Shining a Spotlight 03.08.12: Farewell to the Arena

Arenas

To sports fans, arenas or stadiums can become more than a mere building but have their own identity. That’s become truer in recent years as more and more of the old places are being torn down for newer versions. Nowhere was that more prevalent than with Yankee Stadium, “the House that Ruth Built,” being taken down in 2010. The newer stadium is still popular but to many fans, it’s a far cry from the classic one. It’s true for a lot of stadiums and arenas across the country, fans still preferring the old ones despite how run down they can be.

I can relate being from Chicago. U.S. Cellular Field is a great stadium but plenty of Sox fans who preferred Comiskey Park. And every time rumor comes of possibly tearing down Wrigley, the Cubs fandom screams bloody murder. We can open to new places. The United Center is called “the House that Jordan Built” for good reason as we lucked out getting the greatest NBA player ever to lead us to six championships and a solid decade of sell-out crowds. Adding a Stanley Cup win only enhances it as the Center is now seen as equal to, if not superior, to the rep the old Chicago Stadium had. I’m sure many sports fans around the country can relate with own stories on how some places may be great but can’t match the older versions.

There’s a few examples of that in wrestling, the most prominent being the Sportatorium in Dallas. It’s been interesting to me that the independent Heroes of World Class could be brutal on the dark side of World Class Championship Wrestling while the WWE DVD is more fair-minded. A difference is when it comes to the Sportatrioum as Heroes talks of how great it was while the WWE disc has guys acknowledging how it could be hot and miserable and they worked hard to make it look like a million bucks on television. They did make it important, the centerpiece of the entire promotion until its end and it remained popular for some time afterward. A highlight of the Heroes film is Kevin Von Erich touring the ruined arena just before it was torn down, remembering the good times that once were and the magic it still retained. The old Crockett territories had places like that, the Omni in Atlanta and the Greensboro Coliseum, places that seemed broad and fitting with the excellent product of the old NWA. That’s something the Viking Hall had even if it was a tad exaggerated.

ECW

I’ve been through this before but once again, I’ve always felt that ECW has been lionized a bit too much by the IWC and most wrestling fans in general. Yes, it broke ground for the time and all that but it’s less due to the promotion itself, more the time and place. In the mid-‘90’s, wrestling was still cartoonish in both WWF and WCW, the latter taking a real slide into that direction with the signing of Hogan in ’94. ECW pushed the new violence hard to get fans going along with a “breaking the wall” presentation that made fans truly feel they were part of the show. The power of that is proven in how to this day the majority of ECW fanatics still don’t get how they were being played by Heyman, used like any other fandom. Yet, despite that, ECW still should be remembered as it brought an edge wrestling needed, the shot in the arm for the business to carry out of the bad stuff of the early ‘90’s and to the massive success of the later part of the decade, shockwaves that continue to reverberate today.

Of course, the real push was the setting. As the old joke goes, whoever called Philadelphia “the City of Brotherly Love” never attended a sporting event there. This town has some of the most brutal, opinionated, wild fans on the planet, people who will turn on their heroes and teams in an eye blink and scream holy murder if someone doesn’t live up to their insane expectations. Heyman himself has said ECW couldn’t have been born anywhere but Philadelphia, it just fit the town perfectly. Watch ECW in its glory years and you can see how wild these folks could get, totally open to whatever madness the show threw at them and played a key role in how it took off.

The Hammerstein Ballroom matched it well as New York is known for tough crowds too. But the Viking Hall was the epicenter of it all, the home of the key events in ECW history. Title changes, switches, wild battles, promos that changed the course of wrestling from Shane Douglas throwing down the NWA title to the Dudleyz working crowds to near riots, it all happened at this small bingo hall. Of course, like the Sportatorium, it’s a case of an arena that looked decent on TV but was pretty crappy behind the cameras. But then, that fit the crowd and the product. ECW fans took it as pride that rather than some fancy arena, they had a rough and tumble place, blue collar like so many of them, low catering and that just made it more special when the action came alive. It’s somewhat telling how ECW seemed to lose some of that energy when they moved away from the Hall more and more in their later years, the fans still wild but not the same frenzy the Philly base had.

That fandom has led to the reputation of ECW today which again I feel elevated. It reminds me of the joke Wilt Chamberlain makes that if every person who claims to have seen him score 100 points had actually been there, the arena would have been filled three times over. So many people have seen ECW in the DVDs and such and while appreciating it, it’s not like how it was when it was in its prime. And to those fanatics in Philly, they’ll still maintain it was the greatest promotion ever, ignoring its many flaws and the brutal truth most of the workers really weren’t that good in the ring. It’s why every attempt to revive it has been doomed; you can’t replicate the feel of the time and harder to do with how wrestling has changed so much. Yet the Arena remained for others to use and try to have ECW’s shine rub off on them.

Post-ECW

There was some anger when in 2002 Xtreme Pro Wrestling signed a deal that renamed the place the XPW arena. XPW made the mistake of assuming all fans wanted were bloody and brutal fights, no real wrestling action or storytelling so it’s not surprising they only lasted a year. It was renamed the Alhambra Arena and soon became the focal point of the new rise of two powerful indies. The rise of ROH and CZW in Philly made sense as the two companies were showing off the best indy wrestlers with fantastic action and storytelling. The center point was the 2006 war between the promotions that showcased how an interpromotional fight could actually work right. By this point, it was also used as Chikara’s wrestling academy.

In 2005, there was a real anger when WWE announced that the first “One Night Stand” would take place at the Hammerstein Ballroom rather than the former ECW arena. Even before the show took place, many ECW fans claimed it could never be a “true” revival despite the presence of so many ECW alumni, not to mention the man who made it all work, Heyman. So Todd Gordon organized the “Hardcore Homecoming” show, getting together guys who wouldn’t do “ONS” like Shane Douglas, Raven and Terry Funk with others for a massive sellout event. It may not have had the polish of “ONS” but still felt like classic ECW with the crowd fired up. WWE did do a one-night house show with the new ECW brand that sold out in four minutes, mostly so fans could just beef on how bad this revival was.

The infamous moments have continued such as when New Jack got into a fight with a concession stand worker and was banned in 2006. The arena also got exposure for being used for the wrestling scenes in the film The Wrestler. After hosting boxing events for a time, it was renamed simply “The Arena” after Joe Hand Promotions ended their relationship. It became the regular home for ROH tapings as well as Dragon Gate USA, sharing with Chikara and even some MMA. TNA did a one-night show there in 2010 to good acclaim although the hopes of repeat visits never happened. The place had a major boost when they were given the honor of being the final stop in Jew Japan’s first ever tour of the U.S last year. So it was more than a little jarring when word came of Joanna Pang, the new lessee, planned to close and renovate the place with the January 14th Evolve show possibly the final wrestling event in this once huge spot.

It leaves behind a legacy few promotions can touch. Within its walls was the revolution that transformed wrestling forever, the edge the business needed to survive. It used an already passionate fanbase to the utmost, making them feel part of the show and that energy drove on so many performers. It may not have been the biggest or cleanliest place but it boasted a magic that few major wrestling venues can touch. For a run-down bingo hall, it had an impact that no one can forget and its legacy should never die out.