[Guyver Spawn]

There was Gundam stuff being release in the US before Wing as stated before. I remember collector shops had Gundam kits being sold via imports from Japan years before Wing exist. Not to mention in the 80's, you had people watching Gundam through tape trending.

Wing was the first Gundam show that most casual people knew about, but bigger anime & manga fans knew about Gundam for ages. Turn A Gundam was my first Gundam show back in 1999 (I seen images of Gundam before 1999, but knew very little about it).