1980s Era documentary on wrestling in Dorton Arena to air on PBS

Wrestling and the Carolinas have been entertwined for decades. It's Flair Country. Jim Crockett Promotions and the NWA had a stronghold here. That doesn't include countless independent shows that have taken place. Charlotte has the Grady Cole Center and Indepdence (now Bojangles) Arena and had the Charlotte Coliseum. An hour and a half away in the state's capital, Raleigh had Dorton Arena.

Dorton Arena was a Mecca for pro wrestling akin to Yankee Stadium in baseball. Dusty Rhodes, Magnum T.A., and Ric Flair are just a few names that wrestled regularly at Dorton. For several decades, there were wrestling shows every week. It was a boost to the local economy along with a form of entertainment.

Documentarian and native North Carolinian, Cliff Bumgardner had an idea to shoot a 10 minute YouTube documentary about the famed arena. He enlisted fellow North Carolinian, Chris Lea. Lea is a sportscaster for Raleigh's WRAL and commentator for ASÉ Wrestling. He is a former wrestler, which would come in handy when setting up some interviews with other wrestlers. I had the opportunity to interview them for my podcast.

Bumgardner was born and raised in Raleigh and still lives there today. Dorton Arena is on the state fairgrounds, which is fitting giving pro wrestling’s start in the U.S. at carnivals. Bumgardner grew up hearing that wrestling used to be in that building and as he got older, he wondered, “why is that a used to?” He sought to answer that question. Bumgardner and Lea knew of one another due to coworkers telling them the other was a wrestling fan. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they were unable to meet at the time. 

Eventually, Bumgardner got in touch with Lea with his idea for a 10-minute documentary. Lea had been interested in doing a wrestling documentary himself. Lea works as a sports anchor for Raleigh’s WRAL, where wrestling used to be filmed. He had hoped to access the archives and learned that WWE owns a lot of it. Another challenge was that there weren’t a lot of recorded events at Dorton. Bumgardener explains, “there was the Great American Bash that was pretty famous from Dorton in ‘86 and a couple things like that, but for the most part, this was the weekly house show as we think of it now. But back in the day it was the show.”

They were able to get access to “some incredible archives from the 80s, primarily the 80s, I think some are from the 70s, from The News & Observer, which is a big paper here in town and they were very gracious to give us full access.” They also utilized the North Carolina State Archives. During one of the first stops, they gave Bumgardner an envelope of negatives. He laid them all out on a table and he could make out who some wrestlers were like Roddy Piper and Rhodes. Dozens of the negatives were scanned and are in the documentary. “Most of the photos have never been seen before, never been published before, and they’re in the documentary for the first time. So you see some of those in the trailer, but we have a lot more of those in the film.” 

Between finding the archives of photos and talking to so many people, the film grew from a 10-minute project (which Lea quips he knew was never going to be 10 minutes) to a film airing on PBS. It was an ongoing process that evolved over two and a half years. While Bumgardner had a couple friends who helped with some things, it was mostly him and Lea doing all the work. Lea’s background as a wrestler helped with connections in getting some interviews for the documentary. 

The film features David Crockett, son of Jim Crockett, Sr., George South, Jimmy Valiant, Bobby Fulton, Earl Hebner, C.W. Anderson, and Shane “Hurricane” Helms. Bumgardner says that “the love people have for Dorton” helped want people to get involved. Hebner joked that he got to do an interview that wasn’t about Montreal. “It was great to see people’s passion.” While they talked to a variety of people, “for the most part, these were people who walked those ramps, were in the ring, were there for shows during that time and that was a huge get for us.” 

One person who was not keen on being interviewed was “Double A” Arn Anderson. The Four Horseman was not a fan of Dorton Arena and had nothing good to say about it. There was no air conditioner, which makes more a miserable experience in the South. To this day, there is no air conditioning in Dorton.

With many wrestling documentaries, there is either a WWE slant or a focus on the negative side of the business. As Lea points out, “When Giants Walked Here” is giving a cultural perspective to wrestling. “This opens up an avenue for new voices to tell wrestling stories that isn’t always about the drugs, isn’t always about the negative things or who thought they were screwed over or anything like that. This is about the culture and how wrestling was a huge part of people’s lives and how it was a huge part of a community as well.” 

Through his other work, Bumgardner realized there is no museum dedicated to wrestling in North Carolina, like there is with NASCAR. Regardless of what one thinks of wrestling, he believes that “we shouldn’t ignore what it meant to people here, what it meant to business here – the millions and millions of dollars that it brought into the state – having Crockett Promotions here and their incredible success in the 80s and just the downstream effect. When you have a show drawing thousands of people every Tuesday night in one building for 30 years that has a massive effect on a culture. …I feel like we need to acknowledge that and honor that.”

“We found that there was a story. We found that there was a story of a family, we found there was a story of the people who were promoting here. There’s a story of a community and there’s really a story of what happens ultimately when you lose that.” When wrestling quit coming to Dorton in 1993, there wasn’t wrestling in Eastern North Carolina. There are now wrestling shows once or twice a year in Dorton due to some independent promotions. It’s not really set up for modern TV, so it would be easier for a house show to be done there versus a live show.    

“When Giants Walked Here” airs on Thursday, August 8 at 10 PM ET on PBS in North Carolina. For wrestling fans in the U.S. outside of North Carolina, download the PBS app to watch at 11 PM ET. For international fans, they are working on options.