Wrestling against my first pin!!!!!

My first memories of wrestling was at my grade prep birthday party in the early 80,s,i still have the photo,s of us wearing a Hulkamania head band and wwf arm bands from a show bag from the royal Melbourne show,i was around 5 turning 6 at the time,the play ground and sand pits around school was full of kids playing with there big rubber wrestling figures some i remember floating around were Jimmy Superfly Snuker,Hulk Hogan and I remember having The Iron Sheik,I was always into Wrestling through the primary school years,always used to watch the rockn roll wrestling cartoon that came on saturday mornings and whatever other wrestling video,s that I could get my hands on,even through my teen years,when I was too cool for wrestling I still used to hire the video,s to see what was going on,mainly because of The Undertaker,i remember when I first saw him come out at Servivour Series 91 i was like woah this guy is cool,even though I was young and he was scary I just loved him,I even loved that after a year after his debut he killed Hulkamania and was the wwf champion.

So anyway as time went on in my early 20,s I got back into wrestling abit and saw a few shows that came down under and thought it was cool,maybe get a couple of wrestling figures if I passed a collectors store so the spark was still there,but also went out when I was around 22,for some bizzare reason when I turned 30 I started to collect old school wrestling figures again,mainly on ebay and started watching my old wrestling tapes that I never through away,like Summer Slam 94 Undertaker vs Undertaker to name one of many,and going through a ebay search of wrestling along came up a Wwf Royal Rumble pinball machine,I was like wow that is cool,it was mainly having the old school picture of The Undertaker on the backglass that got me hooked,I couldnt stop thinking of the machine,Ive played pinball when I was a kid but was never that serious about it,I didnt realise theres an aim to it,I just thought you hit the ball around and the lights go off and it makes cool sounds,I do remember playing Indiana Jones because we loved the movie and Roadshow because we thought the playfield was cool,basically the cooler toys on the playfield were the machines we went for.So anyway because of my collecting random stuff like gumball machines a Street Fighter 2 machine I knew I had to get a pinball machine or 2 in my collection,so why not jump on this Royal Rumble machine,at least I will get the grasp of pinball,because I know all the characters on the playfield,Know all there entrance music,so when it comes to the call outs I will understand where to hit the ball,so cool I pulled the trigger an got it,I was wrapped,but not knowing anything about pinball machines or anyone that does, not the smartest move .I got my first lesson in pinball 101 the moment I went to pick it up,woah this thing was rough and I mean rough,I was like what have I done,I honestly thought all machines were the same,on location or not,in person this thing was alot worse than the photo,s, really should have checked it out,you live an learn.I was lucky there was a guy there looking at pins and knew I was screwed and didnt know what I was doing and helped me out,gave me the heads up about touch ups and using mylar and cleaning the playfield,new balls etc, he really helped me out big time.

So when I got back home I unloaded my rumble and got to work on the cosmetic side of things,I was always handy at art so I didnt mind it,it was fun watching the machine come back to life.I got the rails and legs powder coated yellow and it really made it pop,it got to the point where I really felt sorry for this machine and I would think to myself the machine is telling me "im still good,I just need a little love,and Im just as good as all the other machines,please dont give up me..."So I didnt ,had a mate come around and we both took apart the playfield and re-rubberd it, it was a first for both of us,trying at times,but rewarding when it was done,we realised that some of the wrestlers wernt registing when hit,we were shatterd and and didnt know what was wrong,ggrrrr,then I remembered this website I found about pinball called "PINSIDE" a few weeks earlier when I got the machine looking for help,so I threw my problem on the forum and due to some great pinsiders on the otherside of the globe I got the answers I needed to get my rumble up an going,since then im on here everyday just reading the forum,and other peoples opinions on games etc.Just got the flippers re-built and this game is going at 100%,it really is a ton of fun,and love that i brought this game back to life,and want to thank the pinball community on pinside for taking the trouble to help me out,when I was really stuck,and I can honestly say im hooked on pinball an spend alot of my time trying to play games on location to get a feel for different machines and want to get a few more on the way,but atleast check it out first and see if it works before I jump on it ,lol.But the experiance has taught me alot from knowing nothing to knowing something and I wouldnt take that back for anything!!!! Cheers...