{"id":34861,"date":"2019-01-10T12:08:41","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T17:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=34861"},"modified":"2019-01-10T12:08:41","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T17:08:41","slug":"aew-betting-on-the-fight-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2019\/01\/10\/aew-betting-on-the-fight-capital\/","title":{"rendered":"AEW Betting on The Fight Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>All Elite Wrestling (AEW)<\/strong> announced their show <em><strong>Double or Nothing<\/strong><\/em> will be held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena May 25th in the Fight Capital of the World, Las Vegas, Nevada. A fight card of this magnitude should be in Las Vegas. For three decades, Las Vegas has been the home to nearly every major Boxing and MMA match bringing in people from all over the world. Southern Nevada began its ascent as the Fight Capital of the World in the early Sixties. Boxing had burst its bubble in New York City, in particular on television. They oversaturated the market with low-quality competition and fans grew tired of it. Their fan base turned on them and the sport needed a new home.<\/p>\n<p>Las Vegas and Boxing were a perfect fit. The bright lights, year-round beautiful weather, casinos, and the entertainment brought more people on big fight weekends and they packed the casino floors. In 1955, <strong>Archie Moore<\/strong> fought <strong>Nino Valdes<\/strong> for a shot at <strong>Rocky Marciano<\/strong>\u2019s Heavyweight Championship. The event overall was a disappointment, but the idea was there. Five years later in 1960 was the birth of the Fight Capital.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Archie Moore W 10 Nino Valdes I\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Fi66CQ_ivDg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The brand new Las Vegas Convention Center was the host. It\u2019s a short walk from the Strip and for a time the casinos worked together, but their goal is to keep gamblers on the property. Example: If the casino brings a gambler or whale in for a fight he won\u2019t pay for anything. Everything is complimentary. With room, fight tickets, food, and amenities could cost the hotel $30,000. However, the whale gambles and loses $500,000. Let that sink in. That\u2019s a nice profit margin for the casino, and that\u2019s about midland. Plenty of whales swim into Vegas and cough up millions to the casinos. When <strong>Floyd Mayweather<\/strong> was in his prime he would generate over 100 million dollars to the Las Vegas economy for a fight.<br \/>\nIn one weekend.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34864\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34864\" style=\"width: 594px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34864\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/mayweather.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/mayweather.jpg 594w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/mayweather-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34864\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">LAS VEGAS, NV &#8211; SEPTEMBER 14: Floyd Mayweather Jr. celebrates his majority decision victory against Canelo Alvarez in their WBC\/WBA 154-pound title fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on September 14, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Al Bello\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After doing the math casinos started hosting fights. Different hotels booked fights on a property with varying results, but nobody figured it out like Caesars Palace. The Strip resort began hosting fights in a small shack that seated around 5,000 souls in 1976 when they hosted <strong>George Foreman<\/strong>\u2019s war with <strong>Ron Lyle<\/strong>. 1980 saw the first use of the famed 24,000 seat outdoor Sports Pavilion which was built in the Caesars parking lot before every fight. <strong>Larry Holmes<\/strong> sent <strong>Muhammad Ali<\/strong> into retirement with a brutal beating. The Pavilion even hosted <em><strong>Wrestlemania IX<\/strong><\/em>. We don\u2019t talk about that around here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Friend:<\/strong> We\u2019ve never had a Mania in Vegas.<br \/>\n<strong>Me<\/strong>: Ya we did. Wrestlemania Nine!<br \/>\n<strong>Friend:<\/strong> *Cold Stare*<br \/>\n<strong>Me:<\/strong> Sorry.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34865\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34865\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34865\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/009_wm09_a1993_003-09a312a91dfe3054440dfa677eafc7fd-e1547139293397.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34865\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Jim Ross<\/strong> wore a toga! His Mania debut with the freaking <strong>World Wrestling Federation<\/strong>, and he wore a toga. Our Managing Editor can\u2019t discuss the finish without screaming. I was in the Navy in 1993, so I take no responsibility for it. I was defending our country.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34866\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34866\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34866\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/usa_today_9376642.0-e1547139362864.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34866\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Joshua Dahl, USA TODAY Sports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Boxing has dwindled in popularity in Sin City over the years, but as always someone is ready to fill in the void. Fortunately for the Fight Capital, <strong>Dana White<\/strong> and Stations Casino\u2019s owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, owned something called the <strong>Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)<\/strong>. The UFC built its base here, and prior to hockey was the \u201chome team\u201d in town. Every big UFC card was and many times is still here, but they\u2019re a worldwide brand now, and their big fights could be spread globally over the next five or ten years. The company has held shows worldwide including Dubai and China where deep pockets are the decision makers for fight locations.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34867\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34867\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34867\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/09_Bruno-with-Vince-Sr-aecc538c743657e4ad5389fbb292e942-e1547139415948.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34867\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: PWI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While boxing and later MMA took advantage of this, wrestling didn\u2019t. Other than \u201cthe Mania that we don\u2019t mention\u201d there has never been a major pro wrestling card in Las Vegas. The first reason is because when boxing collapsed in New York City, Professional Wrestling filled the void. While boxing escaped to \u201clawless\u201d Las Vegas, promoter <strong>Vince McMahon Sr.,<\/strong> owner of the <strong>World Wide Wrestling Federation<\/strong> featuring Heavyweight Champion \u201cNature Boy\u201d <strong>Buddy Rogers<\/strong> was selling out Madison Square Garden. The WWWF dominated wrestling in the northeast including New York City. With fans tired of boxing, they embraced wrestling, and packed the houses.<strong> Bruno Sammartino<\/strong> dominated grappling in the Big Apple with Title reigns spanning more than a decade continued through McMahon\u2019s son taking ownership.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34868\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34868\" style=\"width: 596px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34868\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/Screen-Shot-2019-01-10-at-12.00.20-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"596\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/Screen-Shot-2019-01-10-at-12.00.20-PM.png 596w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/Screen-Shot-2019-01-10-at-12.00.20-PM-300x187.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 596px) 100vw, 596px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34868\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: NWA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Another reason was the archaic territory system. While the WWWF dominated the northeast, the rest of the country was divided up among the <strong>National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)<\/strong>. The Los Angeles booking office at 6061 Hollywood Boulevard was controlled by <strong>Johnny Doyle<\/strong>. He ran the territory, booking shows in the California area until 1954 when he left the syndicate. In 1955, Doyle emerged and wanted to book shows in the city again. However, Doyle received a great deal of opposition from his former friends and now rivals. Wrestlers were afraid to compete for Doyle, fearing retaliation by the National Wrestling Alliance. The former Southern California boss pleaded for help from National Wrestling Alliance President <strong>Sam Muchnick<\/strong> to no avail. The St. Louis Legend even tried to buy into the Los Angeles area with <strong>Lou Thesz<\/strong> following Doyle\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n<p>With Los Angeles closed for business at least for him, Doyle set his eyes 270 miles east to Las Vegas. However, Southern Nevada was still controlled by the Los Angeles Booking office. Despite this, Doyle obtained 52-week television deals with KLRJ-TV in Las Vegas and KTTV-TV in Los Angeles. These television deals were contingent that Doyle book the wrestlers from Chicago he promised. That was no problem because Doyle had worked out a deal with Chicago promoter <strong>Fred Kohler<\/strong> to obtain talent from the Windy City.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34869\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34869\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34869\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/Antonino_Rocca_PWI_bio-e1547139750266.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34869\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: PWI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Johnny booked <strong>Antonino Rocca<\/strong>, but found out shortly before the card that he had been forbid to compete by his manager <strong>Toots Mondt<\/strong>. Rocca\u2019s Manager claimed the Los Angeles office had put so much pressure on him it left him with no other choice. Doyle then booked <strong>Verne Gagne<\/strong> in September, 1955 but he also backed out because unbeknownst to Doyle, his partner in Chicago, Fred Kohler, changed his plans in the desert. Kohler was told the LA office would stay out of his work in Colorado and New Mexico if he left the Vegas Valley. Done and done, but it cost Kohler a fortune.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34870\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34870\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34870\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/02GAGNE-OBIT-2-facebookJumbo-e1547139810956.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"314\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34870\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Verne Gagne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the late seventies, Verne Gagne\u2019s <strong>American Wrestling Association (AWA)<\/strong>\u00a0controlled Southern Nevada. The AWA was based in Minneapolis\/St. Paul, so all of their major cards were held there, somewhere else in Minnesota, or Chicago. The Vegas Valley was the forgotten land. Yet, they booked in Las Vegas consistently from 1983 through 1988 and\u00a0 Las Vegas hosted the AWA television tapings at the Showboat Hotel &amp; Casino. The Pavilion hosted the AWA television tapings, but never a Wrestling Super card. <strong>Pro Wrestling USA,<\/strong> which was a conglomerate of the AWA, <strong>World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW)<\/strong> from Dallas, <strong>Jim Crockett Promotions<\/strong>, and the Jarrett\u2019s in Memphis held multiple supercards, but never held one in Las Vegas. Ric Flair would have <em>owned<\/em> Las Vegas the way any boxer had.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-34871\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/1200px-Thomas__Mack_Center_by_Gage_Skidmore-e1547139935503.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\"><\/p>\n<p>There were certainly facilities in town. The Thomas and Mack Center was a brand spanking new arena in 1983 that seated over 18,000 for boxing and wrestling. Despite being located on the UNLV campus it\u2019s close to the strip. Not surprisingly the World Wrestling Federation booked their first show in the arena in 1987, where fans saw <strong>Ted Dibiase<\/strong> beat WWF Champion <strong>Hulk Hogan<\/strong> by count out, and the card also featured an upstart named <strong>Dingo Warrior<\/strong> (Ultimate Warrior), <strong>Jake Roberts<\/strong>, and <strong>Bam Bam Bigelow<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34872\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34872\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34872\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/Hulk-Hogan-gana-el-titulo-wrestlemania-9-e1547140031657.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34872\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Unfortunately, the first major wrestling card in Las Vegas was April 4, 1993, at ahem\u2026 <em>Wrestlemania IX<\/em>. Vegas hosted the first outdoor Wrestlemania and it was easily one of the worst. We can give you several reasons why, but that\u2019s for another article. <strong>World Championship Wrestling (WCW)<\/strong> held <em><strong>Halloween Havoc<\/strong> <\/em>annually at the Grand Garden Arena from 1996 through 2000 and more recently, WWE held multiple pay per views with the opening of the T-Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_34873\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-34873\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-34873\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/01\/HalloweenHavoc990002-e1547140068568.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"349\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-34873\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>AEW\u2019s <em>Double or Nothing<\/em> is the biggest Wrestling card in the history of the Fight Capital. This event will have many similarities to a huge Boxing, or MMA card. Outside of WWE, the who\u2019s who of the Grappling world will descend on the city to see what AEW is all about. This is a gutsy move by everyone involved, but they picked the perfect place to debut. At this point, it doesn\u2019t matter who\u2019s on the card. The Grand Garden is a great venue for Wrestling and it will be full. There is no better place than Las Vegas to have a big fight, and it\u2019s time wrestling takes advantage of this. <strong>Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks<\/strong>, and everyone else involved have done this right. On May 25th the competition will be terrific, and it will be a financial success, so it makes perfect sense for AEW to be ALL IN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All Elite Wrestling (AEW) announced their show Double or Nothing will be held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena May 25th in the Fight Capital of the World, Las Vegas, Nevada. A fight card of this magnitude should be in Las Vegas. For three decades, Las Vegas has been the home to nearly every major [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":34665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[3911,4131],"class_list":["post-34861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-north-america","tag-all-elite-wrestling","tag-double-or-nothing"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}