18th & Grand . . .

By Rick Farris

The first time I laid eyes on the building was in the 50's.
I was probably four or five-years-old, but I remember what I saw, and I knew what it was.
It was a prizefighter. A huge mural of a boxer that adorned the outside wall of the Olympic Auditorium.
We were just driving by, I was with my parents.

I came to believe that the boxing we watched on friday nights came from that buildling, but I was wrong.
The fights I remembered came from back east, and around the country.
However, that building spelled boxing to me. Just look on the wall when you pass by on the 10 Freeway.

Of course, that mural was peeled off nearly twenty years ago when Jack Needleman bought the building and renamed it the "Grand Olympic Auditorium".

Nobody needed to tell guys like Frank and I that the Olympic was Grand. The old broad must have laughed herself, at the irony.
Jack Dempsey himself was there when the ground was broken. He was heavyweight champ at the time.
She was around when there was competition in town. There was once a place called the Hollywood Legion Stadium just down the road.

When Needleman took over, he thought the place needed a face lift to rejuvenate it.
What it needed was a promoter.
Without an Eaton, Parnassus, Working, Navarro, etc. and their brilliant ring attractions, the place was destined to fail.

Now we have Indian Reservations, and Vegas. We have MMA and PPV, and women's boxing.
Thank God for YouTube and DVD's. The only place where you can find evidence of talent.

Today, you have to look backwards, or just forget about it.