Forty years ago today, March 31, 1985 the first ever WrestleMania emanated live from Madison Square Garden in New York City. This blog post is going to be about my experience and history with WrestleMania.
Growing up my dad was a fan of wrestling and we would rent all of the Wrestling tapes at the video store that we could find. My first time watching WrestleMania was the Coliseum Home Video VHS tape. In fact that is how I watched the first 3 WrestleMania's.
WrestleMania IV was the first time I watched the event live on PPV and I have watched WrestleMania live every year since then. WrestleMania IV was the Tournament to declare a new WWF Champion after Andre the Giant and Ted DiBiase screwed Hulk Hogan out of the title on the Main Event in February of 1988.
I stayed with my Dad every other weekend and on Sunday's he would bring me home. On this Sunday we instead went to his friend Roland's house where a big group of their friends had gathered to watch the PPV. I was the only kid and I was given the coveted front row center seat. I rented WrestleMania IV the most because it was two VHS tapes and such a long show it was like getting two for the price of one.
WrestleMania V through XI I watched at my Dad's house with him and my half-brothers. WrestleMania XII & XIII I watched with my friends at their houses. WrestleMania XIV my buddy Jay and I attended live at the then called FleetCenter, now called TD Garden in Boston.
We had tickets in the front row of the balcony, Jay picked them up. This was our second wrestling show at the FleetCenter having attended WCW Monday Nitro in June 1997. Sadly, I did not bring my camera to the show. At that time I did not have a good camera, no zoom and I didn't think I would get any good pictures. I should have brought it. To be there when "Stone Cold" Steve Austin won his first World Championship is something special and the biggest wrestling show I had ever attended up until then.
When WrestleMania XV rolled around I was married and living in my apartment and I hosted my first WrestleMania watch party. Every year, except for 2, I have hosted the WrestleMania watch party at my house. I'm going to just chat bout certain WrestleMania's from this point on.
WrestleMania 2000 (16) WWE featured a special WrestleMania All Day Long. Beginning at noon and running for 8 hours this event was live footage for axxess, highlights and recaps of the first 15 WrestleMania's with exclusive interviews. Of course I spent the extra $15 for this 8 hour preshow.
What was extra fun was beginning at 6am on ESPN Classic they aired 6 hours of classic wrestling, so I watched 16 consecutive hours of wrestling and it was a great day indeed!
In the summer of 2007 rumors began swirling that Ric Flair was going to be inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame in 2008. So my buddy Jay and Rood and I bought Silver packages from WWE to attend WrestleMania XXIV in Orlando, Florida. These packages included tickets to the Hall of Fame, Mania, and more.
What we didn't know at that time, is that it would be the Last Match of Ric Flair...at that time.
You can read these two blog posts all about our trip to Orlando that year:
Although similar the posts are different, written at different times and have some shared and some different information.
Later that year after a my basement flooded and destroyed my wrestling collection, I was given a tour of then WWE Headquarters Titan Towers, you can read about that here: My Tour Of Titan Towers
During that tour they gifted me a complete DVD Collection of WrestleMania and when I rewatched WrestleMania 1 I was shocked to see this event was complete with all of the pre and post match interviews. The Coliseum Home Video release only had a few of these from the top matches. That was very cool to discover.
In 2019 Jay, Mikey and I traveled to New York City for WrestleMania weekend, however we did not attend any WWE Events and instead only went to Independent shows, and New Japan Pro Wrestling at Madison Square Garden. The links are below for that weekend if you want to check it out.
We took the train back to Jay's place in New Bedford, MA and watched WrestleMania 35 at his house to close out the weekend.
WrestleMania 36 was in 2020 and was taped at the Performance Center due to the Covid -19 Pandemic. This was the first time that WrestleMania was a two night event and it has been every year since then. I'm not a fan of two nights of WrestleMania I like having the show one night, it makes it more special in my mind.
WrestleMania 40 in 2024 was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Mikey, Bradford, and I made the drive to the City of Brotherly love to once again take in IndyMania Weekend. Those links are below:
What was special this year was we watched WrestleMania 40 night on live from the ECW Arena, on closed circuit TV, just like the original WrestleMania.
For many years we had a tradition of making big sandwiches for WrestleMania, just huge sandwiches that we would eat all night. In 2009 & 2010 I filmed videos and posted them on YouTube, links below:
I think this year one on of the nights we need to bring the Big Sandwiches back. Even though WWE is not my favorite brand of wrestling, I will never miss a WrestleMania.
Thank you for reading, please leave a comment, check out my other posts, and if you want like my blogs Facebook page. You can also head over to Amazon and pick up a copy of my book the 2024 Limitless Wrestling Almanac, or any of my other books.
Until next time!
