Well, we are now just a mere seven days away from this industry's premiere event.  The one event every wrestler that has ever stepped foot in the ring, dreamed of appearing in.  The one spectacle where fans flock from all corners of the world, to feel its greatness.  Yes, we are just one week away from WrestleMania.

I have thought of doing this series for a while.  Where we would all open up about personal memories, opinions, and other stuff regarding the days of WrestleManias past.  And stretch this over this coming week.

So let's start at the very beginning, and talk about our first WrestleManias.  Whether it was watching it for the first time on pay per view, closed circuit, through Coliseum Video, or snippets during WWF television.  What was your first memory of WrestleMania.

For my first memory, it was WrestleMania IX, which I saw live on pay per view.  Looking at it today, it wasn't too good of a card.  But as a wide-eyed eight year old kid, this was truly a spectacle.  Not just in the card (I was still use to seeing jobber matches at that time), but the aesthetics.  The outdoor Caesar's Palace stadium, being transformed into a Roman Coliseum.  It just looked so beautiful.  This was something I didn't think I was gonna see.  And also seeing announcers, reporters, techs, Mean Gene, Gorilla, Bobby, and The Fink all in togas.  Then the matches took place.  You weren't gonna see Dwayne Gill, or Barry Horowitz, or the Brooklyn Brawler on this show.  You were gonna see Superstars actually taking on Superstars.  No fillers.  And I'll admit, as a kid, I loved how WrestleMania finished.  It created this thought that anything can happen.  That somebody can just pop up, accept a challenge, and win the championship in a nutshell.  Even though it hasn't aged well today, this event solidified my love for wrestling, and I've never looked back.

Your turn.

I got into wrestling in late 98 (around Summerslam) so my first Mania is often regarded as pretty shitty, 15. I enjoyed it as a kid, but didn't understand what the big deal was. Just felt like the other PPVs. In fact, Austin taking on Vince in a cage a month before felt like a bigger deal than what we got. The next year it wasn't much better, but WM All-Day Long was really how I got to sample it all.

Wrestlemania III. My wrestling fan neighbor Mr. Charlie gave my family a tape of the show a day or two after it aired. I had been only been watching wrestling for about 3 months. So while I knew it was a big deal, I don't think I truly grasped the enormity of it all. I likely just assumed there was a show this big every few months....or at least once a year at Wrestlemania.

My first taste of Wrestlemania was Wrestlemania X, Owen vs Bret. I watched it with my dad because he really wanted to see the match. I think it was the only PPV he ever ordered on his own. Every other PPV we ever got was either me begging or when I was older and had a job and paid for them myself.

It's the first match I can remember watching and thinking to myself "god damn, THIS is wrestling."

It was a solid event and watching my favourite (Savage) hoist a Canadian icon on his shoulder with the title to close the show was just so fucking cool to this scrawny Canadian kid.

I didn't watch Wrestlemania again until 13, and we all know how that one went. Hart became my favourite when Savage left, and Austin became my favourite after that match at 13. I think I've watched every Wrestlemania since, even when I took a good 4 or 5 years off from watching.

We all come back for Mania.

Wrestlemania VIII for me, I remember all the build up to it, everything with Piper and Bret, Jake The Snake and Undertaker, Sid killing dudes on Superstars(he would cart them towards the back on a stretcher after the match then turn around and send them careening back down the isle into the ring Prime Sid). I was so fucking stoked for Hogan vs Sid, it was the biggest fucking match ever in the history of the universe for me at the time. I didn't get to see the actual show until probably 5-6 months later on VHS tape, just a super huge deal back then.

My first memory of WrestleMania was the very first WrestleMania. I was one of those that watched it on closed circuit television on the afternoon of March 31, 1985. Now compared to most other WrestleManias, this definitely wasn't great by any means, but you have to start somewhere.

The upload on the Network had a lot of edits, thus taking the magic out of it. The most magical moments for me was when Wendi and Cyndi came out together and after Wendi won. Cyndi’s passion for wrestling was a beautiful thing and add in her music and the fact old Moolah wasn’t on top it was a wonderful thing. But sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

Wendi was incredibly unique for her era. A good portion of the reason for this is there weren’t many beautiful girls who wrestled back then. They were a lot of homely girls and women who were in Moolah’s web who couldn’t really wrestle and were boring to watch. The solid wrestlers of Mildred Burke’s day weren’t in power anymore. Wendi was bright, colorful, friendly with Cyndi, loveable, and most importantly was a beautiful woman. No, she wasn’t very solid in the ring, but that was due to lack of training for women then. Not only that, Vince missed a major chance to make her a big name and face for the rest of that decade.

The rest of the card seemed clustered together because the last three matches carried the company then. Andre was still in his BFG gimmick, Cyndi brought name value, and Piper/Hogan were the both the hottest heel and babyface in wrestling. Piper was so good then, he even riled up musical artists in the gimmick, who would cut promos on him on MTV programming. Mr. T getting added in made it somewhat messy, but otherwise, it could have easily been Roddy as the champ after a screw job at War to Settle The Score defending against Hogan with Mr. T and Muhammad Ali as the refs and Hogan winning with the leg drop. People would have went apeshit and went home happier.

WrestleMania 1 is simply a gem of a bygone era and a major moment for legitimizing wrestling. Yes, it could have been better, but for what it was, it delivered.

Wrestlemania 18
The first time i watched wrestling was Summerslam 2001, then after that the first full PPV i saw was No Mercy 2001.
Then my uncle would tape PPVs and send them to me on VHS. The first one he sent me was this, but he didn't realise his
kids changed the channel at the start of Hall/Austin and the rest of the tape is Bear in the Big Blue House.
So i missed Rock/Hogan and the rest of the card.

Wrestlemania 19
Austar/Foxtel didn't show PPV's or Smackdown in Australia until late 2003, from what i've heard WWE were asking a ridiculous price.
Got the DVD's, all the PPV's on DVD in Australia form to make the number "2003" when you have the whole set.

Live:

Wrestlemania 20
First year having Austar at home, so i got to watch this live. Probably my favourite Wrestlemania despite the main event
obviously being tarnished now. The build for almost every match on this card was great.

Wrestlemania 6

Was huge ultimate warrior and demolition fan

Technically my first ever Wrestlemania was XV, but I watched it months after the fact and had read the PPV report in WoW magazine a dozen times.

So I'm going to guy with Wrestlemania 2000 since it was the first Mania I followed. And first off, I know I could be breaking IWC code, but I have to call it Wrestlemania 2000 because XVI, 16 or even X-6 all look weird to me. As somebody who predominately watched WCW around that time, I had to hand it to the WWF, even without their two biggest stars (Austin and Taker) somehow the show got even better. In a matter of months they had three of the coolest and therefore best wrestlers in Benoit, Taz & Malenko, and every show was noteworthy. Even though I was mostly relying on Angelfire websites and WWF.com for my fix, I couldn't help but be amped for Wrestlemania 2000.

In hindsight it's remembered as a really strange show, thanks largely to the number or lackthereof of singles matches. Only one match happened to be one-on-one and it was a T&A women's match. At the time I wasn't really worried and actually welcomed a lot of changes to the show. The main event in particular interested me since it solved my biggest issue with the fatal four-way match. Usually those matches were always lame since the least deserving guy would just sneak a pin and the match would be over. Here the elimination stipulation was novel for a major promotion and I couldn't envision HHH winning it. I thought for sure, all the challengers would finish him off and it would come down to Rock-Foley with Foley being able to go out on his own terms and being eliminated by a 'worthy' warrior.

Outside of that, I was happy to see Benoit, Jericho, Edge & Christian all competing for gold on the big show. For whatever reason, I was a big fan of the Canadians.

When the show was over, I was just perplexed by it all. How did Benoit & Jericho both manage to win separate titles? Why is Kane teaming with a Sumo guy? And more importantly, why is HHH still champion? I wasn't completely bummed because Edge & Christian won supposedly the greatest ever Wrestlemania match, but I was so bummed Foley was brought back only to be bumped off again. After spending so much time playing the N64 game, it seemed like the actual show was underwhelming.

In retrospect, it was a mixed bag. Most of the matches were forgettable outside of the ladder match and the triple threat for the Euro and IC title. I liked how the match was put together to give Angle his comuppance on the biggest show, while giving him a valid reason to be upset. And the ladder match remedied my biggest issue with No Mercy '99 and that's the fact my guys didn't win. Watching Edge & Christian on top of that make-shift ledge is one of those Mania visuals I constantly think about around this time of year.

And as a bonus, the first Wrestlemania I watched live on PPV was Wrestlemania 22. I was happy I got to see Foley wrestle one more time and I thought the D-X revival was going to save Pro Wrestling. I couldn't wait for my babyface D-X vs. Corporate Cena feud.

I have a lot of Wrestlemania 5 memories, but I think that was on VHS after the fact. I know by the place I was living and saw it at, it was 1989/1990, so it wouldn't have been long after it aired. I remember Savage getting the guitar shot at that place too, so I think I was just devouring Coliseum Videos and I caught the home video release of Wrestlemania 5 at some point before Wrestlemania 6.

Wrestlemania 6 is the first I remember watching live for sure. I was in kindergarten and there was a lot of "Hogan or Warrior?" on the playground. I was firmly in the Hogan camp. The Ultimate Warrior lost to Rick Rude, there was no way he would beat Hulk Hogan. Plus the Ultimate Warrior was kind of a bozo. I had no idea what the fuck he was ever going on about. He ate cigarettes during an anti-smoking ad. Who does that? He'll be eating a big boot soon enough, I thought. Man, I was disappointed.

Because I started watching wrestling so young, I have no memories about first match, or first event, I was just always watching wrestling. By 1990 I was old enough to start having vivid memories of things, and so while I was probably watching things like Superstars and the Main Events beforehand, it's only 1990 that I know for sure. I remember Mr. Perfect winning the IC Title Tournament in the aftermath of WM6. I remember my best friend to this day calling me after the fact to lament the fact. I just saw him last Thursday. We did not talk about Mr. Perfect's IC Title reign. I remember the not-Mike Tyson, but Buster Douglas on The Main Event before Wrestlemania. I tried to say up, failed, and my dad taped it so I could watch it the next morning. This is where my wrestling fandom has context in my mind. I remember what I was thinking about at the time. I remember opinions I had. Before 1990, it's just a blur of 1980's WWF that I was getting highlights of through video store visits. I could have seen those things 1987 to 1990, and I would have no idea in what order.

I was just as fired up for Wrestlemania 7, but I didn't see it live. I think it was as simple as it was my Mom's weekend, which any child of divorce knows is impossible to get a Mom to give up a weekend because in her mind, she would be conceding not to her child, but to an ex-husband, and that wasn't going to fucking happen. My Dad taped it, and I watched it the next weekend. Shout out to taping stuff, just in general, as it would become a huge part of my wrestling fandom from that point on, and also a huge part of everything, really, as I went taping mad. My first job as a teenager was to fund my blank tape addiction (TDK 8 hour tapes! It used to only be 6!).

I saw Wrestlemania 8 to 17 live on PPV except Wrestlemania X, which I attended. I've talked a lot about that so I won't bore you again. I really started to sour on Wrestling in late 1994/1995 (WWF and WCW were borderline unwatchable), but I still caught WM11 because it was Wrestlemania. Wrestlemania 18 was the first I didn't watch because monopolies suck and I haven't seen one live since WM17. I have been running a gimmick the past few years where I torrent WM the night of, and watch the matches that seem interesting the next day, but even that is less and less. The WWE sucks, I don't know how any of you watch it anymore.

I'll cover all the 'Mania's real quick.

1 & 2- Wasn't watching wrestling yet. Saw them on tape for the first time around 89-90.

3- Saw on tape a day or two after the show courtesy of my neighbor Mr. Charlie.

4 & 5- Saw live at Mr. Charlie's.

6 & 7- Saw on tape a day or two after the show. Mr. Charlie again.

8-11- Missed. Saw on tape in late 95-early 96. We had moved. I couldn't order pay per views and only had a few casual wrestling fan friends.

12- Saw live at my friend Brandon's.

13- Missed for some reason. Can't remember if I got a tape a few days later or had to wait til it was out on video. Think I had to wait though.

14-15- Saw live at Brandon's.

16- Saw live at my friend Gina's.

17-18- Saw live at my friend Lauren's.

19- Saw live at my friend Bryan's.

*12-19 (aside from 13) were all Wrestlemania "parties" with a bunch of people chipping in to order the show. Good times. 

20- No longer had any wrestling fan friends. Watching pay per views alone was boring. Ordered the tape when it came out. Yes, tape. Probably one of the last ones I ever bought.

21- Saw at a sports bar. Fun atmosphere.

22- Missed. Have never actually seen the whole thing.

23- Saw at that sports bar again.

24- Missed because I was starting not just a new job but my "career" the very next morning. It didn't pan out. Caught the big matches on Youtube the next day.

25- Youtubed the big matches a day or two later again.

26- Skipped. Still haven't seen a single thing.

27- Watched a few matches on a shitty live stream.

28 & 29- Skipped. Have only seen Cena/Rock I.

30- Watched at a new sports bar until Brock ended The Streak. That's it. I'm out.

31-33- Skipped