>>11225149I'm Dutch.
We don't have any wrestling on TV. Never had, until April 2021 when we got 1 hour of Raw and 1 hour of Smackdown at 1am on fridays. Only lasted a year.
Growing up, I played the wrestling videogames for SNES and later N64 and PS2.
Around 2000, I asked my dad what wrestling was.
In his (translated) words: "it's predetermined, they're working together."
HOW THE FUCK DOES HE KNOW THAT.
WE NEVER HAD WRESTLING, AND HE KNOWS THAT.
It blew my mind at the time even though I was only 6.
I remember this well however, because that memory raced through my mind when I saw my first ever wrestling match in 2008 through YouTube: Undertaker vs Mankind, HIAC 1998.
Since then when checking out ticket sales for WWE house shows in the Netherlands (the once in a blue moon occasion they pop in), they were only drawing 400 people.
If a country that absolutely isn't a wrestling market is smart to the business in 2000, there's no way nobody knew.
