"I'll never go to Wrestlemania"...Part 1

Since I was a kid, I was a WWE fan. Not a wrestling fan, just WWE. I could never get into the likes of WCW, even though it would play on Channel 5 towards the end of it's lifetime, and over here in the UK, we never had proper access to ECW. My Dad once took me to see "the wrestling" at Rothwell Sports Centre and I remember thinking it was OK, but it was nothing like I'd seen on TV...although I did manage to buy a cool Undertaker caricature picture which ended up stuck to my bedroom wall for years!

A guy who lived on our street used to record all the PPVs for me every month and bring them over on cassette tape (remember those?) and I would get my mate Chris around and we'd watch whatever was happening.

I will always remember watching the Summerslam that took place at Wembley Stadium when the British Bulldog, who was naturally a favourite of mine due to the fact that he came from England, bundled Earthquake and Typhoon over the top rope in a Battle Royale to win the title (I think...).

I was hooked from a very young age and would love watching Undertaker and Hulk Hogan go at it. Chris and I would even make our own Top Trumps, drawing each wrestler's logo on a square piece of paper and then giving them the attributes that we thought they deserved. We would play with those for hours on end.

But then the novelty wore off after a few years and it became "uncool" to be watching the WWE and I stopped completely.

But back in 2000, my sister's boyfriend-at-the-time Kev got me back into watching and I was away again. I would annoy my parents by putting it on TV at any available opportunity. Naturally, they hated it.

"What a load of rubbish!" they would say and laugh when someone was fake-punching someone else. But I didn't watch it for all the fake punches. I watched it for the entertainment. The excitement, the spectacle...and when it comes to spectacles in the WWE, there's nothing greater than Wrestlemania. The one night a year when I would make sure I stayed up through the night to watch the PPV live. There was no recording of Wrestlemania. Not if you were a hardcore fan. Oh no. It was all about watching that event live.

Wrestlemania was always one of those events that I dreamed of attending. It looks magnificent on the screen and I always thought that the people in attendance were the luckiest sons-of-bitched in the world.

And then something happened...I won £15,000 on Are You Smarter Than A Ten Year Old (which you can watch by clicking here). I had £15k sat in my bank account for a split second and I knew what I wanted to spend a healthy portion on. I rang around some friends, but no-one could afford, or even wanted to come with me. Wrestlemania 24 was coming around in 6 months time...and I could afford to go. I got hold of a package application form just one week before time was up to apply and I sent it. A day later I was graced with confirmation and I was going to the grand-daddy of them all. Wrestlemania 24 in Orlando, Florida.



To be continued...