually anything is now, which is incredible to think about. The general atomisation of pop culture is the obvious caveat, but Jesus, it was once a veritable sensation.
It didn't matter how many PSA ads ran during RAW. The kids at school took Steve Austin's iconic "...but I still got up" as code for "I'll probably be all right!" and proceeded to play wrestling on the field. It was as wild west there as it was on screen. Lads were out there playing Toshiaki Kawada, even if they had no idea who he was. The WWF was a craze, and it wasn't just DX or Austin 3:16 t-shirts the kids were wearing in the town centres. Young, incredibly optimistic teenage boys wore short sleeves with dragons all over the pattern in a wild bid to look like The Rock.
It wasn't just you and your own geeky group of friends. Kids thought of as cool watched pro wrestling because pro wrestling was cool. In something of an indictment of WWE's descent into the swamp - and it's literal, because of course it is - WWE's biggest demo shotgunned Bruno Sammartino, not Steve Austin, in their backyards.
Wrestling was so big that it tore friendships apart...