Funks vs. Briscos in the Tampa Sportatorium

The Famed Tampa Sportatorium Today

While Tampa's famed Sportatorium at 106 North Albany wasn't a TV studio in the purest sense, it certainly served as one for several decades through the 1960s-1980s. This was the home of weekly television tapings of "Championship Wrestling from Florida" hosted by Gordon Solie and promoted most famously by Eddie Graham, the legendary wrestler, promoter, and at one time president of the National Wrestling Alliance.

 

It was also the home office of Deep South Sports, Inc., the company run by Graham that presented live wrestling events throughout the Sunshine State.

This article below, by Thad Moore (then at the Tampa Bay Times, now at the Charleston Post & Courier), talks about the recent auction of the property (2016) and the ghosts that still haunt 106 North Albany. (2024 Update: The building may be demolished. See down below.)

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The Fate of the Tampa Sportatorium (Feb. 2016)

TAMPA — They sat in folding chairs and stood in the back of a worn-out warehouse, all eyes trained on the center of the room, looking for a few minutes of spectacle.

"Let's get ready to rumble!" Vincent Gess shouted into a microphone.

In a sense, the crowd offered a return to form for the building just off W Kennedy Boulevard. The nondescript stucco structure at 106 N Albany Ave. was the site of Tampa's Sportatorium, where throngs of fans would show up for weekday wrestling matches, among the first to be televised around the country.

But instead of seeing one last fight, the weekend crowd came to watch the building — and a slice of Tampa's history — be auctioned off.

After a few minutes of bidding, the former site of the Sportatorium was sold for $695,000.

The auction didn't come down to the building's history, to the fact that the fights held there for more than two decades were sent on videotapes to be broadcast on TV stations up the East Coast, or that big-name wrestlers like Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea, Andre the Giant and "Nature Boy" Ric Flair paid visits. Bidders didn't think much about Championship Wrestling from Florida, as the show was known, even though it helped spawn a billion-dollar industry.

As bidders appraised the building, they said it just seemed like a good piece of real estate.

It's a block off busy W Kennedy Boulevard in bustling South Tampa, and it has 7,500 square feet, including enough space for two storefronts, an apartment or offices upstairs, and a warehouse in the back.

The winning bidder, Judith Cataldo, liked that the venue has high ceilings and a historic feel.

But its role as the "beautiful Sportatorium," as announcer Gordon Solie described it to viewers around the South and Northeast? Cataldo said that history wasn't much of a factor.

She plans to renovate the building to make room for a piano performance space and a few studios. In a few years, she hopes to move her business, the Musical Arts Piano Conservatory, from its location next door. In the meantime, she'll probably lease it out.

"It's going to be a performance of a sort," Cataldo said. "We're going to wrestle with the keys."

Still, Cataldo does think she'd like to bring back one aspect of the Sportatorium.

The warehouse still has the poles that held up the turnbuckles and ropes for its elevated ring. Maybe, she suggested, that would be a good place to build a recital stage.

Maybe it would be a good place to put on a show. 

Original article on Tampa Bay Times website:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/tampas-sportatorium-sells-for-695000-to-become-piano-conservatory/2267163

 

2024 Update:

The former home to Championship wrestling in Florida, the 'Tampa Sportatorium,' could be facing demolition
Sportatorium Tampa
TAMPA, Fla. — The former home of Championship Wrestling in Florida could soon be history.

The 'Tampa Sportatorium,' located at 106 North Albany Avenue, looks to be facing demolition.

Subtext Living, a Missouri-based company, plans to construct an eight-story building with both housing and commercial space, according to a post on the company website. They hope to break ground at 2117 West Kennedy Boulevard in 2025.

One of the blocks adjacent to the proposed development is the former television home of Championship Wrestling in Florida. Subtext purchased it in March of 2023 and paid $1.7 million.

From 1965 through 1987, the small building at 106 North Albany was home to Championship Wrestling from Florida with Gordon Solie. Professional wrestling legends The Great Malenko, Dusty Rhodes, Jack and Jerry Brisco, Mike and Eddie Graham, Steve Keirn, and Austin Idol – among others – cut their teeth in that building.

“If it happens, that is very sad. I have a lot of great memories from that place,” said former professional wrestler/Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair said when he heard the news. “I first stepped foot there in 1975, and for the next three years, I was ‘stretched hard’ – trained by some of the best in the business.”

‘Stretched’ is a term applied to those trying to break into professional wrestling. Anytime a ‘wanna-be,’ would come around, the promoters would put them through a gauntlet of training exercise to try to get them to quit.

According to Blair, some of the hopefuls would run out a side door, leaving their belongings behind.

“It was torture; I came away with new bumps and bruises every single day,” Blair recalled. “It was very, very difficult part of the process. They [the promoters] needed to see if you had what it takes to be a professional wrestler – it was not easy to break in back then.”

During his in-ring career, Blair performed at WrestleMania and was one-half of the World Wrestling Federation tag-team champions with Jim Brunzell—known as the Killer Bs. Once he became established in the business, he became a trainer for CWF.

“We would have guys that watched it on TV and show up to the building saying they could be the next Dusty Rhodes or Jack Brisco,” he said. “It was my job to convince them otherwise.”

Another well-known Tampa-based venue for CWF back then was the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory, which sits less than a mile from 106 North Albany. In October 2013, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Three years later, it underwent a $30 million renovation and was converted into the Bryan Glazer Family Jewish Community Center.

In August 2018, a wall comprised of historic pictures of professional wrestlers went up at the facility, paying homage to the grapplers of yesteryear – it is called ‘Wrestling at the Armory.’

ABC Action News reached out to Subtext Living to confirm plans for the development but has not heard back.

 Original Article 

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Ring The Damn Bell
The Sportatorium: So Long from the Sunshine State

Man behind the Mike: Gordon Solie

From Wrestling Revue
February 1966

At the age of twelve, when most boys dream of becoming firemen, policemen or aviators, Gordon Solie was entertaining thoughts of becoming a radio announcer. He followed the idea through high school, taking all available courses in broadcasting and dramatics. Today, at thirty-six, Solie is one of the foremost announcers in the nation. This distinction is due largely to a syndicated television program entitled, "Championship Wrestling From Florida."

After finishing high school, Solie joined the United States Air Force and was sent to Okinawa. Upon returning to the United States, Solie was assigned to the Seventh Geodetic Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base. Here, he became a member of WRCN, the base radio station.

While announcing for Uncle Sam, Gordon got acquainted with Vinn Marshall of KWKH radio. Marshall, an "old pro," gave Solie many valuable "pointers" whenever Gordon visited the commercial station following his own sign-off trick at WRCN. Through it all, Solie managed to eke out three or four hours sleep each night, as he was also working a regular daytime shift with the Air Force. It was sometimes pretty hard to keep going," Gordon recalls, "but the valuable experience I got was worth it." Upon leaving the Air Force, Gordon Solie journeyed to Tampa, Florida, to try his luck as a professional announcer. His first job was at a small independent radio station known as WEBK. The station (now WSOL) had no sports programming whatsoever, and Solie was quick to recognize the opportunity. It wasn't long before he had his own fifteen-minute sports show each evening.

As WEBK's first sports announcer, Gordon interviewed many of the day's top wrestlers, such as the late Gorgeous George, Primo Carnera, Baron Leone and Wild Red Berry.

After one year at WEBK, Solie was contacted by WFLA, then the area's top radio station, and asked to join the staff. He readily accepted. At WFLA, Gordon soon became good friends with Milt Spencer, that station's sports director, and it wasn't long before the two of them came up with a late night show which rapidly became the most popular in the entire area.

Not long thereafter, Solie announced a live automobile race at Speedway Park, just outside of Tampa. He did so well he was offered a full time job at it. After three years with Art Swenson and the Auto Thrillcade, Solie was named as the outstanding outdoor announcer in the country. When he returned to Tampa, weary of the road and looking forward to settling down to a more normal existence, "Cowboy" Luttrall, Tampa's wrestling promoter, offered Solie a job as publicity man. Solie accepted, and it was natural for him to become the wrestling commentator on the now highly popular weekly TV program.

The next big development in Solie's career came when Frank Dery Jr. interested him in building a race track for stock cars in Tampa. The resultant Golden Gate Speedway has become the finest short track stock car race-way in the entire United States. Solie handles the mike for the races at Golden Gate every Friday and Saturday night.

A many-faceted person, Gordon is also half owner of a new motor oil distributorship in Florida, is secretary of the Southeastern Promoters Auto Association and chairman of the Babe Zaharias Cancer Fund Drive in Tampa. Known as "Scrambler" according to a recent story in the Tampa Tribune, Solie continues to look for new fields to conquer.

"My first love is wrestling," he told us. "I feel that wrestling and stock car racing are the two outstanding action sports in the United States. The men I have met in both professions lead me to believe that you will go a long way to find nicer, more sincere people anywhere. Lou Thesz, Don Curtis, Eddie Graham, Haystack Calhoun, Fireball Roberts, Ned Jarrett, Art Malone and Don Garlits are some of my favorite people and I feel that I am privileged to know them."

Married to the former Eileen Thibaut of Lorain, Ohio, Solie has three children, Denise, sixteen, is an athletic young lady with an interest in acrobatics. Greg, a fourteen-year-old wrestles as an amateur. Eric, the eleven-year-old, in interested in be-coming a race driver.

With such a talented family Gordon Solie could even produce his own shows.



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Thanks to Carroll Hall at All Star Championship Wrestling who provided this article to the Mid-Atlantic Gateway.