Even if you’re a casual fan of WWE, there’s a good chance you’re at least heard of “Connor’s Cure.” The charity was founded by Paul “Triple H” Levesque, executive vice president of talent, live events and creative for WWE and his wife, WWE Chief Brand Officer, Stephanie McMahon, in conjunction with the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation and The V Foundation.

A great recap of Connor’s story. Check it out, but bring a tissue. It’s a tear-jerker.

The short version of the story is that in 2012, WWE fan, Connor Michalek’s family sent in a tape into WWE superstar, Daniel Bryan. He was six-years-old at the time and fighting with medulloblastoma, a rare tumor that affects the brain and spinal cord. Bryan was his hero. They met, Bryan fell in love with his charm and wit and kept in touch with Michalek over the next couple years. In 2014, in the weeks leading up to Bryan’s career-defining Wrestlemania XXX win in New Orleans, Michalek was given the full backstage experience, including ringside seats for the show to watch his hero up close.

Daniel Bryan (left), Connor, Connor’s dad Steve, and Stephanie McMahon

Leading up to the show, he shared interactions with wrestlers like Daniel Bryan, AJ Lee and John Cena and even pinned the 14-time WWE champion Triple H, dead center of the ring, squeaky clean. He already referred to himself as “The Crusher,” but that sealed the deal.



WWE fans used to joke about Triple H beating everyone, but even he was no match for “The Crusher”﻿

Bryan started the show by winning a match that qualified him for the main event that same night. He was victorious and celebrated ringside with Michalek after his victory. Unfortunately, a few weeks later Michalek passed away. But, while Connor is gone, he lives on through Connor’s Cure. The charity, focused on pediatric cancer, sold bracelets to raise money, which were extremely popular. WWE and Connor’s Cure continue to actively fund-raise for the charity throughout the year. He also received a WWE Hall of Fame induction, cementing his legacy in WWE history. Many who followed the story were smitten, heartbroken and inspired by it all.

Bryan and Michalek after Bryan’s championship victory at Wrestlemania XXX

That inspiration just happened to coincide with someone else who was looking to add some fun to his Wrestlemania weekend. Enter Jaime Mazauskas, 26, a longtime WWE fan from New Jersey, who was organized a last-minute bar crawl that ended up raising some money for another charity during Wrestlemania XXX.

Mazauskas first got into wrestling during what is viewed as the prime of professional wrestling for a lot of people, the “Attitude Era.” More specifically, he started watching a couple months before Wrestlemania XVII, arguably the best Wrestlemania in history, with a headline match featuring “Stone Cold” Steve Austin versus Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Skip ahead a few years to Wrestlemaina XXIX and Mazauskas is at MetLife Stadium attending his first Wrestlemania. Since he’s also a season ticket holder for the New York Giants, he and a couple dozen buddies got together to tailgate before the show.

They had grills, cornhole and a TV that was playing old WWE pay-per-views. He loved it, loved being at the show and wanted to go again the next year. However, the tailgating part was unrealistic. Not exactly easy to take a grill and cornhole boards across the country to New Orleans.

“The next year we were thinking, ‘that was a lot of fun, but we can’t do that [this time],” Mazauskas said. “We couldn’t bring a tailgate to New Orleans, that would be insane.”

So, Mazauskas and his friends tried to find the next best thing, a bar crawl. They were surprised to find that there wasn’t anything of the kind. Disappointed, yet determined, they set out to make their own bar crawl. Mazauskas was in college for graphic design and decided to make a flyer in hopes of getting a response on the meet-ups section of Reddit.

Mazauskas’ original flyer for Wrestlemania XXX

“We created a flyer and sent it out to Reddit and a bunch of different podcasts, literally two weeks before Wrestlemania 30,” Mazauskas said. “The first event was a last-minute plan.”

Last minute plan or not, the first event still drew a couple hundred people. Mazauskas was surprised they got such a response.

“Originally it was just email us to sign up and the next thing you know there’s 250 people there,” Mazauskas said. “There were a couple hundred people marching down Bourbon Street and everyone was like, ‘What’s going on? There’s a parade of wrestling fans.’ That was definitely a cool moment.”

At the first event, they raised maybe $100, according to Mazauskas. However, he contributes that to the idea being a last minute addition, so it wasn’t originally advertised and it being a new event people were probably skeptical.

“I honestly didn’t even think this would be an annual event. It wasn’t even called ManiaCrawl the first year, it was just ‘Wrestlemania Bar Crawl’ [on the original flyer] and the name ManiaCrawl came because it needed a short enough name for the email and it stuck.”

But, during the event someone asked if he was planning to do another one the next year in San Francisco. He remembers pausing for a minute and then enthusiastically agreeing. It has happened every year since.

By the time it came time for Wrestlemania XXXI in San Francisco, the story of Michalek and Connor’s Cure was everywhere, especially in the WWE community. Mazauskas knew this was a perfect opportunity to relaunch the charitable aspect the right way.

“I decided Connor’s Cure would be a more appropriate foundation because a lot of wrestling fans are familiar and comfortable with it, Mazauskas said. “We got a lot of push-back on the bar crawl initially, but we couldn’t do this in a library— no one would come.”

Mazauskas rejects the notion that the event is a bunch of out-of-control, drunk wrestling fans, too.

“There’s a lot of people who come who don’t drink, so the event is really more about the energy and adding towards your day at Wrestlemania,” Mazauskas said. “This gets your day going around noon, you meet up with a bunch of crazy and passionate and awesome wrestling fans. The energy there is awesome. It really adds to the day and makes it more complete. It’s not really about the drinking.”

Still, with some people knocking a few back and everyone’s energy running high, there’s been a few memorable moments over the years.

“We’ve had people in a circle of a hundred people and you just had people inside of it having wrestling matches, obviously fake, but people were just marking out and going crazy for what was happening— just complete strangers wrestling each other and putting themselves over,” Mazauskas said. “It’s so dumb, but it’s so awesome. [laughs].”

They also have costume contests where people dress as their favorite wrestler and winners are determined by crowd response. Mazauskas said the people love it.

“Last year, the guy who dressed up as [Shinsuke] Nakamura won, because not only was he dressed like him, and yeah, he wasn’t as in shape as Nakamura, but he looked like Nakamura,” Mazauskas recalled, laughing while explaining the scene. “He had the same haircut and the bar was playing the theme songs of the people who were in there and people were losing their minds.”

That wasn’t the only cool thing that happened last year, though. Prior to Wrestlemania XXXIV (and ManiaCrawl 5), WWE reached out to Mazauskas. They had heard about the event, loved the idea, especially the Connor’s Cure aspect and wanted to include it on their documentary of the weekend. He happily agreed.

“I really figured that they were just coming for b-roll for the documentary,” Mazauskas said. “They interviewed me, I just thought they were being polite, and they wound up using it.”

Mazauskas was in the WWE Network special, WWE 24: Wrestlemania 34, his name and ManiaCrawl forever immortalized in WWE history.

Hulk Hogan, John Cena, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Jaime Mazauskas. All names and faces you can see on the WWE Network.



“Our slogan is ‘Complete Your Wrestlemania Weekend,’ so we like to think that your Wrestlemania weekend isn’t complete unless you have attended ManiaCrawl, so having us on the Network was really cool to see that we’re getting the attention of a lot of people.”

With that kind of exposure, they have a shot, but what really puts them in a special light is what they do to support Connor’s Cure. And now with five years experience in running the event, the process is smoother.

“It’s through Eventbrite— you can get a free ticket or there’s an option for a donation, so you can donate when you sign up.”

The first year they raised money for Connor’s Cure, at ManiaCrawl 2, they raised about $500. They’ve improved every year since then. In each of the last two years, they’ve raised around $2,000, putting the grand total somewhere north of $5,000 through the first five years. With the Wrestlemania 35 right around the corner, ManiaCrawl 6 comes with it and hopes of raising even more for Connor’s Cure.

“We have t-shirts for sale and all the money raised will go towards Connor’s Cure,” Mazauskas said. “We also collect cash donations at the event.”

Mazauskas has enjoyed the attention but, hasn’t lost sight of what they’re doing.

“It was cool to get the one minute of fame, but it was even cooler to see the event and to share it with other people.”

Check out more on ManiaCrawl and/or sign up here.

WWE’s Connor’s Cure site

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Connor’s Cure page