If you are a wrestling fan like me, then the first 90 days of the year don’t just bring you to spring, to the end of the school year, or to the start of the baseball season. No, from January to April, we follow what has become known as ‘the road to Wrestlemania.’

Like the Megadeth lyric that says “the world needs a hero,” the world needs wrestlers.

While I do appreciate high school and college-level technical wrestling, what I am talking about here is the trashy stuff you see on TV Monday and Friday nights — the good stuff. And every year, the biggest spectacle of all is Wrestlemania.

It is a time for wrestling fans around the world to come together in their living rooms, at licensed bars and at the venue. Every year it is broadcast live from a different location.

This year it was in Houston, Texas, and on April 5, I was there. There’s nowhere else I would have wanted to be.

The WWE season, if it can be considered a season, spans all 365 days of the year. While your favorite show is airing in reruns, I get two new episodes a week. Best of all, there is no off-season like in other sports.

Although I have heard it compared to a male soap opera, it is ever so much more. Like a comic book, it is the struggle of good and evil: a place where friendships are made, hearts are broken and alliances are formed that last the ages. It has a lot to do with respect and learning about human nature.

Where else can one work and have 70,000 plus screaming your name at the top of your lungs? Or have the chance to bodyslam your boss? To dress like a superhero? Nowhere but the WWE.

The era of Hulk Hogan and Macho Man is long gone. Even that borne by the Rock and Stone Cold now fades into memory. While their legacies live on, the wrestling world today continues to move away from the stigma of maintaining the front of realism as it once used to.

Yes folks, wrestling is fake. You know it, I know it, we all know it.

But that’s not where the draw is. These guys, and gal, have chemistry both on screen and off screen. Sometimes it’s opposing egos and others it’s an unrivaled camaraderie — that’s what makes it work. It feeds on aspects of reality that are then spun around in the TV world.

Although the outcomes are scripted and the wrestlers act them out, some do it so well one cannot help becoming lost in the twists and turns — and that’s what keeps us coming back for more.

Vince McMahon is the mastermind of it all, and let me say, he knows people and human nature. We are but pawns as he weaves stories that have us cheering for someone one week and then the very next week we are booing the same guy off the stage.   

For 20 years, I have been watching wrestling, and while I have seen characters come and go, pass away, grow and evolve, the principles in that time have remained the same — entertaining always comes first. 

Wrestlemania weekend is the one time of the year to eat, breathe and sleep wrestling. This was the third one I have had the privilege of attending and, just like before, it was reaffirmed: wrestling fans are the best.

We talk about it incessantly, recall our favorite moments like they happened yesterday, and randomly shout out the catch phrases of our favorites. A little Ric Flair ‘wooo,’ for example. At Wrestlemania, we let it all hang out. 

Hundreds of us stood in line for hours all weekend and did not complain  to get into Fan Axxess, a four-day, fan-friendly, fun-filled event — and then for autograph signings, and lastly when we went early and waited to get into the Reliant Center for Wrestlemania itself.

I then watched as the Undertaker went 17-0, tombstoning Shawn Michaels for a second time to finally defeat him. It was grueling and probably one of the best matches I have ever seen.

Then there was the appearance of Ric Flair rallying his legendary friends Ricky ‘the Dragon’ Steamboat, Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka, and Roddy ‘Rowdy’ Piper against the disrespectful Chris Jericho. I could go on and on.

Given the fact there were over 72,000 fans in attendance at the Reliant Center, and given that the pay-per-view was broadcast in 22 different countries and over 15 different languages, I know I am not alone in my love of wrestling.

The WWE transcends borders and languages, bringing together the world in a way that no other form of entertainment can rival. And that’s just the way it is — whether you love it or hate it.

 — Erin Mastre is a graduate student in landscape architecture from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.