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| Scotty The Body (Raven) and Veronica Christmas Night 1990 at the Portland Sports Arena |
A regular Christmas gift for me was a ticket to the Christmas Night Spectacular that happened at the Sports Arena every year. My mom always brought myself and my friends to wrestling, but Christmas night I usually went alone. Most of my friends couldn't get away on Christmas Night to go to wrestling. I didn't mind, even though the Sports Arena was in a bad neighborhood at the time, I had gotten to know all of the staff and most of the wrestlers. If my mom was late picking me up, Sandy Barr, would sit and wait with me. I was allowed to sit inside the arena after everyone else was shuffled out. This allowed me to chit chat, get autographs, hugs and photos with the wrestlers as they left the locker room and went to the office for, what I can only assume was, their paycheck. According to many stories I have heard, wrestlers were given a cut of the House each week.
Christmas Spectaculars were not televised but they usually had a similar audience to Saturday Night shows or larger. It was not unusual to have special events like Kendo Stick Matches, Cage Matches and Coal Miner's Glove Matches.