In 6 days, I miss my first Wrestlemania since 2006. It sucks, because over the four years in a row I went, it became less about the event and more about the week long road trip with all my friends. Don't get me wrong, I hate missing what might be my childhood hero's last match, but 'Mania was so much more than an event to us.
Wrestlemania 22 - 2o06 - Chicago, IL.
Wrestlemania 22 was huge for me. I was a 16 year old kid who was able to wipe something off his bucket list. I'd always wanted to go to Wrestlemania, but never thought I'd ever actually go. By God though, Dan, Pat, and I loaded up in Pat's car and went to Chicago for a weekend. The only other time I had been on vacation at this point in my life was when I was very little and I went on vacation to Oklahoma with my mom and grandma, which was the worst experience of my life, so this trip was by default the coolest vacation I'd ever been on. Wrestlemania turned out to be everything I'd hoped it would be. We bought the travel package gimmick, got to meet some cool wrestlers, stay in a nice hotel, saw Bret Hart go into the Hall of Fame and the event was amazing. 22 probably had the best card of anyone I've been to, top to bottom.
Wrestlemania 22 was where I met Jason, who went on to become like a brother to me. It also started the tradition of going every year. I remember the video played revealing Detriot for the next year and the three of us looked at each other and thought, "...alright, its only double the distance, let's do this."
Wrestlemania 23 - 2007 - Detroit, MI.
Detroit was where the whole Mania vacation idea. We all knew each other for real now, as opposed to just friends on the internet. Jason, Frankie, Walt, Pat, Scott, and myself where the cast and crew for that year's trip and we all really grew as the little family we would form. I think this was the first time Jason and I realized we where basically the same person, when we nearly killed each other laughing at the first night's ROH show.
We did the travel package again this year, and it was also the year we decided that sucked in comparison to what it could be. I remember sitting in the hotel with Walt and Pat, texting with Jason and Frankie about how they were going to ROH that night and we all sat silent until I was the one that finally said, "I don't know about you guys, but screw the Hall of Fame. Let's go to ROH with them". We had a blast and probably saw the best match of the whole weekend there.
This is also the first year we brought a camera. All that stuff made us realize the most fun part of the experience was hanging with everyone and acting ridiculous. So again, as we watched the video saying, "Next year...Orlando, Florida!" we thought to ourselves "We've got to go...and we've got to go together."
Wrestlemania 24 - 2008 - Orlando, FL.
The Orlando trip was the most epic thing we had ever thought of. By this point, we all loved each other like brothers and had meet up in different places for different reasons a bunch of times. But this was what we had been planing since a year earlier in the parking lot of Ford Field. Jason, Frankie, and Scott came down to STL and picked up me and Pat at midnight and we drove straight through to Orlando were we had a bad ass, two story, fully furnished town house waiting for us.
As far as wrestling goes, ROH had shows, one much better than the other. At the second show we turned into little kids watching AotF vs Briscoes. Of course, the night before Jason and I were molested by a Bushwhacker, so you decide which show was more memorable. At Mania, we saw some great stuff, highlighted by Flair's retirement match.
Other great stuff was just being in Orlando. The weather was amazing, it was a cool, breezy 85. Something that was mind boggling to us midwest folk. We drove an hour or so to Daytona beach, which was my first time ever on a beach. At one point, five grown men on a very expensive vacation decided to go play mini-golf, because we're that fucking awesome. We started the tradition that we would carry on, the Pepsi Toast, our straight edge version of the toast. That's how we said goodbye to the best trip we had ever had. At that point, after we had drove 24 hours in Frankie's box car, we knew nothing was keeping us from Houston. Jason stole the show on our home videos, with the end quote, "Houston...You're gonna have problem!"
Wrestlemania 25 - 2009 - Houston, TX.
This time, the road trip was even bigger. Dan and Walt joined myself, Scott, Jason, Pat, and Frankie on the ride down. It was so huge we had to rent a big passenger van to make the trip which we dubbed the Man Van. For some reason, it took us even longer to get to our destination this time. We stopped half way to complete a wrestling fan's must do, we ate at JR's Family BBQ. Our destination was not Houston, as we opted for a town house again and found one on the beach in Galveston, TX. We thought it was NEAR the beach, but we arrived to realize it was legit on the beach. The place was breath taking, seriously, can't even describe how amazing it was.
We had so much fun. We went to the Axxess event and had a blast. We went to two ROH shows and even though they sucked, we had a great time. We hung out at a sweet downtown spot in Houston. We played football on our private beach for like 3 hours for God sake and even though we hurt, it was awesome. The wrestling goes without saying, Shawn and Taker was the best match of all time. We even figured out the last piece we'd been missing, this year we stayed for Raw the next night. Almost a full seven days, living on the beach with my extended family. Life don't get much better.
And for me, that week had a revelation for me. I thought it as we traveled. I thought about it even more when I legit impressed Josh Mathews, Joey Stylez, and Michael Cole at the Call A Match gimmick at Axxess. It was after Taker pinned Shawn and the dust settled from that match that I said to myself, "Damn...I have to be a part of this business."
Fast forward to this weekend. Yeah, I'm missing Wrestlemania and all the crazy memories that have come with it, but I'm making a few more. Friday, I travel to Sandusky, OH for Beyond Wrestling. Just liked I promised myself a year ago, I'm not there to watch. I'm on the card. As a manager too it seems, which will be a first, and another off the bucket list. The night after that, back here at home, I will hopefully manage again. This time, it will hopefully be with one half of a tag team that I looked up to when I was 13 years old, and now consider friends.
Part of me would love to go back in time to tell that timid but excited 16 year old kid heading off for Chicago just what life would have in store for him in the coming years, but I don't think I'd want to rob him of the surprise.
