Lynchburg VA

[Flair81]

I've read that they ran at the downtown armory
in Lynchburg every Friday night for years. How many
did the armory hold for wrestling? Did they draw well?
Any title changes? Is the armory still standing?
What local TV or newspaper promoted these shows.
Most MACW fans knows all about Richmond, Greenville,
Ashville, Greensboro etc... Lynchburg seems losted...
Any thoughts?

[slayerfan]

I rememebr going there once when I was a kid. I can't remember much about it. I know Mike Rotundo fought Kabuki I think. I also seem to remember One Man Gang broke a rope during his match. The main event was a tag team cage match but I can't remember what it was. I wished I could.

A buddy of mine said that he saw some damn good matches there. I know he said he saw Boogie Woogie and Ivan Koloff in a siberian coal miner's glove match there and Koloff got hurt real bad. Apparently Boogie tossed Ivan into the turnbuckle post on the outside and instead of putting his hands up he hit it solid. His head rammed right into a bolt sticking out of it and it went into his skull.

Another time he said Big John Studd looked at him in the middle of a match and told him to sit down and shut the hell up lol. After the match, Studd mabe a line through the crowd to him and shook his hand and asked him did he enjoy the show.

Anyway, I remember that place may have held 1000 people I guess. From what I understand, there were some classic cards there.

[Flair81]

It seems odd that a small building would hosts a
weekly card. The biggest building they ran was
Greensboro and they ran there monthly. Most
of the regular weekly towns would draw an average
of 3-5,000 to make a profit. They ran the Roanoke
Civic Center about every month and it is pretty big.
I guess some towns drew better than others and they
would pack in a high school gym or national guard
armory. A few small Indy promotions try to run weekly
cards now but now days it is very hard to get people
out to live wrestling that much. Anyone know when
they last ran Lynchburg on a regular basis?

[slayerfan]

The last show I remember there was about 1989 I think. I believe the main event was a tag match with Ivan & Nikita vs Rock N Roll Express. I would say they stopped running regularly around 1987 maybe.

[cwh47]

I had the opportunity to meet the Hillcitymadman last
year in Galax,VA.We had a chance to talk about the
good old days of wrestling.HCM attended the weekly
shows at the Lynchburg Armory.When I asked him how
many fans it seated,he said he believed it held around
4000 fans.He also said they drew large crowds in the
60's and 70's.

The tv show on WDBJ 7 Roanoke,VA promoted the
weekly shows in Lynchburg and Roanoke when it aired
in the 60's.Promoter Pete Apostolou who also co-hosted
the show always talked about what great crowds they
had but he never mentioned numbers that I can
remember.

[cwh47]

Just found this attendance figure for Lynchburg on
the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.Friday Oct.3,1975 there were
1,952 fans .You can see this on the page from the
planner of George Scott.Go to the page where the
Gateway remembers the 1975 Wilmington plane crash.

[HardcoreHeroes]

cwh47 said:

Just found this attendance figure for Lynchburg on
the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.Friday Oct.3,1975 there were
1,952 fans .You can see this on the page from the
planner of George Scott.Go to the page where the
Gateway remembers the 1975 Wilmington plane crash.

Skimming through the 1975 George Scott datebook, I also find these numbers for Lynchburg:

Friday, Jan. 10 3027
Friday, Jan. 31 3000
Friday, Feb. 14 3600
Friday, Feb. 21 2150
Friday, Feb. 28 3660
Friday, Apr. 4 3600
Friday, Apr. 18 2800
Friday, May 16 1800
Friday, May 23 1800
Friday, June 13 5000
Friday, July 25 5000
Friday, Aug. 8 3940

An important note, too, is that I believe these numbers are the $$$ amounts instead of the number of tickets sold. In this datebook, Scott rarely listed more than one number for each town in his handwritten notes.

The reason I believe these numbers to be the paid admission is because many of the Monday nights Charlotte was shown as 5000-6000, when the Park Center only seats a little over 2000 for wrestling.

[cwh47]

Thanks HardcoreHeroes.I appreciate you sharing this
info.My mistake in believing those were attendance
figures.In 1975 the average ticket price was about $3.
So that means that maybe there was less than 700
fans there on Oct.3,1975.

[Flair81]

Thanks for all the info! If a sell out in Lynchburg had a gate of $5,000 then the most they could get in there was around 1,600 to 1,700 so it had to be a small
building. Many High School gyms would hold that
many if not more. I would say some weeks they
did well and some they did not. Looking at old results,
you can tell weekly towns sometimes got a weak card.
I doubt the NWA champ came to Lynchburg much
because the promoter would use him for a bigger
building. The same if Andre came into the area. I bet
Lynchburg saw many interesting match ups. Matches
you may not see in Greenboro or Charlotte.
I think they ran Lynchburg in the late 80's with
mid card guys while they where expanding into
bigger cities. They ran Greenville in the late 80's
Real interesting.

[kyle]

The Lynchburg Armory was that large, kind of a high school gym size. The place was dark and smoky had a real old school feel to the place. I would think that 1500 would have been a large crowd. Bleachers lined the walls and ringside would be packed depending on the card in the late 70's when I attended.

[Flair81]

If the armory was in downtown Lynchburg, was the
parking area small? The reason I ask is in my hometown
we have a national guard armory and the parking
is really bad. There have been afew wrestlings shows
there but it was always a chore to find parking.
Where there any local bars or sporting good shops
in Lynchburg that helped promote wrestling? Seems
that having a crowd in the downtown area would
boost business every Friday night.

[kyle]

Parking at the armory was limited, we always parked on the street about 3 blocks away when I was a kid.

I don't remeber anything downtown being open at night except The Texas Inn for you do after the matches. Open 23 hours a day, 6 days a week. Stop in and get a "Cheesy Western".

The only business that I remeber promoting the matches was Peter's Newstand. The sold tickets and always had a poster for the upcoming shows in Lynchburg.

I pesonally live 20 miles from Lynchburg and had to beg to get someone to take me the several times that I made it to The Lynchburg Armory and The Roanoke Civic Center for the matches.

[Flair81]

Can you guys think of any other towns they ran
often that does not get attention on the gateway
website? Hampton VA was a weekly town for
awhile in the mid 70's but you don't hear much
about it. Seems like Virginia towns like Fisherville,
Culpepper, and Norfork also ran shows. Maybe not as
often.

[kyle]

I live in Altavista, we had only to shows. The first was rained out after the first match and they made the show up about a month later. Roanoke and Lynchburg ran regular for years. I remember seeing promos for Charlottesville, Fishersville and Danville. But off the top of my head, I can't think of any other Virginia towns. We got to see promos for NC towns like Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Fayetteville sometimes.

[slayerfan]

Kyle said:

I live in Altavista, we had only to shows. The first was rained out after the first match and they made the show up about a month later. Roanoke and Lynchburg ran regular for years. I remember seeing promos for Charlottesville, Fishersville and Danville. But off the top of my head, I can't think of any other Virginia towns. We got to see promos for NC towns like Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Fayetteville sometimes.

Hey Kyle, I live in Hurt and I have heard stories about those Altavista shows. I have a friend who went to an even at Gretna High School and played tennis with Ken Patera before it started lol. We talked to Don Kernodle about that at the last fanfest about that and he remembered Gretna, and knew Hurt and Klopman Mills lol.