Wrestling Memories: Live Event Programs

Wrestling Memories: Live Event Programs

I have been fortunate enough to go to many fun live events over the years. I live in the UK, but since 1991 I have been able to go and see the WWF/E more times than certain states in the USA. Where I live now in the North East of England, there was a period where the WWE would come here twice a year! Even now, I am guaranteed at least one WWE show here a year. It is kind of insane how much time the WWE spends in the UK.




While I always look forward to seeing my favorite wrestlers as well as seeing some wrestlers for the very first time. When I started going to live events getting the souvenir program was always something I was excited about getting. For the tours that the WWF/E would do here in the UK, they always put a bit of effort into their programs. It was not like it was just some generic WWF/E Program. They would be tailored to this specific tour and it was always a little piece that I was excited to get.



Truth be told, these programs were nothing more than fancy picture books with photos of the wrestlers, but they were always cool and the pictures were of a much higher quality than you got in the WWF magazine during those days. The first one I got and I still have in my collection is from the 1991 UK Rampage. This along with the SummerSlam 1992 program are my favorite ones in my entire collection (that survived, but more on that later). The SummerSlam 1992 program I think I read in the car about 10 times on the way home from London




Up until around 2010, I would purchase a program at every single live event I went to and I had amassed a pretty solid collection. A collection that when I left home and went to university would be ravaged by a flood, this was in 2003. I lived in Sunderland and I lived in this large student housing area and I just so happened to live in what was classed as the basement flat. Where my front door was the stairs to the main part of the building where and in my house, this was used for storage. I kept a bunch of stuff in here including a couple of boxes of wrestling magazines and programs. One day, we had a very bad rainstorm and I could hear water pouring in the house, I opened the door to that under stair storage and water just poured out! Everything that was sitting on the bottom was completely destroyed, including some of my favorite programs, most notably the 1992 European Rampage, Capital Carnage, and One Night Only!




The reason that I stopped purchasing a program at every event was the WWE got really lazy with their live event programs here in the UK. Rather than basing them on the actual tour, we just got a generic “WWE Souvenir Program” for a few tours and I am sure they used this all over the world. The programs at this point really lost their appeal to me. First of all, as they were not for the actual event, but the price also went up from around 10 pounds to 15!




I have included a few pics of some of my programs that survived the great stair flood of 2003 and are still in good condition, but I would love to know your thoughts on live event programs, if you have collected them and share what some of your favorites in your collection are.