Throughout the course of professional wrestling history, there have been events at every type of venue one could imagine. From giant football stadiums all the way down to your local flea market. There have been scores of locales that have seen repeated shows, and then there are those places that become intertwined with certain promotions or certain wrestlers. These are the Sacred Grounds.

When one thinks of professional wrestling in Canada, there are three major locales that immediately come to mind. First, we have Toronto, home of several WrestleMania and SummerSlam events as well as home to Maple Leaf Gardens, which will be covered in a future edition. Secondly, there is Montreal, which I’m sure we all know is famous for a certain event that happened in 1997. And finally, there is Calgary, Alberta. While these days are most frequently known to fans as the home base of the legendary Hart family, in addition to many incredible talents that were trained in the fabled Hart Family Dungeon, it was also once a thriving territory run by the patriarch of the family, Stu Hart. Today we will be looking at the Stampede Corral, a location that housed many of Stampede Wrestling’s events, as well as other promotions, including the WWE as recently as 2019.

One of the older buildings in the area to still be standing, the Stampede Corral was originally built in 1950 for what seems like a paltry amount at $1.25 million dollars Canadian. To put that number in perspective, the same amount today would still seem very low at $14.26 million dollars. The building was originally built as a home base for the WHL (Western Hockey League) Calgary Stampeders team. The building capacity was a modest 6,475, but for wrestling events and concerts with standing room could house an additional 1,000 people. While primarily a hockey arena, it would not take long before professional wrestling would make its first appearance. 

On September 13th, 1951, Larry Tillman’s Montana Sports Enterprises (MSE) would make their debut at the Corral, and in the very first match at the arena, Stu Hart would make his presence known, battling to a time limit draw against Maurice LaChappelle. While there are no known numbers in terms of fan attendance, the MSE would hold a number of shows over the following months, before they would eventually fold up in 1952.

Of course, in 1948, Stu Hart and Al Oeming had formed Klondike Wrestling, which would go through a few name changes (including Big Time Wrestling and Wildcat Wrestling) before finally settling on Stampede Wrestling. Stampede and MSE actually would co-promote some shows in the Alberta area before Hart would set off on his own, officially becoming a part of the National Wrestling Alliance. The first Stampede show (we will refer to all the shows by the Stampede name for simplicity) at the Corral happened just a sliver over a year after the first wrestling show there, on September 17, 1952, drawing a crowd of 3,500 to witness a main event time-limit draw between Al Mills and the masked Mr. X. This would begin a long history of Stampede running shows regularly at the Corral which would continue for over two decades.

Over the years the sheer amount of talent that would pass through Stampede Wrestling has become legendary, from the homegrown talent like the Hart clan to many of the legendary names that would work for Stu Hart. Over the years the Stampede Corral would see several NWA Heavyweight Championship matches, though a title change would never occur. Some of the Champions that made defenses include Pat O’Connor, Lou Thesz, Dory Funk Jr. and Harley Race. Over the years some of the challengers for the title included The Mongolian Stomper, Abdullah The Butcher, Whipper Billy Watson, Gene Kiniski, Andre The Giant and Stan Stasiak. 

Outside of the NWA Championship, many other big-name talents have made their way through the Corral, such as Nick Bockwinkle, both Waldo and Fritz Von Erich, Dr. Jerry Graham, Bearcat Wright, Killer Kowalski, Sweet Daddy Siki and The Fabulous Moolah. On one special occasion on July 5th, 1965, there was actually a World Wide Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Championship match that saw Champion Bruno Sammartino battle to a double disqualification with the aforementioned Waldo Von Erich. 

Over the years, the Corral would become more of a secondary show style venue as the bigger shows would move across the street to the Calgary Saddledome (which over time would become known as the Pengrowth and now the Scotiabank Saddledome) which Stampede would run and then become a regular fixture for the World Wrestling Federation throughout the 1980s all the way to the current day. As the popularity of wrestling has waned in the past decade in comparison to the Golden Era of the 80s and the Attitude Era, when running house shows, WWE made the pivot back to running the Stampede Corral.

Unfortunately in 2016, the decision was made to demolish the Corral for a big expansion of the BMO Centre, which is the big convention centre on that side of the road and is estimated at $500 million. Despite the announcement having been made in 2016, the WWE would still run house shows at the building all the way up until 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled all touring shows for much of 2020 and 2021. The last show to take place at the Corral occurred on September 20th, 2019, headlined by a Universal Championship match which saw champion Seth Rollins defeat Bray Wyatt by disqualification. As the world begins to get back to normal and presumably the demolition of the building gets back on track, it would appear that will be the last professional wrestling match to happen at the historic arena.

Regardless of one’s thoughts on what the final match held in a building that once saw the true titans of the industry work, it is inevitable that the Stampede Corral will be fondly remembered by professional wrestling fans, especially those of us born and raised in Canada. It may not be on the same level as buildings like Madison Square Garden or The Omni, but there is no arguing that the Stampede Corral is one of the Sacred Grounds.