A coincidence that I should see this thread, I've only just been trying to get 'into' the whole wrestling thing again... so I thought I'd give my view of Pro Wrestling, as it appears to be pretty different from all you 'old-school' type peoples. :3
I didn't know a single thing about wrestling until I was about 14-15 or so(?), when it became the latest 'cool thing' at my school. I mean, sure, I knew of WWF before that, but had never seen it... the extent of my knowledge on wrestling consisted of 'there's a guy called Hulk Hogan and there are action figures of him'.
Anyway, I first started watching it when the 'Attitude' era was just kicking in, with Stone Cold, Vince, and Degeneration-X being the main focus. I did think it was cool, mainly in terms of all the gimmicks and 'big matches' that were occuring on a constant basis. Honestly, the actual 'wrestling' part of it all was somewhat dull to me. ^^;
What I did love about it though, was the all of the hype, suspense, flashy lights, fireworks, 'gimmick' matches (cage, TLC, etc.), big yearly events (royal rumble), music, over-the-top characters... and so on and so forth.
After about a year of watching it every so often though, and the fad started to die out amongst friends at school, I just lost interest in it. Just recently, out of boredom and short-term-nostalgia, I thought I'd check out the latest PPVs and PS2 game, and I'm loving it all over again. This time around I'm actually kinda impressed with the wrestling too... although it's still just the 'flashy' moves and expert timing that I love.
All in all, it's pretty much the only 'sport' that I would go out of my way to watch... mainly because it's not a sport at all, but more of a show. The fact that it isn't 'real' is what draws me to it, and I love the extreme angle that they go for. If it weren't for the pretty logos and forced personalities, I wouldn't care for it whatsoever. ^^
