@Jmare007 @Heelish @The Rainmaker , I see are all from south America. who else voted for Hispanic?
I'm curious to know who the breh or brehette in Africa is and to hear their story about being a fan. Shoot same for the other international posters. What's the crowd reaction for the business like out there?
I'm guessing that the ones who voted for never been to a live show are international posters? Would a tour in your location even be possible or is the interest out there not as big? What caused you guys to become fans? Was wwf a big thing there growing up? Tell us your story.
Started watching WWF in 1997 when I was 9. It was on cable TV (USA Network Latino) and lasted till 98' or 99' before the channel switched to broadcast just dubbed movies. Became a huge fan pretty much instantly. Saw The Undertaker and was hooked to my TV from then on.
Luckily for me, a national TV channel - La Red - bought the rights to WWF programming and began showing the episodes almost at the exact same point USA Latino stopped broadcasting wrestling. We even got every PPV for free...the thing was, it had a 3-4 month delay
but I was too young and the internet was not even close of being a thing in Chile till a couple of years later so I followed it just as if it was "live", so to speak.
During that time wrestling became huge in Chile, the Attitude Era created a boom even in this country, it got some crazy ratings for a while and to this day people quote Carlos Cabrera or Hugo Savinovich (the commentary team that got it's table broken every PPV
). It didn't last long though, after the Invasion angle ended La Red stopped showing WWF and we didn't get any wrestling till late 2003 when another national channel - Chilevision - picked up the rights. This time the delay was even bigger though and the internet was way more accessible so even though the fandom was still there, it was more scattered than before.
Once La Red stopped showing wrestling I didn't lose interest but had no way of watching or reading anything so it wasn't until I got internet - 2003 - that I started reading, downloading and watching absolutely anything I could get my eyes on. I've read and watched so much shyt since then I can't even recall the chronology of it all, but it didn't take long for me to expand my interest from WWE to indys and puroresu. That's how I got to SOHH, searching for links to some random matches. Eventually I became obsessed with old school wrestling and watched a shyt ton of territories footage too. In the 14 years I've been a hardcore stan I've had a lot of phases: just WWE, just indys, just territories, mix of everything, etc. But the only constant has been puroresu, shout out to my puro gang brehs :purogang:
How big the business has been here depends on the time frame. Culturally it was huge during the Attitude Era. Then it became more of a hardcore thing in the mid 2000's, but it was still pretty big. That's why WWE came here in 2007 and had to add 1 date because it sold out immediately. From the mid 00's it also sparked a decent indy scene that has had it's ups and downs but never disappeared. Interest took a dive once Chilevision canceled WWE programming - by that point it there was no more delay, but there were like 30 minute shows, without PPVs - but in the last 3 years it has gone back up again. It was mix of social media, footage availability and wrestling being back on TV - FoxSports shows every WWE show and PPV - that sparked the fandom again. WWE came back to do house shows in Chile last year and was a big success, and they coming back in October for two more dates (I've gone to 4 shows in total, missed them in 2016 though).
The indy scene is strong right now with a couple of promotions running venues with 100 to 1k people. Hell, even Hugo Savinovich conned people to go see his made up promotion with a couple of indy darlings and ex WWE guys and they did great business. I remember meeting MVP and Carlito at a bar near my house for one of the dates, they were pretty cool
shyt man, this post was way too fukking long
I'm going to bed
