Grizzz Explains Wrestling: What Never Happened in Vegas, Stayed in Vegas

The 28th Explanation

Welcome to Grizzz Explains Wrestling (GEW). Sometimes, my friends send me tweets related to pro wrestling that, to an outsider, looks pretty wild. Other times, I find tweets or social media posts on my own that seem pretty wild, too. I use my knowledge of professional wrestling to provide context and understanding.

My name, is Maxwell Jacob Friedman, I’m better than you, and it’s time to strap in.

On April 26th, 2019, a Twitter user by the name of Brian Schmid shared this with the world:

“Oh, you didn’t know? You better callll somebodaaaaay and go to the new WWF Hotel & Casino!”

My friends asked me, what exactly is the context behind this post? A WWF … Hotel … and Casino? How? When? Where is it and why? WTF is going on here!?

Usually I establish the Who’s Who, but in this instance, the Road Dogg and Chyna don’t matter in the context of the WWF Hotel & Casino. Mitt Romney had it wrong when he said, “Corporations are people, my friend.” It’s actually buildings.

On August 7th of 1998, WWF announced that they acquired the former Debbie Reynolds Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for $10 million via a bankruptcy auction. The facility featured 193 hotel rooms, a casino, and a 500-seat showroom, all seated on top of six acres of land just off the Las Vegas Strip.

It was a phenomenal deal for the WWF and a terrible deal for owner Debbie Reynolds, who was buried in millions of dollars in debt at the time and hoped the auction would help her out. Her son, Todd Fisher, commented that not only was Debbie somber during the sale, but that the sale was less than what was needed to pay any claims to creditors. But the WWF was more than happy to declare ambitions of promoting both themselves and the city in this acquisition.

“It’s [a] new venue in which to entertain our fans … We are anxious to get the plans developed for renovation of the property and to inject some WWF attitude into Las Vegas.”

Concept video of the WWF Hotel and Casino would soon emerge. As if it was edited by Kevin Dunn himself, the video features sweeping shots and rapid cuts of a computer generated building with WWF’s massive logo overlayed on the building exterior.

Massive building-wide branding … a marketer’s wet dream.

Eventually, the video takes us into the interior, revealing a road that goes through the ground level of the building. An interesting item of note during this concept video is that the WWF logo seems to be a hybrid of their old blocky “Federation” logo with the new scratched “Attitude” logo.

Honestly, I kind of like this logo.

The camera takes us inside the building, a giant hall with slot machines, poker tables, and large television screens featuring WWF matches. Separate stores for “Retail” (what must’ve been the gift shop) and “Ticket Sales” are inside, a food court named “Armageddon”, as well as a restaurant called “Vince’s Steakhouse”. You can see the concept in its three-minute entirety below:

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Beyond this video and the Road Dogg’s T-shirt, not a lot of material exists regarding the Casino, mainly because it never accelerated past the proposal stages. According to Bruce Prichard in his “Something to Wrestle With” podcast, other ideas were pitched, including:

• Betting chips featuring Stone Cold Steve Austin’s likeness
• An Undertaker-themed Tattoo Parlor
• A Sable-themed lingerie store
• Wrestling matches performed daily in the venue
• Retired wrestlers employed as greeters
• Hotel Rooms themed after wrestlers like The Rock

As for why the venue never advanced beyond planning stages … Linda McMahon determined it would cost about $100 million to remodel the location into a 35-story hotel/casino. Undoubtedly, location was also a concern since the casino was not directly on the Las Vegas Strip. So, right before the demolition of the former Debbie Reynolds Casino took place, WWF canceled all of their plans for Las Vegas entirely.

“After we bought it, we realized it just wouldn’t meet our expectations of being able to provide our brand of entertainment on the right scale. So we decided to sell it. We have no immediate plans to purchase other property in Las Vegas, but I couldn’t rule that out.” — Jude Everhart, WWF Spokesman

The property was sold two years later for $11 million, effectively making $1 million in profit. The casino itself was eventually demolished and became a parking lot for other nearby events.

The former location of the Debbie Reynolds Casino, and the WWF Hotel & Casino that never was.

Somehow, merchandise of the Hotel & Casino exists on the Internet, as at the time of this writing, a seller out of Fukuoka, Japan is selling a medium-sized shirt of the casino, featuring the slogan: “Cause Life IS ONE BIG CRAPSHOOT”.

I’ve been known to buy some silly stuff, but this … I can do without this.

Not to be outdone by their competitor seeking space in Vegas, World Championship Wrestling sought out a less ambitious acquisition, by opening their own restaurant called the WCW Nitro Grill.

In January 1999, WCW broke ground on the Nitro Grill inside the Excalibur Hotel & Casino, located on the south end of the Las Vegas Strip. The Nitro Grill was to feature some ideas familiar in concept to the WWF Casino & Hotel, including:

• Large TV’s showing wrestling matches/shows
• A merchandise store
• Meet & Greets with the wrestlers

One interesting/original idea was that the restaurant would be split off into sections themed around WCW’s pay-per-view events, including Halloween Havoc, Road Wild, and Bash at the Beach.

Concept art of the WCW Nitro Grill.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, wrestlers Diamond Dallas Page and Kevin Nash promised that they’d be regular patrons at the venue, but mainly with one thing in mind.

“We’re live and in color and we talk, and I guarantee we’ll be drinking.” — Diamond Dallas Page

“I look forward to coming here and drinking [for] free.” — Kevin Nash

A few months later, almost coinciding with WCW’s brand revamp, the restaurant did open! Appearing at the grand opening included wrestlers Kevin Nash, Sting, and Roddy Piper, as well as Konnan and a couple of the Nitro Girls. As for the menu itself, the entrees were appropriately named based on wrestling moves, wrestlers, and even the pay-per-view events.

The Face Buster Fajita better be spicy as all hell.

A review from Gayot was actually quite positive about the venue:

Surprisingly, the food is fairly good, featuring steakhouse-and-burger fare we enjoyed no less than we did other examples around town where there was less atmosphere. Of course, you’ve got to be in the right frame of mind, but if so, this could be a blast for fans and even fun for those who think they’re too cool to enjoy a choreographed body slam.

The restaurant also acted as a “museum” featuring WCW memorabilia like Sting’s iconic baseball bat. The servers’ aprons featured World Championship belts. There were watch parties of WCW Nitro every Monday night. Where the WWF Hotel & Casino failed for aiming too high, WCW succeeded in providing the sort of experience fans clamored for.

However, the Nitro Grill closed on September 30, 2000, with WCW folding as a company six months later and being purchased by the WWF.

While the WWF saw some short-term success with their “WWF New York” restaurant in Times Square, and even considering that they’re now worth over $6 billion, they’ve since not considered returning to Las Vegas to feature a permanent attraction. Personally, I think a Vegas location with regular matches, a museum, and other events would make for a brilliant tourist destination for wrestling fans, and likely even entice fans to visit the city. Maybe someday.