In 1997 I went with my friends The Celt, his wife (Mrs. Celt), Tony, and Stickler to my first rasslin’ event: WWF Monday Night Raw is War on October 6 in Kansas City, Missouri. The previous day had been pretty eventful, with the Kane and the Hell in a Cell match making their first appearances in St. Louis, and wrestler Brian Pillman passing away in his hotel room.
The Undertaker was by far my favorite wrestler. I mean, he’s scary, he wears all black: it was pretty clear he looked up to me, so I had to go to support my biggest fan.
I had brought my Pentax K-1000, several rolls of 400 and 800 speed film, and a telephoto lens I borrowed from Mrs. Auggie. Before they started the show, all of the wrestlers came out on the entrance ramp while they tolled the bell for Pillman. All except the Undertaker.
Anyway, the show that night was great, and we had awesome seats. I took a lot of pix, pushing the film as far as I thought I could get away with. I also found out what they do in the stadium at a live event while they are airing the commercial breaks on TV: absolutely nothing.
We saw some great matches, but I was still kind of bummed that the Undertaker hadn’t been there. Finally, the show was over, the lights dimmed, and people started going home. We waited around a little bit just in case there was something else, and they started taking the aprons off the ring that said ‘RAW is WAR.’ Underneath was another set of ring aprons that said ‘Shotgun Saturday Night.’ It turns out they tape it after the live Monday night broadcast (sorry to spoil it for ya).
The final match was scheduled for a one hour time limit: Bret ‘the Hitman’ Hart vs. the Undertaker.
I had about eight frames of my last roll of film left, and I got this shot:
Undertaker 1997 is available in 1600 x 1200 (standard) and 1440 x 900 (wide). Just right click and Save As (Windows) or Option-Click (Mac).
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