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[soft music] ♪ - To people from North Carolina in this area, the mid-Atlantic area, it's our Madison Square Garden.

You always have those unique places as a baseball player.

I wanted to be able to go to Fenway.

I wanted to be able to go to Wrigley Field, something that ties your history.

♪ Being a wrestler, Dorton Arena has its own unique history.

Just it's almost-- it's kind of hard to put it into words of being able to look back in time.

- The NWA returns to Raleigh in the Dorton Arena with a super spectacular card.

- Dorton was a real magical place.

- It was the only place in Eastern North Carolina that you could have wrestling.

- The ticket prices were 2 and 3 bucks, but they would have 5,000 people.

- You could feel it in the crowd.

- It really was almost like a religion.

- Dorton Arena grew to be one of the most important venues for Crockett Promotions.

- It just was heaven.

You know, in some cases, we felt invincible and it came to bite us.

- What the heck's going on here now, you know?

You mean we ain't going to Raleigh?

- They left Dorton Arena.

They left the wrestling fans.

- The fans never forgave them.

They felt betrayed.

- I don't think fans realize the people that were losing jobs.

- For years, there would always be rumors of like so-and-so is going to run Dorton Arena.

Don't tell anybody, but six or eight months from now, there's going to be this big show at Dorton Arena, and then it would never materialize.

- Somebody messaged me and said, your dream may be getting ready to come true.

- There's a lot of wrestling starting to come back.

- Those fans are coming back to appreciate what was created for them.

- It is like full circle.

It's almost like coming home again.

[rock music] ♪ - Pro wrestling is live theater.

Pro wrestling is good versus evil.

It's drama and chaos and violence.

Yeah, there's just-- there's nothing like all the different elements that combine to make up a live wrestling experience.

- I've been watching professional wrestling now for over 55 years.

When I was a little kid, probably about 1965, '66, I saw wrestling on television for the first time.

And I remember looking at my brother and I said, by God, this is better than the circus.

[jazz music] ♪ - Wrestling has a fascinating history.

It's an American art form.

You get everything-- you get entertainment, you get sex, drugs, rock, and roll.

- Pro wrestling actually started off in carnivals.

It was a tough man contest between two guys.

Eventually, it turned into an actual sport, and it really took on, especially in places like North Carolina and the South.

- Before the Charlotte Hornets, before any major sports team-- the Panthers-- the biggest sport in the Carolinas for decades was pro wrestling.

- Wrestling was as big as anything.

It was as big as any sport we had.

- It really was almost like a religion.

It was something that everybody watched.

Everybody-- anybody you met, they want to talk about it.

It was something that you do with your brothers.

It's something you do with your grandmother or your uncle, and we get together and we watch wrestling.

- So you have a sport that also becomes a part of the culture.

[applause, cheers] [music fades] ♪ - I'm David Crockett from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Lived in Charlotte all my life.

I guess you're here because of Jim Crockett Promotions.

My father started promoting wrestling in 1933, and he started with, believe it or not, boxing.

[bell ringing] I mean, he promoted Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey.

And then as he progressed with that, he came into the Carolinas and he said, what's this wrestling?

He investigated it and said, I think I can make money with this.

COMMENTATOR: Hair pulling now.

And in on the ropes and off, a flying tackle by-- and a dropkick that floors Buddy Rogers.

- Promoted within North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia.

- For decades, there was no national wrestling operation.

The wrestling business was divided into regional territories.

- Charlotte, Tennessee, Florida, Atlanta would have their own office with their own guys and their own buildings, their own towns.

- North Carolina and parts of Virginia became available through a promoter up in Richmond, C&M Promotions, which is, you know, Joe Murnick and my father.

Joe was the consummate salesman, really.

I mean, he knew everybody.

He was the perfect person, you know, to make that partnership work.

- He was the liaison who made connections with the building and first promoted live matches in the Dorton Arena as early as 1963.

- Been a big card coming up at the Dorton Arena in Raleigh, Tuesday, November the 20th.

Buddy Rogers faces Mr. Wrestling, Tim Woods.

- Tim Woods, you've been telling a lot of people that I wouldn't stay in a ring with you and I'd keep running from you.

And I got news for you, daddy.

I'm going to tune your body up like it's never been tuned before.

- It was the only place in Eastern North Carolina, a decent-sized building, that you could have wrestling.

[birds chirping] ♪ - If you're coming to the fairgrounds for the first time.

you would enter through the main east gates.

And about 150 or 200 yards in front of you, you would see the great arches of the Dorton Arena arising from the ground up.

The concrete arches, the parabolic arches literally come down to the ground and rise up.

You can walk up to them and touch them.

And then they go all the way up six or seven stories high.

The building's iconic form really touches the visitor's heart, I think.

On the one hand, it appeals to the kids who are just really excited about the rides at the fairgrounds.

At the same time, it's also really high tech and can appeal to scientists or engineers who are kind of coming to see the building.

It has a regional appeal and an international reach.

- I grew up in Raleigh and Dorton arena was always there.

Everyone knew it was a very special building, but you don't necessarily know why if you don't know anything about the architecture.

To some, it was just this weird building out of the fairgrounds that they built one time.

And to people that were more in the know about architecture and design, it was uniquely put together in a way that became world famous.

[soft jazz] ♪ - Futuramic-- it's a brand new word for dramatic design of the future.

As architects will tell you, futuramic design combines beauty with utility.

In houses or in automobiles, futuramic design means styling with a purpose.

- After World War II, when we were looking forward to what was coming next, there was a huge drive to modernize things.

People had sacrificed during the war.

They had done without.

Now was a time for economic expansion.

And in North Carolina, there was a push to, for instance, improve all our roadways.

And so one of the priorities of several governors was to pave many of the dirt roads that were all around North Carolina.

Another push was to make new modern buildings.

- At that time, these ideas are percolating within the state in terms of the possibility of creating iconic structures that would allow North Carolina to position itself as an important player internationally.

In 1937, Dr. J. Sibley Dorton was appointed as the director of the North Carolina Fairgrounds, and he was given the task to design a modern fairgrounds and an iconic arena that would match North Carolina's ambitions.

- That building was going to be the symbol of North Carolina's future.

- Dalton went to his colleague, Henry Kampfner, the recently appointed Dean of the School of Design at NC State, to see if he could recommend an architect that would be up for the master planning of the fairgrounds and the design of the arena.

- Kampfner recommended one of his newest lieutenants who had just arrived from New York, Matthew Nowicki and Stanislawa Nowicki, for the job.

The Nowickis were by far some of the most prominent young designers of their generation in interwar Poland.

They survived the war in Poland as part of the Polish resistance, returning to New York in 1941, and then Matthew Nowicki became well-known for his involvement in the design of the Assembly Hall for the United Nations Building.

- When we look at some of Matthew Nowicki's initial drawings, we see that the initial designs for Dorton are fairly rudimentary cylindrical structures that we really see in many fairgrounds across the United States.

In this one, we see the Dorton Arena's very early beginnings here as a cylindrical structure, which essentially looks by and large like a basic circus tent.

When he began to get the word that JS Dorton was really interested in a much more innovative and iconic structure, we're able to see in Nowicki's drawings that they begin to gradually look for something that's a little bit more innovative, trying new technologies.

What's striking about this drawing is that you get a sense of how parabolic the shape of the Dorton Arena is and how different it is.

- It's extremely uncommon to have this kind of design because, first of all, it's not suitable for every kind of structure.

And secondly, it takes some pretty precise engineering to make that happen.

The giant concrete arches that go down into the ground, about 20 or 30 feet underground, they're connected to steel cables, and those steel cables are tightened to each other.

So basically, you've got something like this, and by winching the bottom, you pull up the entire building.

And that's how the building supports itself.

- This drawing of a fireworks show display is a drawing that really captures the idea of Civic Center.

The fairgrounds and the Dorton Arena was supposed to be a space that captured the emotional life of the community of North Carolina.

The farmers' kids and the scientists' kids came together to enjoy under the false sky this beautiful, colorful celebration of all of North Carolina's technological and agricultural products.

Dorton's form itself is, for Nowicki, a way of bringing together these seemingly separate aspects of post-war society, of technology, and bringing different factions of society together.

[music playing] ♪ During the design development phase of the fairgrounds and the Dorton Arena, Matthew Nowicki was also involved in the master planning of the regional capital city of Chandigarh, India.

He takes a trip to India the summer of 1950.

On the way back to Raleigh, this plane stops in Cairo, and after refueling, unfortunately, there is a tragic airplane accident, and he tragically loses his life.

So he's unable to see the completion of the Dorton Arena.

- When Nowicki died, it was very tragic.

Of course, no one expected there to be an accident, and there was a great feeling of loss in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Everybody wanted to help.

Everyone knew that Dorton Arena was on the boards and there was a great rallying from everyone to get this building completed.

[music playing] ♪ Nowicki's widow, Sasha Nowicki, and William Dietrich, who was a well-known architect in the area, took up the project, working pretty strictly off of Nowicki's original plans.

- There were some setbacks.

The Korean War was one of them.

There were quite a few restrictions on budgets across the state that I think slowed down the construction of the arena.

Dorton opened in 1953, and it was a celebrated structure, and functioned by and large the way that Nowicki had imagined.

- The building was very well received, because it was really the first of these new buildings that was going to symbolize North Carolina's modern future.

- And bringing different factions of society together, bringing different classes, backgrounds, races, ethnicities, a place of celebration, and people from different walks of life are able to come together and see each other.

Dorton had his circumstance and now they needed to find a circus to go in it.

[metal music] ♪ - Dorton Arena, over time, grew to be one of the most important venues for Crockett Promotions to run between 30 and 40 times in a calendar year.

- You have one place that you know that every Tuesday, you're going to have pro-wrestling here for 30 years, right?

So when you have that, people literally grew up inside of Dorton Arena and were able to become lifelong fans because of pro-wrestling there.

- Families knew that Tuesday night, you're going to have wrestling.

They can count on it, they can put it on their calendar, they can budget for it.

Then it becomes habit.

- It was all so perfect.

The ticket prices were 2 and 3 bucks, and the programs were a buck.

- Dorton was a real magical place.

You could feel it in the crowd.

It would surge up and it'd be like going to a Carolina Duke game or something.

I mean, the fans were so into it and they couldn't wait.

- That's part of their life, you know.

That is their social gathering.

They have friends amongst the ringside group that they talk to.

You know, how was your week?

It was good to see you again.

How are the-- how's the family, how the grandkids?

- You know, you don't want to say, well, it was like going to a family reunion, but it really was.

You know, old ladies would sit in the front row and that would be her seat.

And the wrestlers would know her by name.

And you didn't mess with that seat, because it was hers.

But they would have 5,000 people.

- When you drove up to the Dorton Arena, there wasn't like a private parking space.

You either park where the bad guys go in or you park where the good guy goes in, but you still had the fans there.

And most of the time, you want to park on the good guy side, because less attention, and people would give you a bunch of crap.

That's why you got there early-- beat the fans.

But a lot of them, you couldn't beat them, brother.

They wanted to be there.

They got there early, so they wanted to get their money's worth.

They want to see who's there, see the guys walk in and walk out.

- Love the arena, first of all.

It was my favorite.

I just loved it.

I just loved the whole-- you know, the whole structure.

It's just beautiful.

But Dorton was very, very unique building.

- When you walked in the hallowed halls of the Dorton Arena, you could feel the magic of the days gone by.

First of all, look at the shape of the building.

You can travel all over the United States of America.

There's no other major arena that was ever built like that, number one.

- There was no air in it.

That's what I loved about it.

I loved it because the popcorn people and stuff used to love it, because they'd sell so many drinks, because it'd be hot.

- I was sweating so bad that it was killing me, and I'm not even laughing.

And then once you got in the ring and was wrestling, you were so wet that when you grabbed a hold or whatever, sometimes the guy would slip right off of it.

And no one is in the dressing rooms, no, nothing.

You got 12, 15 people in one room.

It's like being in a sauna.

- And Dorton, the dressing rooms were on opposite sides.

So you couldn't talk to who you were going to wrestle.

The referees, they hated it, because they had to run back and forth.

[whoosh, whoosh] - You had to go talk to this guy, then walk across the building and go talk to that guy.

Then this guy didn't like that.

That guy didn't want to do this.

Then he went back.

- And I remember now fans would say, man, Tommy looks like he's tired.

It's just the first match.

I'm thinking, if you only knew.

He's been running back and forth.

- And what we loved about it, too, is we knew that Crockett was out of Charlotte, so they were our home team.

They were the guys we cheered for.

They were the guys we loved, because we knew they were our guys.

- People want to take care of their own.

You don't want to go to the chain restaurant.

You want to go to the local restaurant where you walk in and you know them and they know you.

And that's how it felt with the Crocketts.

- You had the-- the WWF was more stand-up wrestling, big guy type.

- All those cartoons in the morning where everybody's a cartoon, they were playing to kids.

The mid-Atlantic was called the bloody mid-Atlantic.

It was for-- it was for high school and college.

It was for serious people.

It was for people to see real hard hitting, hard action, bloody, you know, tough wrestling.

It was a different thing.

We could watch the other shows.

But most of time you're watching other shows to learn about those-- those territories and learn about those wrestlers, because you were hoping one day you'd get to see them down here.

- The NWA also returns to the Dorton Arena in Raleigh with a gigantic card Wednesday, April 30, with a bell time of 8:15.

- So I grew up in the mid-'80s and the tail end of Crockett promotions.

When I think of Dorton Arena, the first thing that I think of is Tony Schiavone with that mustache standing in front of either the red or the blue Crockett Promotions, NWA logos, and he's talking up the matches for Dorton arena.

- Rock and roll express.

And then in the cage, it's only Anderson against Tony Blanchard with James J. Dillon Thursday, May 7, 8:17, at the Dorton Arena in Raleigh.

- That's why Dorton Arena did so well.

It was a perfect Tuesday night town for the Wednesday television at WRAL.

- For years, WRAL has been the biggest television station in the area of Raleigh, North Carolina.

In the 1950s, Crockett wanted to bring his product inside of their TV studio to bring it to the masses.

- In the '60s and early '70s, Crockett Promotions supported a number of localized television tapings, from as close to Dorton Arena as WRAL and as far away as Asheville.

But by 1974, the weekly show taped at WRAL is the number one wrestling program in the region.

- What a way to connect yourself to the people in the market, by taking your wrestling product to their local television station where they get news.

Also involve some of their news personalities within the broadcast.

COMMENTATOR: Climbing up on the ropes, might get a chance to see that Superfly splash, high off the ropes, down a cross-body with all his weight.

1, 2, 3, the count of three.

There are your winners.

- The television matches were taped in a small studio in front of 100 to 200 people.

They talked about the matches at the big arenas that weren't televised that you had to pay and buy a ticket to see.

- The main attraction was coming to the live events inside of your town that were going to hold thousands of people.

So WRAL helped to set that up.

It helped to promote, that you can see your favorite wrestler who just wrestled this guy here on your TV station, you can see him in person this coming week.

- And it's building up a mythology of we've got to go, we've got to go-- we've got to go to this place.

We've got to see these matches that you only get a glimpse of on television.

- And that's the cycle.

And that's where storylines start to become developed.

- We're always delighted to have this gentleman with us, of course.

The World Heavyweight Champion right here, nature boy, Ric Flair.

Champ, I got to ask you one thing.

Is Buddy Landel beginning to get under your skin a little bit?

- Well, Buddy Landel would get under anybody's skin.

But let's face-- - My favorite story about Dorton is a lot of the wrestlers, the old guys are not sentimental.

But Buddy Landel, if you went in his house-- and he was a good friend of mine-- the only picture he had on the wall was him against Ric Flair in Dorton Arena.

ANNOUNCER: The most serious challenger to the WWF is the NWA, with their champion Ric Flair, a man considered by many to be the best wrestler alive.

[cheers] When Flair-- - You're kidding.

INTERVIEWER: I know.

I just need it on camera.

[laughter] - Why was Ric Flair important?

Lord.

Rick had the charisma.

It's the gap, the look.

- Bleach blonde, big sunglasses, expensive suits.

He's like a living, breathing Gordon Gekko.

- His wrestling is phenomenal.

It's believable.

You know, his interviews are believable.

- Ric Flair will be there 120%.

And just as he has done in the past, George Michael, he will show the crowd why firsthand he is the greatest wrestler alive today.

- It's a shame he doesn't give me a closing line.

It's a shame he doesn't understand television.

Damn it.

- People were attracted to his orbit.

They wanted to be around him.

You walked down the street with Flair, oh, my God.

That's Ric Flair.

- He was the splitting of the atom.

Other wrestlers sort of started feeding off of it, and it created this momentum.

- By the summer of 1985, Ric Flair has been a multiple time world champion.

But along comes Buddy Landel, another bleach blond, arrogant, cocky persona.

- The Nature Boy is here on the scene now, Jack.

I am going to be the new champion.

- Ric Flair had been in the mid-Atlantic territory since 1974 at this point, 11 years.

So Buddy Landel is seen kind of as a younger, fresher alternative to Flair.

- I knew Buddy, brother, since he's a teenager.

He was 17 years old out of Knoxville, Tennessee.

It's just talent.

Just raw talent, brother.

The day that he was 17 years old, he could work his tail off, man.

He just impressed me.

I said, Jesus, kid, man.

He's a natural.

Although Buddy was a lot younger than Ric, Buddy was a master of the promo, of the matches, of everything.

And when those two collided, there was money to be made.

Because one's saying, oh, I'm the Nature Boy, and the other one said, no, no, no, I'm the Nature Boy.

- Flair, I'm the only Nature Boy, brother.

I know it.

The women know it.

The only thing you got, Flair, that I ain't got is that.

big nose and that belt.

And I'm getting ready to take the belt away from you, brother.

- And that made people mad because they'd watched Ric Flair become this huge star.

And even when he was a hometown villain, he was a hometown hero.

- And so they'd see him wrestling like, man, that's-- that's the Nature Boy.

And the Nature Boy had earned the right to be.

- It's a personal issue there, and personal issues around money in wrestling.

- Flair and Landel have a match on July 13, 1985 at the Greensboro Coliseum, where Landel gets the 3 count and is awarded the championship initially, but it's a disputed finish, and the title is eventually returned to Flair.

When excerpts of that match air on the WRAL broadcast, it becomes the catalyst to promote the return match on July 31, 1985 at the Dorton Arena.

[thunder strike] - The night they main evented, it's raining and it's thundering.

[thunder strike] I just remember going in.

I got my tickets, got in, and looking out the window, and there's this line of fans going all the way around Dorton Arena in the rain.

And the matches are already going on, and the place is packed out.

- You're telling fans, we can't fit you no more.

The fire marshal, you can't get in here.

And you're thinking, whoa.

Traffic was backed up, Highway Patrol trying to park everybody.

- JJ Dillon has told the story of pulling up to Dorton Arena and seeing the traffic jam.

JJ wonders if there's something going on at the fairgrounds that he wasn't aware of that's competing with the matches, and then realizes that the traffic jam is for the matches.

- There was no internet to advertise Buddy Landel against Ric Flair.

They just hung posters in windows, but that's what would draw that crowd.

- That set the all-time attendance for the Dorton Arena for professional wrestling.

And you think about they've been running professional wrestling at Dorton Arena for 20 years before that.

- So a few years ago, writing for the Pro Wrestling Torch, I wrote a column about this show.

[cheers] [bell rings] This match was a great back and forth battle as a fired-up Nature Boy Buddy Landel, even at this young age, turned out to be one of the best opponents I ever saw Ric Flair face.

Landel had an energy and a sense of timing to match Flair's, the best wrestler in the world.

Then it happened.

He reached around Randall's head and pulled him straight up to where he was holding Landel's body completely upside down.

Just at that pause where both wrestlers were completely balanced, several lightning strikes simultaneously lit up the Dorton Arena, so much so that the night turned into day.

Flair continued to hold Landel straight upside down.

Beat, beat, beat.

Just as Landel hit the Canvas, the thunder sounded.

[thunder strike] [bell rings] - Flair was the NWA world champion.

He'd been the champ wrestling 365 days a year, and he was tired.

He wanted some time off with his family.

So the plan was Buddy was going to beat Ric and get the belt, and just run with it for a couple of years.

This was going to be special.

And he was going to break Rick's leg with the Figure Four, and Rick was going to take time off, and then they're going to come back.

Of course, it never got to that.

- They are slated to shoot a confrontation with Flair at the next television taping.

But at the next television taping, Buddy, by his own admission, decides to drive to the building rather than fly so that he can do his drugs all night.

- We get to-- we all check in.

We check in the hotel, and I beg him to stay with me.

Stay with me.

Come with me.

I got two beds, man.

I said, please, stay with me.

I know what he's going to do, man.

So we get to TV.

TV starts at 10 o'clock, whatever it is.

9 o'clock, Dusty says, anybody seen Landel?

And everybody, no.

And he says, call-- call his room.

Call his room.

- Dusty Rhodes calls.

He hangs up on Dusty Rhodes.

Jim Crockett calls to get him to the venue.

Buddy hangs up on Jim Crockett.

At around noon, Buddy gets up, gathers his things, gets to the television taping, where Dusty Rhodes promptly instructs Buddy to hand over the national title and fires him.

- That was a turning point in the life of Buddy Landel.

He went back to Memphis.

He never really got-- that was his real chance to be a major, major player.

- A lot of people said that I was to be the next World Heavyweight Champion.

The only problem was this-- by that time, I had been introduced to drugs and alcohol.

And the truth of the matter is this-- I was an alcoholic and I was a drug addict, and I was in denial.

- He just-- he just blew that shot, and I just hate it for-- I just hated it for him.

And I loved the kid, man.

And, you know, he's gone.

He's gone up to the big ring in the sky, y'all.

You know, God bless him.

And hey, we're all God's children.

And it's just a shame.

- What I always loved about Buddy is he didn't blame anybody for his mistakes.

Buddy used to joke and say, hey, I was just a country boy from Tennessee.

What'd you expect me to do with my money?

Yeah, I'll blow it.

But that was the only picture in his house.

And they sold that place out.

[melancholy music] ♪ - Mid-1980s, that is the time that most people think about when they think about mid-Atlantic wrestling.

Some of the best storylines, some of the best wrestlers came out of that period.

- They didn't have the best balance on that, to be honest with either of them.

[cheers, applause] - It's solid right place, right time that the talent that came into the area clicked.

Magnum TA, right, Dusty.

TV cameras loved them.

- He should be working underneath.

- The notoriety in our sport's just gotten bigger with the cable systems and the publicity now all around the world that we are the most recognized sports celebrities in the world.

- It peaked, you know, right around '80-- '88, '89.

- Mid-Atlantic Wrestling was so big.

There was three towns a night.

Not just three towns a week, but three towns a night.

- Now, Mid-Atlantic Wrestling Is on national television, and they're starting to tour more places around the country outside of the Carolinas.

- Crockett begins touring the West Coast, and the Midwest, and the Southeast.

- So it just was heaven.

You know, in some cases, we felt invincible, which you shouldn't do, and it came to bite us.

- Crockett Promotions begins making ambitious moves not only in where they run their shows, but in the boardroom.

They acquire a lot of the local regional territories that have closed up in the early '80s.

Things are expanding rapidly in Crockett Promotions, so much so that the books are impossible to keep up with, and things instantly go from feast to famine.

- It sucked.

It sucked.

There were a lot of bad decisions made.

And people wouldn't listen.

- Crockett tried the expansion, but their business wasn't keeping up with that expansion.

So you're starting to bleed money at this point.

And before they know it, they're facing bankruptcy.

- By 1988, Jim Crockett, Jr. makes the decision to sell the promotion to Ted Turner.

- Ted Turner is a billionaire who was a huge wrestling fan.

He was actually the person to put Crockett on television, on TBS, and then he wanted a piece of it.

He wanted to be a part of the wrestling business.

- Jim Crockett's NWA becomes Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling.

Turner's WCW more closely resembles Vince McMahon's WWF as a touring attraction that might come to Greensboro or Raleigh sporadically, rather than a weekly institution with deep ties in the community.

- They wanted just to go to major cities in the United States.

They want to go to the Forum.

They wanted to go to the Spectrum in Philadelphia.

They wanted to go to Madison Square Garden.

- The people in the market-- in the Dorton Arena market-- were used to getting major league shows.

Then it went from being something special to being an afterthought, and that just was not going to work.

You would go and it just wasn't the same.

It was-- you'd end up angry leaving the show.

Not angry in the, I want to see that guy get his, it was that close, I'm going to come back next time.

It was angry in the sense of this wasn't worth the money and the time to do.

- The fans when they were leaving, they were cussing.

They were just like, I ain't coming back to this damn place anymore.

I can't believe they did this to us.

We're their fans, you know.

We're generational fans.

You know, I can't believe-- and they were mad.

And they says, I ain't never coming back.

The fans never forgave them.

They felt betrayed, because this was their thing, and that place went-- like Dorton and stuff like that, you could see it.

Every arena, it would go from sellouts to-- you know, to eventually less than half.

- Whereas we were going to wrestling seven days a week in Raleigh, of course, Dorton Arena was one of them, Charlotte, of course, went to Greenville, you know, Florence, South Carolina, and it was a cycle.

And you did it every week.

And then all of a sudden, you start saying, well, let's see what the heck's going on here now?

You know, you mean we ain't going to Raleigh?

- By 1993, WCW runs its last event at Dorton Arena.

- They left Dorton Arena.

They left the wrestling fans.

- I mean, you let all these North Carolina towns down, and Dorton Arena down, all the people have been coming out for years.

[melancholy music] - I don't think fans realize that the people that were losing jobs, to be honest-- not just wrestlers, but they were Dorton Arena.

There were people, the crew that opened up that building for us.

The lady that sold programs, the lady that sold popcorn.

In all these towns, people don't even think about the guy that parked the cars out back.

[melancholy music] - For 30 years, you could count on wrestling being in this building, and then it was gone.

- We lost a family.

Think about it.

Those people-- you know, those ladies that could have their names on the seats are not there.

[melancholy music] ♪ - So I started in-- I started going to shows in the '90s and I started working in '01, and there would always be rumors of like, so-and-so is going to run Dorton Arena, or hey, there's this big-- there's this big show.

Don't tell anybody, but six or eight months from now, there's going to be this big show at Dorton Arena.

And then it would never materialize.

[indistinct conversation] - I used to go watch wrestling there when I was a kid.

You'd ride by Hillsborough Street and being around Raleigh and going to the fair and things like that and seeing Dorton Arena, and you get to think back, oh, my God, just think how much wrestling was here.

Man, why don't they wrestle at Dorton Arena?

They could do a great show.

All these guys, all these legends, they could do a really good show.

I actually took a picture.

I was at a state fair or something.

I took a picture with me standing in front of it and I was like, I've always wanted to wrestle there.

It would have been cool to wrestle here.

And somebody messaged me and said, your dream may be getting ready to come true.

And I found out that this promotion called Big Time Wrestling was going to run there.

- I got a big show this Friday night, 2/26/2016.

And I know normally, when I do these pre-match hype videos, I got the mask, I got the cape, I got all that.

But this show's a little bit special.

- I was running and booking and promoting a company called Omega.

We had been talking about possibly doing Dorton anyway, because our crowds were getting big.

They were getting big.

They weren't big enough to fill the arena yet, Dorton Arena, but we were talking about it.

And so then this company Big Time Wrestling came in from the Northeast, and they kind of wanted to do a joint venture.

- The show's very personal for me.

And not personal because I'm going against CW Anderson again, you know.

He's been a rival of mine for decades.

It's personal because it's being held in the historic Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina.

- It turned out being a dream come true for a lot of us, because a lot of us that grew up wanting and dreaming of one day competing in the Dorton Arena finally got to.

- So I'm ecstatic knowing that I'm going to get to wrestle at Dorton Arena.

And all those emotions that you've kept bottled up, it's flooding again, because you're almost shaking.

It's like, this is too good to be true.

- I wrestled in Madison Square Garden, sold out.

You know, I've wrestled in Japan.

Six continents.

I've wrestled in some of the greatest arenas in the world, but none of those arenas did I go to as a kid.

- The Dorton Arena is a place where as a child, my father took me to time and time again.

And I used to watch the absolute legends of this business go at it, the titans of the industry.

- Because that's where the dream, you know, really turned from a seed to a tree, and it started to bloom.

It started there when I was a kid in the stands of the Dorton Arena.

And so to come back there, you know, to go from spectator to gladiator, you know, it is a full-circle moment that means a lot.

- And this Friday, it finally happens.

Little Shane Helms is going to perform in Raleigh, North Carolina in the Dorton Arena.

It's going to be awesome.

It's going to be special.

I hope you'll be there with me.

[music playing] ♪ - I remember the day that it was happening, I was, like, nervous.

It was like my first day in wrestling again.

And walking in with my bag and seeing the setup, I can't tell you the butterflies and the goosebumps I was getting.

- The second I parked my car, you know, the people I was with, I was like, man, we're about to work Dorton.

And we all felt the moment.

- The show is getting ready to start.

You know, it's an hour before, and I'm downstairs, and I'm sitting in my corner.

You could hear the people rumbling upstairs and your adrenaline's already starting to kick in.

- All right, ladies and gentlemen, everyone here in the Tar Heel State, you are the best fans in wrestling.

[applause, cheers] - So when I'm down there knowing, OK, I'm two matches out, and then I start to get do my normal routine, then the next match is out.

So I'm walking up, and I'm watching that match go on, and I know I'm next.

- There's a drop kick.

- And then walking out, and I think there was like 4,000 people there that night.

- That's CW Anderson.

- And walking through the curtain and seeing all those people, and people are screaming.

And on the inside, I'm like, man, this is so cool.

Nothing can match being part of that.

It was something special.

And again, it's something that I can hang my hat on knowing that I got to wrestle at Dorton Arena.

- Hurricane Helms has come to save Jeff Hardy from evildoers.

- I was in a performer mode.

And so, you know, sometimes as a performer, you kind of you're stuck in that moment and it's hard to stand back.

But when I was doing the meet and greet and signing autographs, I was looking around, just really appreciating that moment and seeing some of the legends that-- because we had some there that, you know, I saw perform there.

- The boogie woogie band, the boy from New York City, Jimmy Valiant.

- It's just-- it thrills me to have wrestling continuing there.

I got there early, you know, and-- and I just smelled the roses, smelled the flowers, man.

You know, I just took time to-- you know, time just to-- just be by myself.

Just-- just a blessing, man, to see all the people.

- This is as much a homecoming for some of those fans as it was for us.

Maybe-- maybe even more so.

So I could definitely see that being a, hey, these were our guys.

They used to sit in these seats with us.

They went out, chased this crazy dream, and now they're back here performing for us.

- When I walked back into Dorton Arena in 2016, I could not believe that it looked virtually identical to the building that I saw wrestling in in 1990.

- I mean, they kept it up.

They painted it, but they didn't change anything.

So here was the popcorn-- I'm a popcorn guy.

Here's the popcorn.

Here's the drinks.

Here it is.

It's hot.

- Everything looks the same and smells the same and feels the same.

I think it has a generational appeal when you can bring your kids to a historic venue like that where maybe you saw wrestling as a child or as a young adult and it feels like home again.

- That's the connection with Dorton.

I've had people come up to my gimmick table and the ladies say, you know, I used to sit up there every time wrestling came to Dorton, and nobody got in that seat.

And now she would say, guess where I'm sitting tonight?

And she'd have her kid.

And I think, man, that is pretty cool.

So it gets kind of, I think, special as you connect to that building.

[music playing] ♪ And there's a lot of wrestling starting to come back in that place.

ANNOUNCER: Dorton Arena has been the nucleus of professional wrestling for over 60 years!

- Now we're blessed with a couple of big events at Dorton Arena every year.

- My brother Jimmy made a very good statement.

He told me, he said, I thought we failed.

I said, yeah, we failed financially, but we left a lot of memories.

Those fans now are going back to appreciate what was created for them, and they want to say thank you.

You know, those wrestling matches at Dorton Arena are saying thank you and celebrating the history of Dorton Arena and wrestling in Eastern North Carolina.

It's very gratifying.

It's-- you know, it's touching.

It's-- in a lot of ways, it's hard to believe.

[music fades] ♪ - I think if Matthew Nowicki were around, or if he knew about the wrestling history that flourished in the building, I think he would be thrilled.

I think the wrestling community's love of this building, I think says a lot about how the Nowickis' vision succeeded.

- You see pictures from back in the day of Dorton Arena jam-packed with people of all ages, races, and creeds, and colors, and shapes, and sizes.

In a way, in the American South, for decades, wrestling was a melting pot and becomes a communal experience for people in that area.

- You know, when-- when powerful events happen, sometimes they leave a memory of itself.

And that's what it feels like when you walk into an arena.

Like to this day, when I walk into the Dorton Arena, I'm transported right back to my childhood watching the NWA.

- It's like music sometimes.

You can hear a song that reminds you of that certain time when you was young and it was just perfect.

And I think Dorton's that way.

Even if we just met at a gas station and we talk about Raleigh, first thing I would say is, did you ever go to wrestling in Dorton Arena?

- In North Carolina, you had several homes of wrestling.

You had Greensboro, Charlotte, and Raleigh.

Raleigh was Eastern North Carolina's home for wrestling.

Dorton Arena was home for wrestling, and it was a very good home.

- Means that maybe some new stars will be born right there in Dorton Arena.

Some of the original stars of pro wrestling that got people in love with the sport maybe can birth new stars in the same building just in the new generation.

- It's building a new future.

So now, with what's happening with the resurgence of it, the Dorton will now live on.

[music playing] ♪ - It continues to be an important icon of North Carolina history.

I hope that it continues to serve as a place to break down social divisions, and social fragmentation, and acts as a place where the people of North Carolina can come together.

[music playing] ♪ - It just happened one week in Charlotte at the Coliseum.

The billboard out by the road said, the Reverend Billy Graham on Monday, Tuesday was pro wrestling, and Wednesday was Elvis.

And I'm thinking, what a week!

[gentle music playing] ♪ ♪ ♪ [beep] - Woo, mercy, daddy.

Boogie woogie man.

Coming home, baby.

You know, boogie woogie man's from Dorton Arena.

That's right.

That's where I live.

I get my mail there.

My mama's there.

Grandma's there.

Baby, your baby boy is coming home.

I want them hot biscuits and cornbread.

Boogie woogie man's coming home.

And you know what I'm going to do before I sit down and eat with my family?

I'm going to kick some can, and then I'm going home.

I'm going to stay home with my grandma tonight.

I'm sleeping with my mama, ooh, mercy, and all my peoples.

God bless y'all.

See you there, or you're gonna be square.

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