Way back in the spring of 1996 I was on a school sponsored trip through New York State.  During some down time I wandered through the town we were staying in for the night.  Looking for something to do to kill the time that evening I wandered into a random drug store in Lake Placid and found the very first Pro Wrestling Illustrated Almanac.

I have then bought this almanac every year for the last 19 years.  Every edition is together on one shelf and they look glorious.  What a history lesson.  PPV results, stats, and the all important title histories.  To give you an idea:  The first almanac included all title changes up until December 31, 1995.  The WWF champion was Bret Hart, the WCW champion was Ric Flair, the ECW champion was The Sandman and the NWA champion was Dan Severn.

These almanac settled many a bet.  Who beat who for a title.  Who held the belt the longest.  Who won the opening match of a ten year old show?  It was indispensable.

Then the internet came along.  I just looked up all of those champions.  If I want I could read every detail about their lives and the history of every title they held.  It is a lot easier then carrying around an almanac every where.

But I still love physical media.  I’ll keep my collection forever, and maybe add some extra copies along the way too.  Sure the almanacs weren’t perfect.  Splitting the Raw and Smackdown World titles was a poor decision.  But the worst one is to not do one more year.  I will always have 19 almanacs lined up but wouldn’t 20 have looked that much nicer?