The San Bernardino Arena got even better after I stepped inside. I walked through the miniscule lobby, ecstatic to see that this arena was built exclusively for professional wrestling. The ring was built smack into the middle of the room, and the stadium style ringside seating surrounding it consisted of wooden chairs bolted into the cement. It was obvious there would be no folding up the chairs and disassembling the ring during the week to cater to rock concerts or evangelical happenings during the week. Every pro wrestling essential was planted firmly in the ground here, yielding only to the occasional boxing event. Even the bleachers, the cheapy seats, were permanent fixtures in the building.

On my second visit to the arena, I got my first look at a wonderfully inebriated wrestler on the job. Bad Bad Leroy Brown & The Hangman ---accompanied by manager Eddy Mansfield--- were facing Tony Rocco & Great Goliath. The ring was lit by this humungous monstrosity of a lamp fixture that hung from the ceiling. It reminded me of a single Christmas light for Godzilla & friends on Monster Island, and it took me awhile to get over the uneasy notion that it would somehow become unhinged and squash all combatants in the ring below it.

But behemoth Leroy Brown had no fear of the light directly above him. In fact, he seemed quite captivated by the brilliant yellow that glared down on him. He just stood in the middle of the ring, an open-mouth half-smile on his face, his eyeballs rolling upward, gazing directly into the gigantic lamp. Leroy’s childlike fascination looked all the sillier when taking into account that the bell had rung three minutes earlier. The other three wrestlers were ready to wrestle, but a three hundred pound obstacle sporting an Adidas warm-up jacket and blue tights stood in the way. 

Eddy Mansfield whispered and nudged at Leroy to get to work, but like Ferdinand the Bull, Leroy remained in his standing lotus state. A few drunken fans started singing “Blinded By the Light,” while the traditional wrestling fans, their bodies and minds thoroughly desert baked, hollered at the ref to disqualify the heels for “bein’ goddamn cowards!”   

But Leroy didn’t budge. Another minute passed.  

And then another. 

And then Tony Rocco charged across the ring and plowed into Leroy’s chest with a forearm smash. Now, this was several years before I knew terms like “work,” “stiff” and “shoot,” but Sean and I just gasped when we saw just how hard Rocco nailed Brown.  

Indeed, it broke Leroy’s lucid spell. The light must have given him the fulfillment he longed for, because he didn’t seem at all perturbed by the outline of Rocco’s arm plastered on his chest. The rest of the match went off without a hitch. 

The greatest seats in the arena ---albeit the most hazardous--- were in the front row of the building’s west side. The distance between the ring apron and row one was so minute you could touch the canvas without getting up from your seat. I remember one hot summer night in 1981, when my friend Lloyd and I watched top heel Peter Maivia and Chino Chou wrestling a tepid battle for the Americas belt. The LeBell promotion was in its sad final years, and it was difficult for the wrestlers to fire up the fans. Maivia himself, unbeknownst to just about everyone, was himself terminally ill. But when he was working his heel persona on the fans, you would never have guessed that both he and the promotion were fading into history. Maivia still generated heat better than most of the boys half his age. 

And sitting in that up-close-and-personal front row was one of San Bernardino Arena’s regulars, this dumpy unshaven thirty-something fan decked out in Bermuda shorts and a cowboy hat. This guy actually got more heat than most of the wrestlers. He was an obnoxious drunk who berated his kids in public, and frequently tried to goad other fans into fights. Tonight he was cheering on Chino Chou, but he vaulted over that fine line of “enthusiastic wrestling fan” and into the realm of “playing with fire.” I don’t know just what it was he screamed at the High Chief; but Maivia, holding Chou in a headlock, kept glancing in the drunkard’s direction. The dude escalated from cursing at Maivia to hocking a loogie at him. 

We saw Maivia talking to Chou in the headlock. Chou immediately released himself from the hold, threw a few chops, and then chucked Peter Maivia out of the ring….  

 . ..and smack into the drunken buffoon in the front row! 

The drunkard looked more shocked than scared, as if this were all an honest mistake. Maivia stomped right back into the ring and into Chino’s grasp. Chino threw Maivia out of the ring and into the fan again; this time Maivia plowed shoulder first into the guy’s chest. The fan’s eyes widened, and for the first time that evening he wore a look on his face than resembled sobriety. 

Maivia stormed into the ring again. Chino did a deja-vu toss, and this time Maivia flew out of the ring, but took the bump so that he landed eye-to-eye with his antagonist. It was a glorious sight, this powerful tank of a Samoan seething, dripping with sweat, flashing a violent grin, then screaming in the man’s shivering face “YOU COME HERE TO WATCH WRESTLING OR YOU COME HERE TO GO TO HOSPEEEETAL?” 

The guy froze, unable to shriek, whimper, or even gasp. As soon as Maivia returned to the ring, the jerkoff realized that the westside front row was too intimate a setting for him. He bolted from his seat, raced out the front door, and was not seen again for several months. The bad-ass heel, High Chief Peter Maivia, got a rare round of applause from the San Bernardino Arena’s wrestling aficionados. 

After the Mike LaBell era came to a close at the end of 1982, the building saw sporadic signs of life when various independent promoters tried their luck running in the building. Some folks had hints of success, but most had a naïve notion that the history of the building alone would somehow spark a pro wrestling renaissance. 

Red Bastien gave the San Bernardino Arena its last healthy blast of life when he promoted Lucha Libre in 1989, complete with TV tapings. That was the first time I can remember a huge batch of “Wrestling Observer” sheet readers all congregating at one locale and meeting each another for the first time. That’s where I met Greg Regalado, who would wrestle his debut match with me a few years later. I also met a hepcat named Dan Farren, who went from wrestling fan to referee, booker, and promoter of indie shows in the Southland. More importantly, he is now one of my closest friends. 

So many little snippets in my San Bernardino Arena memory vault… Tim Talltree and Ken Wayne vs. The Davidson Brothers in a macabre 45-minute bloodbath… Big Bill Anderson sitting in the bleachers in between matches, looking totally sinister in his Mercenary mask, yet simultaneously looking placid as he rocked his infant son Audie… Great Goliath, opening the arena before the fans arrived, to train up and coming wrestlers…Harley Race vs. Andre the Giant, and not one bad viewpoint in the building for that NWA title match… PR man Jeff Walton emceeing the shows, and being kind enough to giving this awkward teen access to stars like Bad News Coage and Coloso Colosetti for magazine interviews…Ray Evans hitting the ropes for a high spot, only to have the top rope snap, sending him head first onto the concrete. Poor guy was out of action for awhile… Leo Garibaldi roaming the arena (I later learned the significance of Leo Garibaldi roaming the arena. Even in the dwindling years, the LeBell promotion occasionally saw brief creative surges and rising attendance. I was told that Mr. Garibaldi’s booking was the key)…  

The last time I went to the San Bernardino was in November of 1991. It was an appropriate final visit. After twelve years of cheering heels, snapping pics, and chatting it up with numerous epitomes of wrestling fandom, I finally got to work inside the ring. I wrestled the opener against a great rookie named David Hannah. It was my first match as a full-fledged rudo.  

I put Dave over squeaky clean that night. After my heel rampage, he made the good-old fashioned babyface comeback, thoroughly kicking my ass and cleaning my clock before the pin. As Dave victoriously high-fived the fans on his way back to the dressing room, I staggered to my feet, swaying in narcoleptic defeat, all the while relishing the euphoric mark-of-a-victory I felt by wrestling in my favorite house-of-wrestling, the San Bernardino Arena.  

Adios Arena, it was grand knowing you!  

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