It’s the first week in April, which means it’s one of the best times of year on the sports calendar.

We just had opening day in baseball and the Final Four in college basketball. The NBA and NHL playoffs are about to begin. And Wrestlemania is afoot.

OK, technically that falls on the sports entertainment calendar, but it’s still great.

This year’s big event, Wrestlemania 34, is Sunday at the Superdome in New Orleans. Among the matches are Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar (yawn), Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor vs. The Miz (tremendous), John Cena vs. The Undertaker (epic) and a handful of others scattered around a card that is officially scheduled for a four-hour time slot but in actuality will stretch close to seven.

Longtime readers of this column will know I’m an unabashed wrestling fan and WWE aficionado in particular. I watched my first match on TV when I was about 5 years old, and have basically had it on in the background my entire life.

Professional wrestling, especially its modern version, is one of those weird things that people either love and appreciate as an art form or despise as stupid and idiotic. There’s rarely a middle ground.

Those who hate it look back at the cartoonish characters of the 1980s and early 90s to back up their argument. Those who love it look at those same characters with a sense of cheesy nostalgia and appreciate how quickly it has evolved in a relatively short period of time. Somewhere around 1997, the curtain was fully pulled back and swept aside most of the old cartoon characters in favor of personality-based ones.

One of my favorite matches to watch is WWE’s 1997 Royal Rumble. It featured legends like Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H and The Rock just a few months before they underwent major evolutions toward the characters people fondly remember today. It’s like looking at the goofy haircuts in an old yearbook.

It’s one of the things I enjoy about pro wrestling, and why I keep coming back. It’s always evolving and going through up and down cycles with new faces, yet always there like an old friend. You can leave it behind, come back a few years later, and get back into it pretty quickly.

So if you’re a fan of the current product, check out Wrestlemania this weekend. If you’re a lapsed fan or not at all, check it out anyway. It might not be what you remember from days gone by, and it might just surprise you.

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Ernest Bowker is the sports editor at The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com