ODE TO WRESTLEMANIA ONE

I can’t remember exactly when I saw the first WrestleMania. I remember the buildup and angles. I
remember MTV and “The Brawl to End it All” and “The War to Settle the Score”. Watching wrestling in
New Jersey at that time was either on WOR TV Ch. 9, the USA Network or MSG Network. The WWF was
also broadcasting it’s time with the music world of MTV, another revolutionary product in pop culture.
Looking at the advertisement on my television screen with my 15-year-old eyes WRESTLEMANIA Live
from Madison Square Garden, March 31, 1985, I knew this was not going to be the same show my father and I would watch together monthly. I knew it was going to be different.

 

Close circuit TV was the only way you could watch it “live” without being in attendance. I was not in attendance, and I didn’t go see it on closed circuit tv. Yet I have a memory of watching WrestleMania on a Sunday afternoon at my house in its entirety. Did MSG broadcast the extravaganza live on cablevision? Did I watch it a month later on VHS? What I can tell you for sure is that WrestleMania cemented my fandom. Forever.

It is now 39 years later, and the world has changed in so many ways for me, but my sense of wonderment has not. I still have those eyes of a 15-year-old and WrestleMania to thank.

Enjoy WrestleMania 40.