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[Editor's note: As reported earlier we have two correspondents live in Houston, who will be updating us throughout the rest of the week, in to the weekend, before live play by play coverage].

Here goes, first entry, thought I’d start with a little intro on myself and the guy I’m with to give a bit of background ;

It was on the night of April 2nd 2000, during the 16th installment of WrestleMania that I said in what I thought was a throwaway comment to the friends I had gathered at my parents house for the big event that the following year ‘I’d be there’. Little did I know that 9 years on, and seven WrestleMania’s later I would be back in Houston for my 8th event and the 25th anniversary of WrestleMania.

Like most who follow the sport into adulthood, I started watching wrestling as a kid, firstly on World of Sport on ITV and then later the WWF when I got Sky at home in 1990. It had always been a dream and hope that one day I would make the trip to the states to see a WrestleMania in person and with the help of my childhood friend Louis, that dream became a reality on April 1st 2001 at the Astrodome for what many consider to be the greatest WrestleMania of all time.

Since then through great personal and financial sacrifice we have missed just one grand-daddy of them all and had amazing experiences as we have travelled from city to city across North America. After a year off last year we are back where it all began for us for the 25th installment of WrestleMania this Sunday from the Reliant Stadium. We will also be attending the Hall of Fame ceremony on Saturday night and then Monday Night Raw from the Toyota Center.

I’m sat typing this in the lovely Hilton Americas with a room that looks over the Houston Astros baseball stadium enjoying a much needed strawberry protein shake (Myoplex if anyone cares) to replenish me after the last few hours of harrowing activity at the city’s George Bush Intercontinental airport.

My positive and excited attitude on all things holiday related had taken a slight dent already as a result of the young Mexican lady who was sitting in front of me on the plane deciding it was appropriate to set her seat in the fully reclined position while placing her feet on the table tray in front and basically lying down. At just shy of 6ft 4 I haven’t ever got the most pleasant experience on planes, but today was even worse than usual. She was a slight little thing, maybe 5ft 2 or something, but every time she moved it felt like the seat was slamming into my knees with an unrelenting fury. At one point it got too much for me and I asked her, politely, whether it would be possible to move her seat forward as I had no room. She shot a puzzled look my way, one further puzzled look at the gentleman sitting in front of her in an Arsenal shirt, shrugged her shoulders and went back to annoying me for the next 6 hours.

Anyway, I digress, we finally touched down after some fairly bad turbulance (though Louis and I helped ourselves through it by attempting sly gazes at the gorgeous German girl who we’d chatted to sporidacally throughout who was sitting next to us) only to be met with a queue of truly horrific proportions to get through US customs. We arrived in the terminal building at 2:40 and were through customs at 4.15. We darted from queue to queue to try and find the quickest attendant but every time we got in one that started to move there was seemingly another problem at the front.

As patience was wearing thin, Louis announced that he would have to declare that he had food with him as he had two Satsuma’s and a packet of Nuts. After subsequently getting through security, he then had to go into a seperate room to have these items x-rayed. I never realised Nuts or Oranges could be that much of a threat to national security.

Enough of all the negativity anyway, after a quick freshen up we are headed to check out the hotel’s steak house and have a few drinks locally before a catch up on sleep tonight. Tomorrow we need to head over to Reliant Stadium to pick up our tickets for Sunday and then hopefully going to get a few hours sun (cue horrific sunburn) before heading out on the town in Houston tomorrow evening.

I must say, it does feel great to be back all these years after our original trip out here. That time we were staying in a seedy Howard Johnson motel by the side of a freeway with pretty much nothing walkable distance and really no clue what we were doing and couldn’t even legally have a drink. This year we’re back, 8 years older and celebrating the 25th WrestleMania, I can’t believe I’m here and I can’t wait – roll on Sunday.

Steve Gutteridge