Arènes de Nîmes - Hosting Pro Wrestling Events from 1852 through 2011

A glimpse into the history of pro wrestling at the Amphitheatre of Nîmes. From the pioneers of pro wrestling all the way to WWE.

Let's shine some spotlight on Arènes de Nîmes (also known as the Amphitheatre of Nimes), because it's an arena that holds the interesting distinction of having hosted pro wrestling events over the longest period of time. There is no other arena in the world where wrestling stars from the 1850s and stars from the 2010s, and various stars in between, have wrestled. From Rossignol-Rollin's wrestlers to Paul Pons to L'Ange Blanc to John Cena. It's quite incredible when you think about it.

Arènes de Nîmes

Arènes de Nîmes is a Roman amphitheatre located in Nimes, France. It was built around 70 BE and it's one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres in the world. Reportedly, in Roman times it could hold up to 24,000 spectators while its capacity today is 13,800.

The earliest pro wrestling events that I have been able to find at Arènes de Nîmes took place in the summer of 1852, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that there were earlier ones. Pro wrestling, in the Greco-Roman style, started taking off in France in the early 1830s and by the early 1850s it was experiencing what was probably its first very significant wave of popularity, which explains why wrestling matches were being held in such a large arena. The 1852 series of wrestling events at Arènes de Nîmes were centered around "The Invincible Peasant" Rabasson, who was one of the top stars of French pro wrestling at the time.

Newspaper write-up about one of the 1852 events: "The wrestling spectacle continues to attract many spectators to the arena every Sunday"

Another pair of interesting examples of pro wrestling at Arènes de Nîmes come from 1853 and 1863 when the arena hosted events with the Rossignol-Rollin wrestling troupe. Claude-Eugene Rossignol-Rollin was the most well-known and most successful French pro wrestling promoter of the 19th century and to a certain extent the guy who established the blueprint of professional wrestling (a traveling athletic spectacle featuring a group of wrestlers with distinct characters battling over various prizes ranging from honor to championship belts). His 1853 shows at Arènes de Nîmes featured the aforementioned Rabasson but also other popular French stars such as "Pitiless" Blas and "The Colossus of Gironde" Pujol. As for 1863, in September there was a bullfighting and wrestling event at Arènes de Nîmes. The wrestling portion of the event was managed by Rossignol-Rollin and featured popular French stars like "The Elegant Parisian" Beranger, the shepherd Etienne, “The Lion of La Palud” Marseille (the younger one) and "The Colossus of Gironde" Pujol.

Newspaper advert for the Rossignol-Rollin show in Nimes in 1863

Let's skip ahead a few decades. At the end of the 1890s and into the early 1900s Greco-Roman pro wrestling had an unprecedented boom in popularity throughout Europe, France included. There were many pro wrestling tournaments held in various French cities during this time. The most notable Greco-Roman tournament at Arènes de Nîmes took place in 1905 when the Paul Pons troupe had a tournament there over the course of a few Sundays. Paul Pons, the winner of the first ever World Championship tournament in France, was the most popular French pro wrestling star back then and one of the major European stars of the era. Other wrestlers who wrestled in the tournament were Raoul le Boucher, Clement le Terrassier, Emile Limousin, Jean Amalhou, and a few others.

Paul Pons, Raoul le Boucher, Jean Amalhou and the rest of the troupe at Arènes de Nîmes in 1905

The next example of pro wrestling at Arènes de Nîmes that we'll look at comes from 1959. By that point catch (pro wrestling) had been airing on French national television for a few years and was extremely popular. At that time the masked babyface hero L'Ange Blanc (Francisco Pino) was the hottest star in all of European pro wrestling. In 1959 he headlined a show at Arènes de Nîmes. 

Poster for a wrestling event at Arènes de Nîmes with L'Ange Blanc in 1959

The final pro wrestling events at Arènes de Nîmes were actually by WWE - a RAW house show in 2009 and a SmackDown house show in 2011. The 2009 show was headlined by Triple H vs. Randy Orton and had John Cena vs. The Miz as the semi-main event, while the 2011 show was headlined by Randy Orton vs. Christian with Daniel Bryan vs. Mark Henry as the semi-main event.

Poster for the WWE RAW live event at Arènes de Nîmes in 2009

Photos from the WWE RAW live event at Arènes de Nîmes in 2009

Having said all of that so far, it should be pointed out that Arènes de Nîmes was never a regular wrestling arena in that at most it would host only a few events per year in the summer months. Above I've mentioned just several examples, but there were plenty more. However, there were also many years where there was no wrestling at the arena at all. The arena still exists today and still hosts various live events so you never know - one day in the future there could be a wrestling show there again to extend the arena's time range of hosting pro wrestling events even further.