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Today's edition of the Philadelphia Daily News features an article on the New Alhambra, formerly the ECW Arena, in South Philadelphia, noting issues that the venue has had in recent months that led to the departure of boxing promoters Joe Hand from the venue (which ESPN named the best TV boxing venue a few years ago) for The Blue Horizon.
Most interestingly, the article notes that the future of the famed professional wrestling venue, which birthed the original ECW and became the epicenter for hardcore fans in the early 1990s, could be a bleak one, stating in the second paragraph, "Reports are that the building's owner, the Center City law firm of Stein & Silverman, will lease the property to a company that intends to convert it into a health club."
According to a source PWInsider.com spoke to after the article came out, there has been awareness in some circles regarding a health club coming into the venue, but nothing that would lead anyone to believe it would be shutting down as a host venue for professional wrestling events. It's possible that health club would simply replace space set aside for Hand's training center and not cause any changes to the live events held in the facility.
However should the venue shut down, it would be the end of an era for a building that was considered to be one of the best venues anywhere in the world for professional wrestling atmosphere at its peak and one that was synonymous with the energy and feel of the original Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion, where walking into the venue was a throwback to the old smoky fight clubs of yore that existed before WWF homogenized professional wrestling with their national expansion in the 1980s.
Beyond ECW's famous run, the venue has hosted countless independent promotions in the last several years, including Combat Zone Wrestling, Ring of Honor, CHIKARA, XPW, 3PW, Jersey All Pro Wrestling and the Hardcore Homecoming ECW-themed reunion shows. WWE ran one house show there as part of their June 2006 ECW rebirth there and there have also been several TNA house shows held there in conjunction with Hermie Sadler's UWF promotion.
The Daily News article noted that Joe Hand had financed $70,000 in improvements to the venue in recent years. "To stay [at the New Alhambra] and not own the building would have been foolish on my part. And, to be perfectly honest, there were problems. Every time we put on a fight card there, we had to go in early to help set up the chairs. There were always issues with setting up and breaking down the ring. We won't have some of those issues at the Blue Horizon."
The New Alhambra's website lists professional wrestling events through April 11, 2009 on their website's schedule. Should anything additional break, we'll have more here on PWInsider.com.
To read the Philadelphia Daily News article, click here.
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