Can They Be Champ? 03.23.08: WrestleMania 23 and Me

Posted by Mike Minotti on 03.23.2008

Instead of looking ahead to WrestleMania 24, I take this week to look back at WrestleMania 23. At a time in my life when I was suffering from panic attacks and a mild depression, attending a WrestleMania live was something of a turning point in my life.

WrestleMania 24 is on everyone's mind. That may have been the most obvious opener I've written. The show is next week, after all. A week today we'll be ordering pizza, picking up coke (or beer, for those of you so inclined), making sure the cable bill is in fact paid, and finally sit down with friends for the biggest show of the year. It's always a fun time, and I think that this social aspect of WrestleMania gets downplayed a bit. I know there have been a lot of people who are saying that the card is not great for WM24, and that the build has been a bit lackluster. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with them, but I know WrestleMania 24 is still going to be fun night, regardless of how good the actual PPV is. I know me and my friends will be yelling at the TV, either enthused or angered, for four hours.

Besides, it's not like WrestleMania 22 had the greatest card in the world. I mean, the best match featured a way over his prime Mick Foley. Still, I have very fond memories of that night watching the PPV. I remember how all of us freaked out when Shawn Michaels did a crotch chop at Vince on the top of that giant ladder, before elbow dropping him through a table. We all jumped out of our seats when Shelton Benjamin jumped onto the top of a ladder seemingly out of nowhere. We all screamed when Edge speared Foley through a flaming table. We all gasped when Triple H tapped out to the STFU cleanly. The only deflating moment of the PPV for me was my disappointment with the Angle/Mysterio/Orton triple threat, but that was due to my high expectations for the match. Needless to say, they were not matched.

You see what I'm saying though? Sure, their were a fair share of crappy matches, like the Playboy pillow fight thing and that horrible tag team match with Big Show and Kane vs. Carlito and Chris Masters. Let's not forget about Booker T vs. Boogey Man, as much as I'd like to. We had obvious filler, like Benoit vs. JBL. We even had at least one disappointing main event. Still, the show was filled with plenty of fun moments. Looking at WM24's card, I have no doubt that we'll have plenty of fun moments, and maybe even some classic ones, come next Sunday.

As for WrestleMania 23, I really can't fairy judge the PPV. I was lucky enough to be in Detroit to see it live. But before I continue, let me get podcast plug out of the way.

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Yes, I was at WrestleMania 23, an event that is almost a year old. To be honest, it feels like it was a lot longer ago than that. Anyways, WrestleMania 23 will always hold a special place in my heart. Seeing a WrestleMania live is an incredible experience, and it's one that I hope every wrestling fan gets to experience at least once.

But it wasn't just the event itself that was special for me. Sometime during the Fall of 2006, some months before WrestleMania, I began having panic attacks. These panic attacks would greatly increase my heart rate, make my skin tingle, make me short of breath, and send a bizarre pain down my left arm. If you think that description sounds like the symptoms leading up to a heart attack, just know that I came to the same conclusion, which greatly increased my anxiety. That wasn't what really was happening, and to this day I still don't really know what happens during a panic attack. I just know that it's a scary thing, and at its worst I really do feel like if it gets any worse I could die. Medically, that's impossible, but I still felt that way.

I had two really bad attacks that Fall. The first was when I was driving home from college, when suddenly an attack hit. I had to pull over, on the highway, and wait for help. The middle of a crowded high way is not the ideal place for a panic attack, and it took me some time after that to really become comfortable driving again. The second one was during a Roger Waters concert. The large crowd, the loudness, and the faint smell of pot somehow got to me, and I spent the majority of the concert lying down.

I know that I'm getting far away from the subject of wrestling, but stay with me; I promise that I'm going to bring it back. Anyways, just about anything that was too "exciting" would begin symptoms of a panic attack. It got to the point where I could barely sit through a whole movie. I sometimes would even have to stop watching wrestling. Yeah, I had to leave my own living room, filled with my friends, and go drug myself up and lay down for awhile. Not being able to enjoy simple things like movies and wrestling, or the freedom to drive whenever you wanted to, was becoming depressing.

I went to a few live WWE events during this time. They were hard to sit through. Especially the obnoxiously loud pyro and fireworks. I still I hate those fireworks. You all know that the WWE artificially makes them louder, right? I guess it makes it come off better on TV, but I didn't appreciate it when it would cause my heart to beat so fast that I could feel my eyeballs pulse.

To give you an idea of just what kind of thing could set me off, I remember watching the 2007 Royal Rumble. Remember when it came down to Taker and Michaels? It was so intense, so exciting, that I could barely stand watching it. I literally had to close my eyes at times. The anxiety would be too much for me.

Alright, that gives you an idea of how I was feeling just a couple of months before WrestleMania. Well, shortly after that, my friend called me and told me that he got two tickets for WrestleMania. Now, I live in a place called Youngstown, Ohio, which is about four hours away from Detroit. Unless WrestleMania comes to Pittsburgh or Cleveland for whatever reason, Detroit was about as close as WrestleMania was going to come to us. Still, I turned my friend down. I was afraid of going, because I didn't think that I could take the excitement. The main event was HBK vs. John Cena, for crying out loud. Shawn Michaels is, without a doubt, my favorite wrestler. If I could barely watch him in the Royal Rumble, how could I stand watching him in the main event at WrestleMania without letting my excitement get the best of me? Not to mention Taker vs. Batista, Money in the Bank (I had never seen a ladder match live), and the chance to finally see Austin live (never got to do that one before). He was shocked but I turned him down.

Immediately afterwards, I became incredibly depressed. I was letting some medical condition, one that may only exist in my head as far as I know, stop me from going to Wrestle-freaking-Mania. I knew it would be something I would regret for a long time. I called my friend back, and told him I would go.

I did not have a panic attack at WrestleMania 23. I just sat that there gleefully the entire time. Me and my friend were freaking out at just about everything that was happening. We cheered our heads off, and I remember literally jumping up and down in excitement on at least a couple occasions. I still don't know how I got through it, but I was completely fine the entire night. I have not had a full out attack since that night, and even the small symptoms I used to have on a regular basis are completely gone. I'm not claiming that there's some sort of connection, but I still see it as a turning point of sorts. At that time, I was worried that my panic attacks could start happening more and more frequently, and begin to restrain and control my life. Instead, they disappeared.

My brother and all of my friends still watched the event from home. I remember laughing when my brother jokingly told me he was worried that I was going to die during Undertaker's entrance.

I know you've all been enjoying a lot of great columns about the historic significance of WrestleMania. I just wanted to share a more personal story with everyone. WrestleMania 23 will always be one of my favorite WrestleManias. Frankly, it was one of the best nights of my life so far.

Here's hoping that WrestleMania 24 will be an equally great night for millions of people out there. Whether they watch it from the Citrus Bowl (hopefully not in the rain), at home, or even some bar. There's more to wrestling than fighting, promos, and storylines. It's hard to put into words, and I think that's why we still get weird looks from people who don't "get it". To this day, my father loves to point how fake something looks while I'm watching. Again, I wish I could describe the appeal to him.

That's it for this week. Not only is next week WrestleMania 24, but it will also be my one year anniversary here at 411Mania. I'm sure my next column will reflect both of those things.

Have a good week, everyone.