Ever wondered what it would be like to attend not just any WrestleMania, but the first WrestleMania? 

Time travel doesn’t exist (yet!), but WWE is giving fans the next best thing with a newly colorized remaster of the Vince McMahon’s epic gamble on a wrestling spectacular at Madison Square Garden back in 1942. 

The world was at war, just months after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, and a plucky 37-year-old Vincent Kennedy LaFondah McMahon bet his life savings and his favorite pig on the very first WrestlingMania (later changed to WrestleMania, and nobody seemed to notice). 

You’ve probably met some old timer — perhaps you own beloved ol’ gramps — who tells tales of the “first and greatest” WrestleMania.

Reginald Crandon, 103, recalls attending WrestleMania as a wide-eyed lad. “Admission was a nickel, and that was for ringside,” says Crandon. “Liberace was there! Hoo boy, that was a hootenanny. I never saw anything like it, before or since. The electric lights, the Rockettes. It was like a dream!  That main event was a bit of a shit-show though, am I right.” 

Wrestling historian Oliver Gregg writes that the first WrestleMania grossed a then-whopping $850 gate, and even lower-card wrestlers like SD Special Delivery Jones were paid a handsome silver dollar and a fine roast beef dinner prepared by Linda McMahon. 

Watch an EXCLUSIVE TRAILER showing a first look at the colorized footage (just kidding, that is a link to the Kayfabe News t-shirt store, but you should click it anyway and get a shirt because I need a new lawnmower).