…and the site for Wrestlemania 27 is…
Atlanta, Georgia at the Georgia Dome.
Access Atlanta is reporting that the city of Atlanta, GA has won the bid to Wrestlemania 27 in the Georgia Dome in 2011. This Monday there is a press conference scheduled there at noon.
Historically, Atlanta has always been a hotbed for professional wrestling in the 1980s, with Ole Anderson and the Briscoes presenting Georgia Championship Wrestling from the legendary Omni in Atlanta. Once Jim Crockett Promotions purchased Georgia, they ran numerous events in the territory including Starrcade, the biggest annual event.
In the 90s, there have been a handful of big pro wrestling shows from Atlanta, capping off with two record-breaking WCW Nitros. The summer of 1998 had a record 40,000+ fans watch the undefeated Goldberg beat Hulk Hogan for the WCW Championship in what many consider the biggest Nitro of all time (and the biggest crowd in WCW history). January 4th, 1999, WCW hoped to top it even further by presenting another historic Nitro, but this show was historic for other reasons: the finger poke of doom.
Many people thought that this Nitro “killed the town”. If that didn’t do it, who can forget the historic 2001 episode of Raw is War where WWE brought back ECW, led by Paul Heyman and the debuting Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer to battle the forces of the WWF and WCW… until the end of the night when Stephanie McMahon was revealed to be the owner of ECW and aligned with WCW. This became the biggest flopped angle in wrestling history. If WCW didn’t do damage, THAT certainly did.
Me personally, I wanted it in Miami. Oh well… can’t win em all.
Atlanta’s Phillips Arena is the site for this Sunday’s Royal Rumble PPV.
