Talk:Nashville Municipal Auditorium

Wrestling shows

• The wrestling show information should stay. Holding 3 of them, which at the time were WCW's largest and most historic shows, is relevant.

TruthCrusader 16:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

• • Agreed. I second this suggestion. --Zpb52 16:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

• • • I will continue to revert this article to show the wrestling events. ONE sockpuppet's opinion does NOT count when the consensus is to KEEP the info.

TruthCrusader 15:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

March 15, 2006

The edits User:Chadbryant is making are legitimate. Another user came in with the help of a bot and resorted the categories. The version Chad is reverting to is correct. Also, I think it is probably in the best interest not to include the section about the WWE coming to NMA for a 2006 SmackDown show. That is probably not notable, but it looks like Chad now agrees that the WCW PPV information should stay, because those are notable. Any disagreements? --Zpb52 21:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

You lost me at The edits User:Chadbryant is making are legitimate. His history of contributions notes many, many instances where he made edits and tried to claim them as legitimate by misusing the Wikipedia definition of "vandalism" or "harrassment" to suit his own purposes. Then there's the multiple amounts of unwanted, unnecessary, unneeded, and unsubstantiated sockpuppet tags he has placed on Wikipedia almost since first signing up with the site. To say a phrase like "The edits Chadbryant is making are legitimate" is akin to saying "The people Saddam Hussein ordered killed were going to die sooner or later anyway." And yes, that's a bit of an extreme metaphor, but really -- I could list the reasons why I used SH rather than say, Joan Rivers or Ghandi. But if I did, I'd be in violation of policy on both personal attack and civility...and possibly a few others, some of them obscure. So I won't explain why. Let's just say there's a good reason and leave it at that. --FARVA 03:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a closed issue. This talk page is not the venue to act out a personal vendetta against another user. Please take that discussion elsewhere. --Zpb52 04:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Remove most of the text to the talk page as unref per WP:V

The concept of a large municipal auditorium was proposed for Nashville in the early post-World War II era, but other municipal priorities took precedence until the late 1950s, when funding was finally arranged. The construction was the object of great curiosity in the Nashville area, in part because it involved the use of a tower crane; many were surprised to learn that this was to be dismantled and not serve as part of the permanent structure's roof support. The Municipal Auditorium marked the last major capital expenditure by the former City of Nashville prior to its merger with Davidson County into the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.

After the 1962 dedication ceremony, the first event held in the auditorium was a week-long gospel meeting conducted by the Church of Christ; this was followed by a rodeo. This pattern of a multiplicity of diverse usages is characteristic of the building's history. It was also frequently used as a venue for rock concerts, especially in the late 1960s and 1970s; a rap concert in the early 1990s turned tragic when there was a mass panic in the basement resulting in a young concertgoer being trampled to death. This building was also the site of Elvis Presley's only Nashville public appearance (although Elvis came to Nashville many times for recording sessions). In recent years, the auditorium has become primarily a venue for concerts, rodeos, motocross rallies, and major touring family shows.

Over the years the auditorium hosted five minor league ice hockey teams, which eventually led to the NHL's arrival and new arena, and two in basketball. Minor league basketball proved to be very short-lived. The Nashville Stars played only one season and the Music City Jammers failed to make it even quite that long, relocating to Jackson, Tennessee prior to the end of their only season (although while in Jackson, they did win the league's only championship). Additionally, there was (for a brief while) a franchise in the ill-fated women's American Basketball League, the Nashville Noise in 1998. The Noise folded when the league did, about a dozen games into their first season (the league's third).

A list of the minor league hockey teams follows:

• Nashville Dixie Flyers (1962-1971)
• Nashville South Stars (1981-1983)
• Nashville Knights (1988-1996)
• Nashville Nighthawks (1996-1997)
• Nashville Ice Flyers (1997-1998)

Other events held at the auditorium through the years included high school basketball, an all-star post-season college basketball game between teams representing Tennessee and Kentucky which was contested several times, and, prior to the completion of the Nashville Convention Center in the 1980s, occasional trade shows and fairs. The Memphis Pros of the old American Basketball Association played a few "home" games there. Even indoor USAC midget car racing was held there on occasion; for this usage a 0.1 mile long track consisting of fountain soft drink syrup was laid around the perimeter of the floor. (This event was probably the only one ever to match the noise level attained by tractor pulls and indoor motocross, which have also been staged there.) Several gospel music events have been held there over the years as well. Additionally, the basketball teams of Belmont University played some home games there (in the 2001-2002 season) while the on-campus Curb Event Center was under construction. For many years, the Auditorium was the only indoor venue in Nashville capable of making ice (using an antiquated, ammonia-based process which was obsolete even when the facility was new) and as such hosted many youth hockey events. (These are now conducted in the ice venue by Centennial Park, which also serves as a practice facility for the Nashville Predators.)

The venue has also played host to numerous notable professional wrestling events. World Championship Wrestling, which enjoyed enormous popularity in the area and made Nashville a routine stop, used the building for three of its flagship Starrcade pay-per-view events (1994, 1995, and 1996). Municipal Auditorium was also the home to the first Wrestle War in 1989 and the last of thirty-five Clash of the Champions shows in August 1997. It was the site of the final WCW SuperBrawl in 2001 as well. In 2002, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling initially used the building as the base for its weekly pay-per-view shows, before moving to the much-smaller Tennessee State Fairgrounds Sports Arena. The venue will hold their fifth-anniversary Slammiversary pay-per-view on June 17, 2007. For many years, World Wrestling Entertainment also used this facility for house shows, TV specials, and pay-per-views. In 1988, the venue was home to an episode of Saturday Night's Main Event where Hulk Hogan squared off against Harley Race. In 1995, WWE used the building for an In Your House PPV where Shawn Michaels defeated Jeff Jarrett to win the WWE Intercontinental Championship.

At one point, Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams seriously considered the Municipal Auditorium as a venue for his Arena football team, but the playing floor is too small for that sport without a major renovation of the entire facility. (In fact, the ice surface was always considerably short of being a regulation hockey rink. Many older ECHL rinks had such a problem.)

Since the completion of the Sommet Center, the Nashville Municipal Auditorium has been completely refurbished to serve as a secondary venue for events which are not of sufficient appeal to fill the newer arena, such as five of the annual men's basketball tournaments of the Ohio Valley Conference (although these have recently returned to Sommet Center), smaller musical shows, circuses, and similar events. Some of the preliminary and junior events of the 1997 U.S. Figure Skating Championships were held there.

In 2004, the GMA Music Awards was moved to from the then-named Gaylord Entertainment Center when GEC officials were informed that the GEC was unavailable because of potential use by the Predators for playoff games.

In September 2005, the Nashville Municipal Auditorium was used as the national staging area for donations of medical supplies and equipment being gathered to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 08:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Reference issue

This article is in dire need of references, citations and sources. Especially the air-conditioning "factoid". We still need a reliable internet source to prove that this information is true. Leo-Roy! ^review/gb 16:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Point-of-View Issue

There is a lot of bias/point-of-view in this article, and whenever I remove it, one of a few specific users will put it back. I'm tagging this for POV. I think whoever's doing this to the article has a few puppets, and possibly a conflict of interest. I'll be watching this article until this issue is completely resolved. Leo-Roy! ^review/gb 22:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Admittedly, The Tennessean is a crappy newspaper, but it is a reliable source for something such as that. Also, it was somewhat better in its pre-Gannettoid days. 2600:1004:B140:7F52:E955:D13E:6A82:FE6B (talk) 20:48, 23 April 2022 (UTC)