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Wrestling/Sporting Venues


KidKash202

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I made this thread in the Classic Japanese Wrestling Group on "The Facebook" and I wanted to bring it over here.

One things I miss about American wrestling, hell American sports, is the differentiation in venues. Every venue looks the same. Back in the day, mid-sized venues were identifiable simply by the interior. This is why I love Japanese Wrestling. The venues still are distinct and shows aren't always ran in big corporate venues.

When NJPW does the fixed camera shows, I enjoy seeing the insides of these venues. Just a few pics from WORLD

Use this thread to share pictures of venues (from anywhere) for those of us that miss the days when everything wasn't corporate/uniform.

 


Sorry for the large Pics

Spoiler


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i had a WWF trivia game from the late '90s. i felt like i was enough of an "expert" to dominate at the game, but to my surprise, there were a large amount of questions about 'what city x happened in' or 'what venue housed y moment'.  at that point i realized that Raw looked the exact same everywhere they went and nobody (outside the locals) care which town they're in this week.

there were a handful of venues that i was excited to see, but for the most part i agree with you. these arenas are made and decorated the same, which is a negative on many ends.

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No photos, but Korakuen Hall is my favorite venue ever and despite being very dirty, the Orlando Live Events venue has fantastic seating everywhere.

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NY, Boston, and Toronto are all less epic today, unfortunately. The updated MSG lost that dark entrance that Bruno (and much more famously Willis Reed) came out of. I agree with the OP that new arenas don't have much of a feel. The lighting that has the seats and people all looking blue, green, red or whatever is really annoying. Where's the gondola and King Clancy in Toronto? Get off my lawn!

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43 minutes ago, Web Conn said:

The Hammerstein Ballroom is the coolest looking place ever. My favorite wrestling venue.

hammerstein1_0.jpg

Agreed 100%. I love the Hammerstein, and the Grand Ballroom upstairs that hosted Raw and ROH events before they moved downstairs to the Hammerstein.

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I always remember seeing the Dorton arena in Raleigh on TV with all of the windows. I never got to see a big time event there but I always go in during the NC State fair and fantasize myself being there during a Four Horsemen promo or something. 

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I went looking just for a photo of a Korakuen Hall direction sign (you know, EAST or WEST etc.) and found this. Fucking gorgeous. 

city-tour-guide-tokyo-ken-ishii-korakuen

I love how you can see both different kinds of seating, the balcony (which many of us have seen people fall off or nearly thrown off of), and of all things the floor panels, which are so iconic in their own right. And it's also amusing that this is probably some indie kickboxing fed having a show with like no people at all in the crowd haha

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I'm gonna go in a different direction and rep PWG's old venue in Reseda. It wasn't beautiful but had that vibe. But i'm a big PWG fan.

I also love the claustrophobic venues a lot of UK indies frequent. It's such a different look/feel when the fans are right up on the apron. I was watching some match on youtube, Jimmy Havoc vs Matt Riddle vs Keith Lee, the building had these big windows in the background.

Also let's not forget the ECW Arena. Should of built this bingo hall out of toilet paper because there's nothing in it but shit!

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1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

I went looking just for a photo of a Korakuen Hall direction sign (you know, EAST or WEST etc.) and found this. Fucking gorgeous. 

city-tour-guide-tokyo-ken-ishii-korakuen

I love how you can see both different kinds of seating, the balcony (which many of us have seen people fall off or nearly thrown off of), and of all things the floor panels, which are so iconic in their own right. And it's also amusing that this is probably some indie kickboxing fed having a show with like no people at all in the crowd haha

Do north and south even have signs? If they do, they only get 1% of heads smashed into. 

Asbury Park Convention Hall was good for ECW PPV and WWWF and was even better as a concert venue.

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59 minutes ago, ka-to said:

Asbury Park Convention Hall was good for ECW PPV and WWWF and was even better as a concert venue.

I was going to bring up the Asbury Park Convention Center. I went to Living Dangerously '98 & '99 there and three nxt house shows.

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Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie
14 hours ago, joseph2112 said:

I always remember seeing the Dorton arena in Raleigh on TV with all of the windows. I never got to see a big time event there but I always go in during the NC State fair and fantasize myself being there during a Four Horsemen promo or something. 

I've done a few events at Dorton. During the night it's beautiful, but it's utterly blinding trying to do anything during a sunset.

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On 12/1/2018 at 9:43 PM, ka-to said:

NY, Boston, and Toronto are all less epic today, unfortunately. The updated MSG lost that dark entrance that Bruno (and much more famously Willis Reed) came out of. I agree with the OP that new arenas don't have much of a feel. The lighting that has the seats and people all looking blue, green, red or whatever is really annoying. Where's the gondola and King Clancy in Toronto? Get off my lawn!

I think- think- that MSG side entrance still exists. They actually used it on Raw a few years ago.

Toronto had that awesome old ramp, which had a great story behind it: their top heel was so hot that they built it so he could get to/from ringside without getting torn to pieces by the fans.

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27 minutes ago, Pete said:

I think- think- that MSG side entrance still exists. They actually used it on Raw a few years ago.

Toronto had that awesome old ramp, which had a great story behind it: their top heel was so hot that they built it so he could get to/from ringside without getting torn to pieces by the fans.

I think the MSG side entrance was lost in the most recent renovations to the building.

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My pick is Chicago's International Amphitheatre, a unique venue that was the site of much rasslin' history, and indeed much US sports history. Built for cattle shows, it's solid concrete construction and layout made it a natural for hockey, concerts, basketball, political conventions, wrestling and even soccer. I saw my favoritest card ever there, after it had been sold to a Mexican-American promotion cartel - thee AAA/ECW supershow. It had the best concessions I have ever eaten at at an event and was the only time I ever was in a riot (as a fan). So bueno.

memories,

RAF

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Thank you, I was confused. 

As far as the cards, whew. The ECW card has to win for the sheer insanity of having Foley, Nicho and Sabu on the same team. But which is worse, a card with Cibernetico and Blue Jr. in featured roles or one with a Koji Kitao singles match? ? (I kid though. I would flip out seeing either of those cards live)

EDIT: Well shit, Hideo No More was Mochizuki. I still doubt he could have got anything out of his trainer but hey.

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9 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

This card? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triplemanía_IV-A Looks like a disaster; you gotta tell the riot story. Where does ECW figure in? 

And Pete: who was the heel in Toronto?

Ha, I was actually at that show. We wanted to riot after Rey AND Nicho no-showed, although most of the actual wrestling was good. 

Heel in question was Nanjo Singh. Meltz with the 411...

Quote

We had a question on our radio show about the famous ramp at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto that made it obvious what arena it was whenever television was shot from there. It’s actually a very interesting story from historian Gary Will. In 1948, Nanjo Singh was the top heel in the promotion, and the closest equivalent ever to The Sheik (Toronto’s all-time biggest drawing heel). He even did the bowing to Mecca routine. During the 40s, he was regularly attacked by fans. Singh was a legitimately tough guy, and had put up with the attacks for years, but they created the ramp to allow him to get to the ring and leave the ring safely, and it became the building’s trademark on wrestling nights. One could argue that the most important feud in the city’s history was Singh vs. Whipper Watson. They had the city’s first cage match, called a barbed wire enclosure match, in 1942. It was a Singh vs. Watson match where the ramp was introduced. Singh remained a regular in Ontario through 1956.

In 1958, he was convicted of beating his wife to death in Philadelphia. Evidently, he didn’t serve a lot of time for it, because in 1964, he was back wrestling in Toronto for a brief run. Somehow I don’t think a guy like that would be back wrestling on major shows after that today. When he came back for the last time in 1966, he was billed as a relative of Tiger Jeet Singh, who had become one of the area’s biggest stars by that time. Today, Jim Cornette can’t get into Canada because of a conviction from the 80s, but Singh was allowed to wrestle high profile shows in Toronto after a murder conviction in the U.S.

 

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