Great question, and great to see you back around here, ole bro!
{When/where/how/why were you hooked?}
I got hooked immediately, from the first time I watched it. Sometime around the London Olympics, I'm guessing--not sure if it was during Trials or actual London competition. But one of my favorite things about wrestling has *always been the different body types ("Any Body Can Wrestle"), so when my eyes got hold of a whole new set of body types in the form of female wrestlers, I freakin dug it.
Since then, my appreciation of Women's Wrestling has grown in a lot of ways. One of those is watching the sport struggle with the representation puzzle, because it makes sense to me that it's easy for a lot of people to get stuck thinking it's a chicken or egg situation. I watched a few anti/rhetorical takes asserting or questioning that it has to first earn fan viewership (before it can be given bigger platforms). I don't hate on those b/c I can see how easy it would be to view through that lens.
I know now, however, that that lens is myopic and, frankly, wrong.
For so many topics, Exposure absolutely must come first--if there's any hope of the unexposed ever learning from it or appreciating it. The Sports World has always understood the story of an underdog, for whom all they needed was just one chance. So I'm on board with starting with Representation (whether that's the chicken or the egg doesn't matter--just that one has to be picked)(thereby nullifying the use of Chicken/Egg as an accurate portrayal of Women's Wrestling's struggles to gain fans)(thank you for bearing with my rhetorical tedium).
Another aspect that absolutely has me hooked is an evolute from the representation struggle, and that is the sheer quality of the ambassadorship we now get to see from these incredible women. I'ma moist up my eyes just typing out my memory of Adeline Gray (the Queenest of all the Ambassadors, imo) coming off the mat after a heartbreaking Gold-medal-losing loss and immediately pivoting from sad athlete to don her promotion hat. I'm a 50 year-old man with two sons and no daughters (and one Mother!), but listening to Ambassador Adeline (and the next day, Champion Tamyra Mensah-Stock) speak to the world of little girls and young women out there with the You Can Do Anything message, I felt that. So inspirational! And it makes me want to lean in more, with my fandom.
I guess I'll finish with that as my takeaway (from the exercise of my answering Slush's question): make a list of what *eye* can do to help Women's Wrestling grow. The opportunity landscape ahead is vaassst: let's gooooo!
