NWA Hollywood

This blogger was fortunate enough to see wrestling shows in three different areas on the West Coast during The Territory Era when the era existed.  I've talked about Big Time Wrestling San Francisco in another post already.

 

In Southern California, there was a promotion called by three different names over the 30 years of the area.  It would either be called NWA Los Angeles, World Wrestling Association or NWA Hollywood.  Their base was in Los Angeles and their major shows were at the Grand Olympic Auditorium (pictured above).  The arena was built back at the time of the 1932 Summer Olympics in LA.  Today, the building is a Korean American church.

 

This fan had an opportunity to see an NWA Hollywood show back in June 1976.  It was in an era of popularity of Lucha Libre.  The televison show would take place on Wednesday evenings on a UHF channel called Telemundo that spanned much of the West Coast of America and Mexico at the time.  There were stars galore in the area such as The Guerrero Brothers (Chavo, Mando, Hector) and their father along with Raul Mata, The Great Goliath, Black Gordman and others such as "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Moondog Mayne.

 

The show I went to with some friends was on a Friday evening, a non-televised event.  A near sellout crowd of around 7,000 were not disappointed one bit.  The show had all three Guerrero Brothers in singles matches (which they all won).  The atmosphere was great and the show was roughly about two and a half hours with five matches.

 

NWA Hollywood was around as a promotion from about 1955 to 1982.  Unfortunately for the region, the WWE would eventually take over the region.  .