"It was like a piece of my soul was torn out."

M. Everett Rankin's statement echoes one stated by many who have called Dallas, Texas home most of their lives and loved professional wrestling.

There was a time when professional wrestling in the southwestern part of the United States meant one place: Dallas, Texas.....and specifically The Sportatorium. The hotbed of wrestling for generations of Texans was torn down nearly twenty years ago and that moment still causes these sorts of statements.

And the hole has never been filled.

Promotions have risen up in the area and nothing ever seemed to filly the void. Many of these start-ups failed quickly or never even got off the ground. Others found quick stardom and relocated to even larger areas for the television contracts offered and high dollar talent's demands to live in a less arid climate. Texas has always loved wrestling, but once the great bastion of the sport was gone; it seemed like wrestling didn't love Texas back.

That is where Rankin comes in...

The Grandson of one of the great oilmen of the boomtime era, "little Mikey" was a regular at the Sportatorium every weekend. He loved cheering the good guys and booing the bad guys. In his youth, he watched the famous family battle some of the most arrogant of groups in an arena that seemed more suitable for a 4-H fair than a wrestling show. He went home drenched in sweat almost weekly, but always with stories to tell his family and friends.

He loved the place. It was part of his DNA, and he was not alone. Thousands upon thousands gathered around their television sets if they didn't have tickets and they lived and died with the greatest wrestling ever seen with the toughest family ever to be part of it.

Rankin's childhood friendships revolved around wrestling, especially the other boys who attended the matches. Frank & Terry Rich were about the same age and the three boys always dreamed of someday being in the ring. Often they would yell to the bad guys how they would one day shut them up and the like. As they grew up, "Mikey" became M. Everett so as to be the respectable boss of his Grandfather's oil company. He went to college at SMU like he was told and followed the family line.

His buddies, not so much.

Frank and Terry actually *DID* follow their dream. Frank became "Filthy" Frank Rich and was a former World Champion in other places not found in their backyard. Terry grew into Terry "Stinkin" Rich and tag teamed with his brother and wore World gold in that area of the sport. Rankin always admired his friends for achieving success in what they loved. And they would talk openly about the memories of the past.

And then the metal and wood was torn down in 2003 and those memories were all that was left.

"There comes a time when a man's passion diverges from his occupation," Rankin stated in a recent memo. "And in those moments you jump at the chance to live it out."

More than 30 years after it was shut down and 16 years after demolition, Rankin acted on replacing that missing piece from his childhood. In 2018, the oil chairman handed the reigns of the company over to his son, Garrett Rankin, and took his considerable wealth and decided he wanted to rebuild the building that meant so much to him and countless others in the Dallas area.

It wasn't cheap, but anything worth doing never is. After 10 months of construction and more than 80 million in cost, the "new Sportatorium" was completed in May 2019. Rankin refuses to use the old name for the new structure, choosing to call the building the "Phoenix" as a nod to something rising from the ashes left of the past to forge a new legacy.

Rankin has already secured concerts and events to fill the arena and have it become part of Dallas' culture. However, his true desire was to bring back professional wrestling to the hotbed that was Dallas. He filed paperwork with the Texas State Athletic Commission and he also got the trademark on the name "Southwestern Championship Wrestling."

Yet as much as he wanted wrestling back and his business acumen would help keep things solvent, he knew that he couldn't run the day-to-day of a wresting operation. That is when he reached out to the Rich's for some guidance. Their suggestion was a Texas superstar to take the reigns as the Commissioner of the conceptual federation, Hank Wright.

Wright was fresh off the run as part of a fun, veteran tag team in another promotion and jumped at the chance to be part of the management for SCW. The respect he garners from the boys in the locker room due to his history will be helpful in building something special in Dallas and perhaps beyond at some point.

With that set, Rankin and Wright began reaching out to Dallas TV stations to get one of them to agree to carrying their events live. Finally a taker in KXTX - Channel 39 in the Dallas cable market. They agreed to split advertising revenue with the league for a two-hour time slot every other Tuesday night. Quickly the first airing of "SCW Rampage" was scheduled for June 18, 2019 even before a single part of the roster had been singed. Within days, Houston's channel 39 - KIAH television, singed a similar deal to show. Then the very next day KMYS out of San Antonio joined the initial television roster.

With three Texas markets covered, the landscape was now set. Will SCW return Texas wrestling to the glory days? Rankin certainly hopes so, but only time will tell.