What’s Your Favorite Venue?

By Ryan Joy
Updated: June 8, 2022
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Newsletter #88 – What’s Your Favorite Venue?

June 8, 2022

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Do you have a favorite venue to watch pro wrestling?

Wrestlers love to talk about the thrill of working Madison Square Garden, the Tokyo Dome, and older wrestlers talk about working the Nashville Fairgrounds and the Greensboro Coliseum – but none of those are my FAVORITE venues to watch Pro Wrestling.

A lot of times I look at history to inspire these newsletters.

This week that meant doing a little research into the NWA Clash of Champions 2 (Miami Mayhem) that took place on on this day (June 8th) 34 years ago.

On this show that seems like ancient history

Ric Flair and Lex Luger signed a contract to face one another at the Great American Bash 1988 in Baltimore.
The Four Horsemen attacked Luger and busted him open in the parking lot.
Dusty Rhodes and Sting challenged Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard for the NWA World Tag Team Championships.

All that happened plus a bunch of other great wrestling and angles.

I watched the whole Clash of Champions 2 show earlier this week, but not because I wanted to see any of the legendary performers.

The thing about this show that caught my attention and prompted me to fire it up on Peacock was the location: The James L Knight Center in Miami – my FAVORITE venue.

I could generally care less about where a wrestling event takes place (especially considering that the modern AEW and WWE production sets make every arena look pretty much the same), but I love the auditorium layout at the Knight Center.

The 100 section narrows from top to bottom so that the front row in the 100 section includes only two seats. If you find yourself in those seats, it’s about as comfortable as you’ll ever be at a wrestling event with a half wall in front of you and an excellent view of all the action.

Last year, I went to the Knight Center to watch Dynamite and Rampage. I saw Bryan Danielson v. Minoru Suzuki and Jon Moxley v. Wheeler Yuta from the seats I just described.

I also got to see Sting chase off MJF and hit Wardlow with his bat 30+ years after he challenged for the NWA World Tag Team Championships in the same building.

Do you have a favorite place to watch pro wrestling? I would love to hear about it whether it’s a venue your local indy runs or someplace you’ve seen WWE or AEW. Feel free to reply to this email and tell me all about it.

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. In addition to the above letter, read on for some great wrestling resources.

Follow me on Twitter where I’ll release this newsletter as a thread in a couple of days.

Thanks,

Ryan

P.S. – I spoke to The Bus Big English on this week’s episode of CCW Insider. Originally from Essex, he now lives and works right here in my backyard of Port Saint Lucie, FL. Listen to this episode to learn about his migration and a wrestling wedding gone right!