Of all the famous wrestling venues in the US, few have a more iconic look than the Hammerstein Ballroom. Every arena in the world tends to look the similar after a while, but if a show has come from the Hammerstein, there is no mistaking it. The ballroom has hosted wrestling since 2000, and in that time only eight promotions have ran in it. In this video we’re going to take a look at the Ballroom’s history with pro wrestling. As in my video about the 2300 arena, I’m going to focus on the ECW years, or year.
In 2000 despite the company seeing better days financially, ECW toured all across the US, and even ran in Canada. Gone were the days of them only running in the ECW Arena, and occasionally elsewhere for bigger shows. They even had multiple venues in New York, with some events coming from Elks Lodge in Queens, and others coming from the Manhattan Centre.
The first time ECW ever ran the Hammerstein was a two night event on August 25th and 26th 2000, known collectively as Midtown Massacre. Parts from these events would air as episodes of Hardcore TV and ECW on TNN from the 1st to 15th of September. All together, five episodes of television came from these two events. As early as July the shows were being reported as tentatively happening in the Wrestling Observer. In the July 3rd 2000 issue Dave Meltzer reported that a tag team tournament was being planned for one of the shows. This would be for the vacant ECW tag team titles, as Justin Credible forfeited his title when he became ECW World champion, with his partner Lance Storm also soon to be leaving for WCW. Interestingly, in the same issue Dave noted that the ECW arena, now known these days as the 2300 Arena, had a “for lease” sign out front. The plans were confirmed a month later in the August 14th issue, along with scheduled participants for the tournament, and the plan for three title matches to happen on night two.
On the first of the TV episodes, which aired on TNN on September 1st, they begin the build to the World title match which would air in two weeks. The challenger Steve Corino would come through the crowd, along with Billy Corgan of the NW- Of the Smashing Pumpkins. This Steve Corino is a far cry away from the one that would confront Limp Bizkit and take a beating on stage in the previous year. To find out more about that change, I have a video on this channel about his entire feud with Dusty Rhodes. Billy Corgan would actually get physically involved too, attacking Justin Credible with his own cane, but he would get hit from behind by the Network’s consultant Lou E. Dangerously. The rest of the episode would feature semi final matches of the tag team tournament, including Jerry Lynn pinning ECW World champion Justin Credible, which would foreshadow Lynn beating Justin for the World title at the next pay per view, Anarchy Rulz in October. The main event of the show would be the tournament finals, in which The Unholy Alliance, featuring ECW mainstay Mikey Whipwreck and Yoshihiro Tajiri would defeat Simon Diamond and Johnny Swinger, as well as Tommy Dreamer and Jerry Lynn to win the titles. Simon and Swinger would use the Problem Solver to eliminate Dreamer, leading to Whipwreck pinning Simon Diamond to claim the titles.
ECW Hardcore TV airing on September 2nd opened with an in ring confrontation between the voice of ECW Joey Styles, and Cyrus, the evil representative of TNN, who ECW had a rocky relationship with to say the least. Cyrus is known to modern AEW fans as Don Callis. Here he would shove Joey Styles to the ground, but Joey, just like he fought back against JBL back in the day, chased Callis out of the Hammerstein. On the rest of the episode they would air matches from the tag tournament that they had already aired the finals of on the previous night on TNN. One significant thing though, is that in the main event they aired Jerry Lynn pinning Rob Van Dam, meaning that he pinned the ECW World champion and his most famous rival in the same night.
On the second TNN episode which aired on September 8th, and it would begin with a major angle that took place on night two of the tapings. Cyrus would come out to interrupt the introduction of the show by Joey Styles and colour commentator Joel Gertner, and he would cancel ECW on TNN. While he does this, the ECW fans loudly chant USA. While I at first assumed they were heckling the Canadian Cyrus, writing of this angle in the Observer Dave would note that “the feeling in the company seemed very positive regarding securing a cable outlet after the TNN cancellation with the final show on 9/22. Most of the talk revolves a two-hour late Saturday night time slot on USA Network, although no deal has been finalized at press time and a favorable ruling by the court of appeals could be unfavorable for ECW.” It should be noted that Raw was at the time leaving the USA network and set to move to TNN on September 25th 2000 just days after ECW was set to go off the air. This was just one of the many things that caused bad blood between them and ECW, who would not get another major TV deal with any channel.
The angle then ends in spectacular fashion, as Cyrus claims that a New Yorker couldn’t stand up to him, leading Paul Heyman himself to come out and crack him on the back of the head with a cell phone, much like he used to do as Paul E. Dangerously in WCW. This brings Rhino out, who gores the owner of the company through a table. It then looked like a fan was trying to get into the ring as police swarm into the ring. I have no idea how real this was though, as Rhino then gored a police officer. The locker room then empties, and a wild brawl takes over. Kid Kash then makes his entrance, and body surfs over the crowd of wrestlers, and the television title match between he and Rhino begins. Just when it looks like the ring is clearing and the match might actually happen, the Sandman’s music hits. Sandman hits Rhino with multiple cane shots, but Rhino gores him too. Kid Kash does an amazing springboard dive into all the wrestlers brawling, and we get back to him and Rhino, who gores Kash. It’s still not over though, as Rob Van Dam comes out next. RVD hits a VanDaminator, then with the help of his manager Bill Anfonso, hits the Van Terminator into a chair, thats the move Shane McMahon nicked and called the coast to coast. He and Kash do stereo dives onto Rhino, and an official comes in to count three, and crowd Kid Kash the new Television champion. All of this madness happened in one flowing segment, and it was the intro to the show! In the main event, Mikey Whipwreck and Tajiris tag title reign would last just one day, and would be over before it even aired on TV. Taped on night 2, the Full Blooded Italians, little Guido and Tony Mamaluke would take the titles off the Unholy Alliance, though this would air on September 8th, so the reign in storyline would last a week.
Show four from the Hammerstein would be the September 9th episode of Hardcore TV. This show mainly acts as a recap for the highlights of the previous episodes, where they replay the entire wild segment from TNN the night before. Joey Styles repeatedly refers to it as “fourteen minutes that changed the course of ECW history.” In the main event on this one Rob Van Dam would defeat Scotty Anton, whose gimmick is that he will give you the clap. I’m not kidding. This was a rematch from the recent Heat Wave pay per view. Rather hilariously, Anton attacks and powerbombs Bill Alfonso before the bell, which Van Dam doesn’t even notice because he is too busy posing still. This makes for a different match, as Alfonso had grown to be a big part of RVD’s act in ECW, routinely throwing chairs in on request, and being annoying as hell with his whistle. Van Dam would beat Scotty Anton, and post match would get gored by Rhino, ahead of their upcoming match at Anarchy Rulz.
On the fifth and final episode to come from the Hammerstein, the September 15th ECW on TNN, Steve Corino would finally get his ECW World title shot against Justin Credible. On the night of the tapings, this actually happened third from the top, followed by the RVD vs Anton match, with the taped main event being the fourteen minutes that changed history, with Kid Kash winning to end on a high note. As best I can tell, the only match that didn’t air on tv at all in either highlight form or the full match was Psicosis versus Tony Devito, which was described in the Observer as “said to be an atrocious style clash that obviously will never see television”. On the September 15th show they start with a recap of the fourteen minutes segment, then a match airs from earlier in the tag tournament, with the Unholy Alliance defeating Julio Dinero and EZ Money. The rest of the show, more than half of the hour is dedicated to the Credible vs Corino match, which features run ins from Francine, and the returning Dawn Marie, and ends with Justin retaining the title.The show, and run of tapings closes with Styles and Gertner plugging Anarchy Rulz, where Jerry Lynn would challenge Justin Credible for the World title in his home town.
Prior to the events, in the Observer Dave would note that the shows were expected to sell out at approximately 2500 fans per night. This is according to many sources the capacity for wrestling in the Ballroom, though Game Changer Wrestling would claim to have broken the attendance record in 2022 with 2025 fans. To be clear, I’m not claiming that GCW didn’t sell out the Ballroom, but all of the reporting from the time claims a larger number than they did in 2022. I know what you might be thinking though, Paul Heyman by all accounts didn’t have the best track record with the truth back then, but Ring of Honor also claimed two thousand three hundred for their debut show in the ballroom in 2008. In the following weeks issue, Dave would claim that the shows were a complete triumph. “In what was described as the greatest weekend in the history of ECW, the promotion put on what was reported as two of the best shows in its history at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan on 8/25 and 8/26 so sellout crowds of 2,500 each night, and even got front page color photo coverage the first day and a follow-up article after the first show in the New York Daily News.” Dave’s final note on the weekend was that there were already plans to return to the Hammerstein. “The feeling is that the Hammerstein Center is almost the perfect building for ECW because of the look, the location and the crowd reactions and will likely host a PPV at some point in the next year.”
The next time ECW would run the Hammerstein would be December 3rd 2000, for the event called Massacre on 34th street. This would end up being the company's penultimate pay per view. In the September 18th edition of the Observer, Dave Meltzer would report that “The long talked about plan of moving from doing bi-monthly PPV shows to going monthly appears on the books as they are doing 10/1 in St. Paul, 11/5 in Villa Park, IL and 12/3 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan.” The October and November dates he listed would be the annual Anarchy Rulz, moved from September, and November to Remember events, and the December pay per view, would be added to the schedule. By the time we would get to December though, it was clear that ECW was in trouble. In the December 4th Observer Dave would report that “The house shows scheduled for 12/8 and 12/9 in Dallas and Houston were canceled.”
On the pay per view, which despite being near the end of ECW would draw over two thousand fans, the tag titles would change hands again as Danny Doring and Roadkill would defeat the FBI. Doring and Roadkill would hold on to the titles right to the end of the company, making them the last ever ECW tag team champions. In the other two title matches, first Rhino would retain the TV championship against Spike Dudley, which Rhino would win by choking Spike out. In the main event, Steve Corino would retain the ECW World title against Justin Credible and Jerry Lynn. Moments after Corino wins the match, the Sandmans music plays. He attacks Corino, and steals the world title belt. While he would leave with the belt on this night, he would win it officially the next time ECW was at the Hammerstein, but would he be able to hold on to it?
As well as the pay per view, the pre main show matches would also air on the December 17th Hardcore TV, featuring HC Loc defeating Danny Daniels, and New Jack beating Angel, both in short matches. The December 11th Observer leads with an overall positive review of the pay per view, although not ignoring the other problems ECW had at the time. “Amidst rumors of the company being down for the count, Extreme Championship Wrestling put on a strong PPV show on 12/3, but more importantly, everyone was paid for one pay period (meaning everyone is now five weeks behind in pay). Nobody quit the promotion, which some had talked about doing if they weren’t paid again.” Dave also noted that Paul Heyman told the talent that night that he was looking to make the Hammerstein their home base, presumably with the ECW arena up for lease as noted earlier, and he had two upcoming shows that were paid for by local promoters in Missouri and Arkansas. The latter from the Pine Bluff convention centre would end up being the last ever ECW show.
By this time, ECW looked like it might not be long for the world. The Observer throughout the entire time frame I’ve talked about in this video constantly refers to wrestlers not getting paid this week or that, or lower carders not being booked to save money. By the time of Massacre on 34th street, shows were getting cancelled and less and less were coming up. In the December 4th issue, Dave notes that with barely any shows booked for December, “There is a PPV on the schedule for 1/7, but there is no building booked and no new house shows are on the schedule.” This January show would be the Guilty as Charged pay per view, which would also be held at the Hammerstein, their last pay per view.
In the January 8th newsletter, it is confirmed that Guilty as Charged would take place at the hammerstein, as well as a full card. In the same issue *** Dave also notes that there are big plans for Rhino at the pay per view, and that he was set to be positioned as a top star in the company moving forward. It feels worth saying here that if you saw Rhino before he went to WWE, you’ve seen a very different Rhino. An unstoppable monster similar to what Brock Lesnar would become in WWE a couple of years later. I know that might sound like an odd comparison, but trust me. Part of this might be because Rhino was under six feet tall, and dwarfed wrestlers like Spike Dudley, but didn’t compare as favourable in WWE, long referred to as the land of the giants. Another former ECW World champion, Mike Awesome had a similar problem when he moved on to WCW. He was immediately put into a feud with Kevin Nash, and therefore already looked smaller with his new opponents than in ECW.***
The Guilty as Charged pay per view would go ahead as planned from the Hammerstein with another big crowd, however the reception wouldn’t be as favourable as the other shows. “Guilty as Charged on 1/7 before a sellout crowd of 2,500 fans at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York was the usual ECW show. It came across, with the exception of the return of Rob Van Dam, as more of a regular house show than anything special on PPV.” As Dave writes, RVD’s surprise return in the main event was a big deal, mainly because he had been writing about Van Dam holding out on appearing until he was paid money he was owed. The other major headline coming out of the show was despite him not being part of the ECW World title match, Rhino would leave the night as the new, fresh, world champion, taking the title from the Sandman which kept their feud going. Sandman would win a tables, ladders and canes match, taking the title from Steve Corino and also beating Justin Credible, but Rhino would attack afterwards, leading to a second title match and Rhino leaving as champion. This had actually had a pretty long build to it, as Rhino has attacked and hospitalised Sandman’s wife Laurie at Living Dangerously 2000, and piledriven her through a table at Hardcore Heaven. Rhino threatened to go after his family again if he did not agree to a title match despite not being physically able. A prone Sandman, lying on the mat yelled “ring the bell”. Clearly Paul Heyman had creative plans lined up, plans that sadly wouldn’t pan out. Word coming out of the show from backstage wasn’t good either, “Wrestlers received half pay at the show, leaving them seven weeks behind. The morale was said to be very bad, with the news getting around that, despite claims to the contrary early in the week, that ECW had lost its TV on MSG in New York, its key market and the show didn’t even air the night before the PPV in that market.” The final Hardcore TV would air on December 31st, with more still in the can that never made it to TV, and the New York fans would have to wait four and a half years to attend wrestling at the Hammerstein again.
The next time the Hammerstein Ballroom would feature in the Wrestling Observer would be in December 2004, when it would be discussed as a possible venue, and Paul Heyman’s pick, for the next wrestling event to be held in the venue, ECW One Night Stand 2005. WWE using the ECW branding would promote the reunion show to massive success, so much that the brand would return to television in the following year to, let’s say mixed results. The final of these three shows, the ECW television taping on August 1st 2006 is especially notorious, as it featured as it’s main event of all matches Batista versus the Big Show, to which the ECW fans would chant “change the channel” loudly. As you can probably imagine, WWE wasn’t happy with the crowd that night at all, “particularly the swearing chants where WWE production turned the crowd audio down super low because Sci-Fi doesn’t want that language on the air. The feeling was that the fan base there is smart enough to know that, but still did the dirty language chants not even caring.” Dave also noted that this likely led to the upcoming December pay per view being moved from the Hammerstein to Chicago. This would end up being the ill-fated December to Dismember which would be moved to the James Brown centre in Augusta Georgia. Besides that, I doubt they’d have got the Elimination Chamber in the ballroom anyway.
In 2008, Ring of Honor would begin promoting shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom with an event called ‘A New Level’. In that same year they would also have two of their most important events on the calendar there, Death before Dishonor VI in August and Final Battle in December. Ring of Honor would go on to hold twenty more events over the years, with the twenty fourth being the 2024 Final Battle event, the first there under Tony Khan’s ownership. I always wondered why, given how ROH ran many more events there, the venue is still so linked with ECW. I hope in this video, I’ve managed to answer that question. Even in ECW’s dying days, the few shows they had at the Hammerstein felt like successes. They felt like triumphant moments, where otherwise their TV was getting cancelled, their wrestlers weren’t getting paid and other events were dropping out of the diary. To watch any ECW show from the Hammerstein, you wouldn’t know any of that, even the very last one, with a young fresh face taking the ECW World title from a veteran of the company. In time I may come back and revisit more of the Hammerstein’s history, but for now, those are the ECW years.
Sources:
Wrestling Observer July 3rd 2000, 1st mention of HB: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/july-3-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wwf-wins-lawsuit-go-viacom/
Wrestling Observer August 14th 2000, HB confirmation: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-14-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wcw-turmoil-hall-fame/
Wrestling Observer August 28th 2000, sell out expected: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-28-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-hall-fame-issue-97206/
Wrestling Observer September 4th 2000, Midtown Massacre report: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/september-4-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-fantastic-wwe/
Wrestling Observer September 18th 2000, Massacre on 34th announced: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/september-18-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-rawnitro-ratings-war/
Wrestling Observer December 4th 2000, Trouble for ECW: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/december-4-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-ecw-turmoil-wcw-mayhem/
Wrestling Observer December 11th 2000, Massacre on 34th review: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/december-11-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-ecw-massacre-34th/
(money quote) Wrestling Observer December 18th 2000, Dudleys and Money troubles: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/december-18-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wwf-armageddon-reviewed/
Wrestling Observer January 8th 2001, GAC01 announced, Heyman considers selling: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/january-8-2001-wrestling-observer-newsletter-paul-heyman-considering/
Wrestling Observer January 15th 2001, GAS01 review: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/january-15-2001-wrestling-observer-newsletter-2000-year-end-awards/
Wrestling Observer December 20th 2004, plans for ONS 05: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/december-20-2004-observer-newsletter-brock-lesnar-returning-wrestling/ Wrestling Observer August 7th 2006: WWE not happy with ECW fans: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-7-2006-observer-newsletter-more-on-wwe-smackdown-roster-noah-budokan-hall/
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