How Stuss fell in love with professional wrasslin'!

Most people’s earliest memories of professional wrestling include seeing shades of red and yellow along with a white handlebar moustache brother, recalling a stylin’ and profilin’ superstar with a glamourous robe wooing his way down the aisle, waiting for the glass to shatter before a mudhole is stomped into a poor souls body and walked dry, or for the younger fans hearing the trumpets blow as a superman like performer ran into the ring wearing bright colours and imploring with the fans to never give up. That’s most people. Then there’s me. My earliest memory of professional wrestling was as a toddler watching Butch and Luke, The Bushwhackers, make their way down the aisle with their silly march while licking the heads of everyone they laid eyes on. From that moment on wrestling engulfed my life, and I have loved every bit of it.

My first hero was Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart. The long black hair, the pink shades, the cool theme music. He was the face of the WWF in the mid ‘90s. Yes, WCW was the number 1 wrestling promotion in the world at the time, but as a child in Australia, it was easier to access WWF tapes at the local video store. I couldn’t tell you how many times I borrowed Royal Rumble 1994 on VHS and how many times I covered my eyes when Undertaker ascended to the heavens after he was enclosed in the casket by Yokozuna (for the record I love Undertaker but 5-year-old me was absolutely terrified).

Although I had missed the beginning of the Attitude Era, I had watched enough highlight shows in the late 90s to know that Stone Cold Steve Austin was the greatest wrestler in the world and The Rock was the best entertainer in the business. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that I became a consistent viewer of WWF television. We had finally gotten Foxtel (cable for my international friends) and I now had access to Raw and Smackdown. I couldn’t be happier. I have vivid memories of The Rock getting the better of the McMahon-Helmsley Regime and Austin returning after he was hit by Rikishi to reclaim his position as the face of the company.

Then the transition happened. WWF became WWE and had eaten up their competition in WCW and ECW. The Ruthless Aggression Era was born, my favourite period of professional wrestling. Cena, Batista, Angle, Lesnar, Orton, Mysterio, Edge – all wrestlers I still love to this day. Add Triple H’s reign of terror and Shawn Michaels having match of the year candidates almost every week. Undertaker and Kane still doing their thing and the brand split really making it feel like there was competition between shows again. 

2008-2013 felt like a blur as high school and university took most of my attention, but I still kept up with show results and backstage news online. I wouldn’t say I lost interest, but I just found it difficult to keep up with watching every show every week. From 2014 though, my interest peaked again with the WWE network making literally EVERY show EVER available at the click of a button. NXT was quickly rising up to be the ‘A’ show and wrestlers like Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt starting to lay their mark.

This is when I started to also take note of other promotions, notably ROH and NJPW. Bullet Club was running wild a certain Cody Rhodes was building himself up. A lot of the stars from these promotions found their way to NXT, and then the main roster, and I was more in love with the product than I had ever been. Add in the newly created AEW, and wrestling felt like it did in the late 90s.

When the pandemic ran wild, wrestling was one of the only live sport entertainment options available. It was tricky at times to remain invested with the lack of crowd atmosphere but we got through it and moved into the Triple H era and the transition to long-term, slow build storytelling. It’s perfect. So perfect, I decided to co-host a podcast – the Stuss and Russ Talk Wrasslin’ podcast – with my buddy Jesse.

So much has happened since I became a wrestling fan over 30 years ago and I cannot wait to see where the product goes in the future!