A brief answer for someone who worked as a DJ at the former 105.9 The Rebel country music station, hosted a national pro wrestling show "The Wrestling Guys," and now broadcasts for CinDaySports.com. Along with his full-time job as General Manager of the Courtyard by Marriott in Hamilton for Concord Hospitality, and on the board for the Butler County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Stidham's qualified to give a verdict on Hara Arena, which will soon close according to an announcement from arena officials.
"In it's day, it was one of the top arenas in the country," Stidham said.
Stidham said the announcement is sad, but was expected. With newer venues in the area, and with better acccess to the interstate, it was a competitive market - too competitive.
"It doesn't surprise anyone," Stidham said. "It hasn't had a lot of activity outside Bill Goodman's (Gun and Knife Show) and ballroom rentals. This was the place for big concerts, wrestling and all that, but between the Nutter Center, Fraze and the Rose in Huber, there's too much competition. It didn't have direct access to the interstate.
Hara was a go-to for bands and pro wrestling. The World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment) ran shows once a month at Hara Arena. Later World Championship Wrestling had it's Great American Bash pay-per-view event at Hara in 1995 and its Souled Out PPV in 1998. It aired three episodes of its Monday Nitro show live from the Arena, when the show was the most popular on cable television. In the late 1990s, Extreme Championship Wrestling (which was later purchased by WWE and relaunched a decade later on the SyFy Network) ran two of its most successful PPVs at the building.
MAKING HISTORY
Booking Hara was a watershed moment if you were a band or a wrestling promotion. Stidham witnessed more than a few.
When country musician Billy Ray Cyrus, father of pop act Miley Cyrus, was the biggest act in country music, Stidham worked at 105.9 FM The Rebel. He introduced Cyrus before he played.
"We hosted the concert," Stidham said. "I introduced Billy, and it was right at the apex of the "Achy Breaky" thing (Cyrus' hit single "Achy Breaky Heart"). Many stations wouldn't play the song on the radio because they felt it was too rock, but we would. Everybody has a chuckle about it now, but back then he was white hot. The concert sold out instantly, but outside the big hit, he had just the one album and was short on music. He struggled for material. They played the National Anthem, Achy Breaky twice and even "This Land is Your Land."
For five years, Stidham regularly attended WWF's monthly Hara shows. While in college in the early 1990s, he was busy with studies and missed a show. It was at the time the World Wrestling Federation had signed NWA Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair. Hulk Hogan, who was a movie star as well as a wrestling at the time, was still with the company. Flair and Hogan were the two biggest stars in the history of the business and a dream match the two was always considered impossible, even if they were in the same company. Stidham decided to skip the show, a mistake he still regrets.
"Hulk Hogan was still there, he was one of the biggest stars in the world," Stidham said. "Flair had just come into the WWF, and there was speculation if they would ever wrestle. When the arena filled, before the first match they announced the main event would be Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan. They didn't announce it before the show. They kept it as a surprise and said it was a special main event. It was the first time they ever wrestled, the two biggest wrestling stars in the world."
Stidham interviewed Flair years later when he hosted "The Wrestling Guys," a local pro wrestling radio show that broadcast on a local 50,000 watt station and had a national audience on the internet for 10 years.
"Flair said it was just a test match to see what kind of chemistry they had," Stidham said. "I was in college at the time and that was one time I didn't make it."
Throughout the decade, Hara continued to host the biggest acts in music. Nirvana played Hara in 1993, shortly before lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain died. In the late 90s, when wrestling was hot again and became a large part of pop culture, one of the driving forces behind the popularity was Extreme Championship Wrestling, a promotion whose content was more adult.
They hosted their Heatwave '98 PPV at the arena, Stidham helped promote the PPV with the radio show and did "mall walks" - if fans could spot the show hosts with the Dudley Boys tag team, they would get free tickets.
The show was the company's first excursion outside the northeast for a major show. It sold out and at the time was their biggest crowd to date.
"I was in the locker room and their was such a feeling of accomplishment," Stidham said. "They packed the arena in 1998 and again in 1999. This was a building the WWF and WCW sold out. It had hosted wrestling since the 1960s. (Owner) Paul Heyman and (booker and wrestler) Tommy Dreamer understood the history of the building and what that night meant."
Fans chanted the comapny's initials for an hour before the beginning of the show. Afterwards, when the PPV was officially off air, wrestlers filled the ring and saluted the fans and thanked them.
THE NIGHT OF THE RIOT
The company returned for Heatewave 99 the next year and sold out again. The company's main bad guys were the Dudley Boys, who later became stars in the WWF/WWE and are known as one of the great tag teams in history. Dayton wrestling fans were known for their edge and were considered "smart" by the wrestlers - they understood what they were watching was a show and not a real fight. When the Dudleys entered for the main event, they had a few cheers - it soon turned into boos, then a full blown riot after a 20-minute tirade on the microphone by wrestler Bubba Ray Dudley, directed toward the crowd.
"I was backstage, I got to meet a lot of people," Stidham said. "We had seats, and they were in the taped off section right under the hard camera. It was me and my friend Eric, and no one but five empty rows around us. What was great, when you watch the PPV, what you see on camera was my actual view."
Stidham was sitting in the safest spot in the arena during the main event, when the crowd turned after Dudley began insulting a mother and daughter at ringside, he began dropping four-letter expletives on the town and other fans. A large portion of the 5,000 people charged for the ringside guardrails.
Dayton independent wrestler, the late "Big Daddy" Rog Cox, and his group of wrestlers often worked security for ECW when they wrestled in the Midwest. They managed to keep fans from getting over the guardrail and into the ring and kept the situation from getting worse.
"Absolutely it was a riot," Stidham said. "ECW was the 'extreme' promotion, but even by their crazy attitude and the whole WWF 1990's 'Attitude Era' wrestling standard, that was going way over the line. It was so intense and it was a little bit scary. I can't imagine being in the sixth row, and how it felt. I was thinking, 'Is he really saying this?' People were trying to attack them in the ring. God Bless Rog Cox and his roster from keeping it from turning into a riot."
Dudley and Stidham talked years afterward. The moment has become a seminal event in the history of the company. It's regularly referenced in wrestling documentaries and still a major topic on wrestling websites and Reddit forums 17 years later.
"It's something people chuckle about now, but I can't believe it happened," Stidham said. "Today, it would never happen in this climate. I talked to Bubba since then, and that was his job. To get the building to hate him."
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