Hello there! My name is Katie Gregerson and I’m one of the writers here at Ringside Intel. Here is a photo of me being a NERD with the NXT Women’s Championship replica title that my fiance bought me, one of several replica titles we own.

I started watching wrestling when I was around 10 or 11 years old and fell so in love with it in college that I enrolled in a pro wrestling school after graduating (as you can probably guess, that career path didn’t work out). But that’s okay; now I get to write about wrestling every day, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

How I Became A Fan

Like most other wrestling fans, I started watching when I was a kid. I’m an only child, and as such, I needed to play with the other kids in the neighborhood to cure my boredom. Well, unfortunately for me, all the other kids my age were boys. But, fortunately for me, it was two of those neighbor boys who introduced me to the then-WWF. One glimpse at D-Generation X and I was hooked.

Unsurprisingly, my dad didn’t approve of me watching wrestling – it was the Attitude Era, after all. But eventually he came around, and in 2001 he took me to my first ever live event. It was a SmackDown taping at the then-MCI Center in Washington, D.C. The Rock returned from filming The Scorpion King that night, and I’ll never forget his response when WCW Champion Booker T came out to confront him.

I remained a fan throughout middle school but admittedly stopped watching in high school. You know how it is: the neighbor boys had moved away, and pro wrestling had somewhat fallen out of vogue by then. None of my friends were fans, and with no one to talk to about it, I just stopped watching. It wouldn’t be until the summer before my senior year of college that I would discover it again.

One Monday night in July of 2009, I was rapidly flipping through the TV channels when I came across Monday Night Raw. I stopped to watch because I saw Triple H and thought, “Holy crap, he still wrestles?” I continued to watch because I saw Randy Orton and thought, “Who in the blue hell is that? *heart eyes*.”

I watched the rest of that episode. I eagerly awaited Thursday so I could watch SmackDown, too – only to learn that it moved to Fridays. One glimpse at CM Punk and I was hooked, again – and even more so than before.

Long story short, I’ve been watching ever since. In 2011, frustrated and working a job I hated, I enrolled in a small pro wrestling school in Hagerstown, Md., with the dream of becoming a wrestler. I was the only girl at the school; I left after six months. But like I said above, it’s all worked out. I’d much rather write about wrestling than do it, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the men and women who put their bodies on the line for our entertainment.

My Favorite Wrestlers

If you’ve read my stuff here before, you probably have an idea of who my favorite wrestlers are. My all-time favorite, hands down, is Chris Jericho. Embarrassing fact: When I was 11 I made a beaded bracelet of his name surrounded by hearts. I still have it, and I still wear it to wrestling shows if I think of it.

My favorite active wrestler is Seth Rollins. I was a total Dean Ambrose fangirl until The Shield split, and then Rollins completely won me over with his fantastic first WWE Championship run. Rollins is one of the best wrestlers in the world right now if I do say so myself.

I also adore Pete Dunne and Neville. I was devastated when Neville left WWE, and I still miss him. I hope he either returns to WWE one day or resurfaces somewhere I can watch him wrestle again.

As for the women, my top three are easily Charlotte, Alexa Bliss, and Becky Lynch. Charlotte’s talent speaks for itself, and Bliss never ceases to impress me. I wish WWE would do more with Lynch because she’s a great wrestler.

My Favorite Matches

Whenever I think about my favorite matches, the first one that always comes to mind is CM Punk and Jeff Hardy’s TLC match for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam in 2009. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was one of the first PPV matches I watched after rediscovering WWE, and that program between Hardy and Punk had a lot to do with resealing my fandom.

I also love the trio of matches John Cena, and Randy Orton had in 2009, mainly their Iron Man match at the very first Bragging Rights PPV. Orton attempting to blow up Cena with pyro is one of my all-time favorite moments.

Finally, I have to include Johnny Gargano vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas for the NXT Championship at NXT: TakeOver Philadelphia. Not only was it NXT’s first ever five-star match, but I was lucky enough to be there in the crowd at the Wells Fargo Center to witness it. My face of pure shock at Tommaso Ciampa’s return also made the recap promo on the subsequent episode of NXT, and that was pretty cool.

This is just a small taste of my stories about pro wrestling and what it means to me – I could go on for many, many more words. But I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into my wrestling fandom, and thank you for reading my stuff and everyone else’s here at Ringside Intel.

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