So, here we are. Wrestlemania 29, my second wrestlemania ever and I get to share it with two of my best friends of all time. It was more than just a wrestling holiday it was a celebration of friendship, passion and mostly enjoying life to the full.
Nearly 9 months later and it’s time to start purchasing tickets to wrestlemania 30 next year. The butterflies start to buzz around as I’m sitting on ticketmaster awaiting 4pm GMT when tickets to the granddaddy of them all go on sale. This year it’s myself and my long time friend Leeanne who are making the journey together. Leeanne and myself have shared many of a road trip together and this is going to be the trip to top them all for our gang.
4pm hits and we choose our seating price, we have one minute waiting time in the online queue. WOW! That was easy. 10 minutes later, we still have only one minute waiting. Typical ticket master. 4:43pm our seat offers appear on screen, and they’re awesome. A few clicks later, WE’RE OFF TO WRESTLEMANIA! 3 years straight for me. I go bursting out of the restaurant office (to clarify, I’m the manager of a restaurant and if my employers head office reads this, I bought these tickets on my own time not works!) with the biggest smile on my face screaming to anyone who will listen, I’ve got tickets! Most are excited for me, they know how hard I work every day just to have this as my holiday every year. However, even now, many just cannot get their heads around some facts. Some questions repeated such as:
- A: How can you spent that amount of money on one event?
- B: How can you still watch wrestling? It’s fake and isn’t as good as it used to be!
That second one is the one that I can easily answer.
Growing up in my group of friends, wrestling was a big past time for us all. We would follow anything that would happen, every tv show, every pay-per-view, even break the rules and “try it at home”. In my final year of high school I was pretty much known as that “wrestling kid” everyone had out grew it, found it boring. The big excuse most used was that they finally realised it was fake. I find this a massive cop out. Surely everyone has always known it was fake? I did! It’s more than obvious when they call it sports-entertainment, when there are major storylines happening that could rival and television soap, when Mae Young gives birth to a hand? That’s a pretty sure sign it’s not reality.
What people go through is the nostalgia effect. This happens to everyone about anything. Pubs aren’t what they used to be, football has changed it’s too slow, that’s not music it’s just noise! You would have heard at least one of these. Not just old fans but even current fans tend to moan about how good the attitude era was. How wrestling lost its way. How the PG era is not a touch on the past. To me, the business hasn’t changed in bad way at all. Sure, growing up I loved seeing Mick Foley being tossed off the hell in a cell. I loved the multiple chair shots to the head most wrestlers endured. I mostly loved the vulgar middle fingers and the D-X suck it crotch chop, which would even get used towards my teachers, that, I am not proud of. That was the edgy tv that we all knew, the edgy tv that killed off all competition making the WWE a world wide brand.
Today, the once family company which is now public, has better policies in place to protect themselves and their very talented wrestlers such as their random drug tests. The storylines haven’t taken much of a change in direction. It’s still all about good vs evil, just less with the violence to get any sort of message across. Aiming the product at a much younger audience is a great move, as at the end of the day it’s the kids that want the merch, rather than grown men like myself. The occasional t-shirt will suffice for me. The storylines were always secondary to me, unlike most people. All I cared about was the action in the ring. Being able to have great matches, suckering me in to believe it’s real. Getting crowds to scream OOOOOOOOOO and AHHHHHHHHHH, on the edge of their seats. That’s why I watch wrestling, for the wrestling! Today, the WWE has some of the best wrestlers from around the world. The company has gone back to its old roots of concentrating on in ring action when it comes to big shows like wrestlemania. Wrestlemania last year had over 80,000 fans from 34 different countries attend. These fans are the hardcore, such as myself. We love the sport, if you can call it that. I do. No matter what happens in the world, we can go to any bingo hall, any hockey arena, anywhere there is a wrestling show, you go and everyone in that hall has one thing in common. The love of the business. Weather you’re a worker or a fan it doesn’t matter. You’re all there for the same reason.
Just so happens, the biggest show of the year is wrestlemania. The week long events that take place is one big celebration for all fans. old or new. It turns the town in to one massive party, especially the night after wrestlemania at monday night raw. I sum wrestlemania week up as a celebration of life. Doing what I choose to do. Enjoying every moment. Not regretting a thing. Living!
In just over 4 months time, I get to do it all over again. If NYC was a party down, what on earth is New Orleans going to be? The home of Mardi Gras! Can the wrestling fans handle the town, or can the town handle us? If you’re a fan, I cannot recommend highly enough how important it is to go to at least one wrestlemania in your life time. I warn you though, like pringles, once you start you can’t stop. This will be my third in a row, and I cannot see an end to my experience. To be honest, I don’t want to!
Wrestling With Ideas 
