20 Things You Could See at a 1979 Wrestling Show That Are Gone Forever (Fans Still MISS Them)

Tuesday night, August 21, 1979, at the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory in West Tampa, Florida. Standing room only, the air gray with cigarette smoke, and Dusty Rhodes pins Harley Race for the heavyweight championship of the world in front of his home crowd. Five days later in Orlando, Race won it back. Almost everything in that building is gone now. These are 20 things you could see at a wrestling show in 1979 that you will never see again. Number 20 is an animal. Number 5 is an old man with a hawkbill knife. And number 1 is something you never needed a ticket for. It disappeared in a hearing room in New Jersey, and it never came back. On this 1970s territory wrestling countdown: The wrestling bear, from Victor to Terrible Ted and Ginger Globe Poster's hand-set fight cards from Baltimore and the Apter wrestling magazines Cigarette smoke under the arena roof and the Tuesday night armory crowd The Tampa TV studio, Gordon Solie, and Wrestling at the Chase in St. Louis Live Memphis wrestling on Saturday morning, the weekly loop and the loser-leaves-town match The traveling NWA world champion, two-out-of-three falls and the regional belts Andre the Giant as a special attraction, the heel's car and Ole Anderson's knife Separate cars, the old buildings, the territory map, and the belief that held it all together Tell us in the comments where you're watching from and which building was yours on wrestling night. And type the name of the heel you hated most as a kid. If you grew up in one of the old territories, subscribe for more true stories of the promoters, the wrestlers and the buildings that are gone. Nobody will ever again stand in a smoky armory on a Tuesday night believing, really believing, that the world title just changed hands because the better man won. That feeling held the whole territory system together, and it may be the thing fans miss most. The armory is still standing in West Tampa, its old faces hanging in their frames on the wall. #TerritoryWrestling #DustyRhodes #OldSchoolWrestling