Sacred Grounds - The Omni
Throughout the course of professional wrestling history, there have been events at every type of venue one could imagine. From giant football stadiums all the way down to your local flea market. There have been scores of locales that have seen repeated shows, and then there are those places that become intertwined with certain promotions or certain wrestlers. These are the Sacred Grounds.
For decades, Madison Square Garden has been seen as the ‘home arena’ of the WWE, while other companies have been seen to be linked with other arenas. There was of course World Class Championship Wrestling and their home base of the Dallas Sportatorium and the NWA All-Star territory led by Sam Muchnick and the Kiel Auditorium. So it is very interesting that over the years, Jim Crockett Promotions, which would later become World Championship Wrestling, had two main hubs for their events. There is, of course, the Greensboro Coliseum which we will look at in a future edition, but today we will be looking at the history of The Omni.
Built in 1972, The Omni Coliseum (as was its full name) was a very unique building and was built as part of a complex known as the ‘Omni Complex.’ While most of the Complex would not be used until much later when it became the CNN Center, which would of course be the home base of WCW. In its early years, The Omni housed the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, who would remain there until the arena’s closure in 1997, as well as the NHL’s Atlanta Flames until the team’s relocation to Calgary in 1980. Given Atlanta’s status in the United States, many other big events would be held in the Omni over the years, perhaps most notably the 1988 Democratic National Convention. But we are all here for the wrestling side of things and The Omni was an absolute hotbed.
Given its opening in the early 1970s, the first promotion to be embraced by The Omni was the legendary Georgia Championship Wrestling. The promotion would begin running there regularly after the takeover of Jim Barnett in 1974, hosting shows on a regular basis up to twice a month. One of the earliest shows to take place at the Omni featured the World Wide Wrestling Federation Champion Pedro Morales defeat Paul Jones in a show that was headlined by Bob Armstrong defeating Bobby Shane to win his Cadillac.
As those familiar with the history of the territories, Georgia Championship Wrestling was one of the biggest and most successful places to be a wrestler in the NWA and outside of a select few territories (such as New York with MSG and St. Louis with the Kiel) there was no better place to be able to ply your trade in front of a big audience and gate. As the 70s turned into the 80s, the shows would somehow become even bigger extravaganzas. Two of the biggest events ever held by GCW would both occur during 1980, both with sell-out crowds of 16,000 at The Omni.
The first of these mammoth shows took place on April 6th. With a stacked card featuring the likes of Chief Jay Strongbow, Ernie Ladd, Baron Von Raschke and Dusty Rhodes. The event was headlined by NWA Champion Harley Race defending against Mr. Wrestling II. The match would go to a draw where it was left to a judge’s decision. The judges were Dusty Rhodes, Lou Thesz and Dory Funk, Jr. Both Thesz and Funk would rule in favor of Race, though it would be later revealed that Funk’s scorecard showed a victory for Mr. Wrestling II. The second 1980 show to sell out would be the traditional Thanksgiving show on November 27th, and would feature a tournament for the National Tag Team Championships which would be won by the Fabulous Freebirds of Buddy Roberts & Terry ‘Bam Bam’ Gordy, accompanied by Michael Hayes, defeating Robert Fuller & Stan Frazier in the finals. The show was once again headlined by NWA Champion Harley Race, battling Georgia Heavyweight Champion Tony Atlas to a no contest.
As the 1980s wore on, Georgia Championship Wrestling would be sold to Vince McMahon, leading to the infamous ‘Black Saturday’ and The Omni would soon become one of the homes of Jim Crockett Promotions. While the World Wrestling Federation would still run shows at the arena, it was never considered one of their home bases like a Madison Square Garden or Rosemont Horizon. Crockett would hold several Starrcade events, the first of which was in 1985. Headlined by Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair for the NWA Championship, the event saw over 14,000 fans fill the arena. Crockett would return one year later for Starrcade ’86, and in 1987 would host the first-ever War Games match as part of the Great American Bash Tour. Interestingly, while the NWA and WCW would hold a number of PPV events at The Omni, the WWF never would, but did book the entire arena for a closed-circuit viewing of WrestleMania IV in 1988.
The Omni would see one last big event before the close of the 1980s, hosting yet another Starrcade in 1989. Future Shock would feature two tournaments, with the singles side featuring Sting, Ric Flair, Lex Luger and The Great Muta while the tag team side featured The Steiner Brothers, The New Wild Samoans, The Road Warriors and Doom. A vast departure from the Supercard usually featured on Starrcade, the show drew only 10,000 people to the arena, and the concept would not be used again.
Into the 1990s, the law of diminishing returns would rear its ugly head, as crowd numbers dwindled over the course of the decade. The same innovative design that first made The Omni such a marvel in the 1970s was also causing the building to fall into disrepair quickly. Despite this, WCW would continue to run The Omni on an almost monthly basis. In 1992, Starrcade would make its last appearance in the building, this time drawing an audience of only 8,000 fans for a subpar card. While the highlight was easily the finals of the King of Cable tournament between Sting and Big Van Vader, the card also featured the ill-fated Battlebowl Lethal Lottery tag team tournament leading to the battle royal finale, which would be won by The Great Muta. In Championship news, Masahiro Chono defended the NWA Heavyweight Championship against The Great Muta successfully, while Ron Simmons defeated challenger Dr. Death Steve Williams for the WCW World Championship and the team of Shane Douglas & Ricky Steamboat retained the Tag Team Championships against Barry Windham & Brian Pillman.
The year 1993 would see the final wrestling PPV to be held at The Omni, the inaugural Slamboree, which was billed as ‘A Legends Reunion.’ WCW was clearly hoping that bringing stars from the past would help bolster the fan attendance, but the show only drew just over 7,000 fans, of which only roughly half paid, for a horrendous event with the only highlights being Davey Boy Smith challenging Big Van Vader for the WCW World Championship and Arn Anderson, in his only PPV World Championship match, attempting to unseat Barry Windham for the NWA Heavyweight Championship.
From this point, The Omni was pretty much done as a major arena and plans were put into motion to have the building demolished and replaced in order to fulfill Ted Turner’s desire to bring back an NHL team to the area. Many scheduled shows from ’93 on were cancelled, usually due to a lack of ticket sales. In a so sad it’s a funny story, WCW held an event on October 3rd, 1993 headlined by World Champion Rick Rude defending against Ric Flair to which only 800 tickets were sold. According to some reports, scalpers outside of the building were selling front row tickets for only one dollar. Certainly a far cry from the once prominent home of wrestling in Georgia.
Before the building would be demolished in July of 1997, the now red-hot WCW would hold one final event, in this case, an episode of WCW Monday Nitro. Harkening back to when the territory was hot, 13,693 fans packed The Omni for the final wrestling event in the arena, headlined by a tag team match between Lex Luger & The Giant and The Steiner Brothers. As it was 1997, you can surely guess that the match ended in a no-contest following a run-in from the New World Order.
Following the demolition, the Phillips Arena would be erected on the same site as The Omni, and still proudly hosts the scoreboard, the last remaining vestige of the old building. In terms of wrestling events, the building now known as the State Farm Arena has hosted numerous WWE events, including a Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (in 2011), two Royal Rumbles (2002 and 2010) and Survivor Series (2015) among many other events. Perhaps the last notable event to be held at the arena was the episode of AEW Dynamite which featured the steel cage match between Wardlow and Cody Rhodes, who famously did a moonsault off the top of the cage.
Yet despite all of the incredible events held at the Phillips/State Farm Arena, it simply does not immediately pop into one’s mind as being on the same level as The Omni.
That is why it is considered one of the Sacred Grounds.