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Though it was home to the ''Big D Jamboree,'' the Dallas Sportatorium was most famous for being locked in a death grip with the Von Erich wrestling dynasty ...

The Dallas Sportatorium is among the most legendary houses that regional pro wrestling built. As 20th century American gladiatorial venues go, the Sportatorium was Dallas' answer to the Roman Coliseum. Though it hosted the Big D Jamboree and various rockabilly concerts and boxing events over the years, its main glory and tragedy was clenched tight with the Von Erich wrestling clan.

An octagonal indoor arena that seated 4,000, the Dallas Sportatorium was originally built in 1936, burned down in 1953 and was rebuilt even better by the standards of the day. Regional pro wrestling had already been its main "promotion," when Jack Adkisson, whose ring name was Fritz Von Erich, took it over in the mid '60s with his World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) promotion.

Fritz Von Erich was a phenomenally successful pro wrestler himself, famous since the '50s for his "Iron Claw" move, a one-handed grip where he finished off opponents by squeezing their heads until the blood flowed. He trained his five sons to use the Iron Claw and other moves as they became the core of his star wrestling line-up. They were Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike and Chris, all of which used the Von Erich stage name.

WCCW's heyday was in the early '80s, when Von Erich's son David was the reigning king. He was expected to win the National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Championship. Before that could happen, however, David died under suspicious circumstances. A heart attack brought on by acute enteritis (inflammation of the small intestine) was the stated cause of death. But later information indicated this may have been induced by a drug overdose.

This was the beginning of what became known as the "Von Erich curse," which did not play itself out until at least five other wrestlers associated with WCCW died in incidents involving violence, drugs or both. Three of them were Kerry, Mike and Chris Von Erich, all by suicide. Also, Fritz's first son had been electrocuted at seven years old.

Accompanying these problems was another battle being fought back in the '80s. It was the fight of regional promoters like Texas-born Fritz Von Erich to keep regional wrestling alive in competition with Hulk Hogan's scripted domination of "heels" or bad-guy wrestlers on national TV.

Ultimately, the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE) continued to buy away regional promotions' best wrestlers, and the Von Erich curse seemed to fall on the Sportatorium itself. Never a particularly lavish or comfortable venue, the drafty arena seemed to degenerate further with each blow and death.

By 2003, when it was finally torn down, the Sportatorium was rat-infested, inhabited by homeless people and had suffered a major fire caused by vagrants trying to protect themselves from the cold. Today, the Sportatorium site at Cadiz St. and S. Industrial Blvd. is a vacant lot across the intersection from a Buy Rite gas station.

If you look closely at the ground, you can find bits of the yellow-gray cement foundation. The whisper you hear may not just be the sound of the wind in the long grass, but the echoes of a long-ago crowd stirred by blood, blows and vengeance.

As the last Romans might have said looking at their own crumbling Coliseum, Sic transit gloria mundi – thus passes away the glory of the world.