In the years before the Lakers moved into the Fabulous Forum, they played their home games adjacent to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. While they gained an audience in that short period of time, the nation began to realize just how relevant the Coliseum's neighbor could be to the sports landscape at large.
Built on 3939 South Figuero Street in just under 15 months between April 1958 and July 1959 by the noted architect Welton Becket, the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena quickly began hosting basketball games at the collegiate level, routinely hosting UCLA and USC games. On Saturday nights in the winter, the 16,161 seat venue was the place to be in Los Angeles. By the time the calendar turned to the 1960's, it began to host the Lakers, the ABL's Jets, the WHYL's Blades and even the newly established Kings in 1967.
The Lakers made the most noise in the venue by hosting four NBA Finals in 1962, 1963, 1965 and 1966. Although each of those years ended in heartbreak to the Boston Celtics, the Lakers were quickly turning the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena into the city's top arena. That is until they moved to the Forum in 1967.
As the Lakers began to forge a dynasty in the 1980's, the old arena began to lose some of its charm. Still, it proved to be an ample spot to host any number of franchises that were low on cash and was always up for all sorts of conventions that went beyond politics (1960 Democratic Convention). Events led by luminaries such as the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King Jr. drew massive crowds and endeared the arena to so many more individuals who came from different walks of life.
In the mean time, the Los Angeles Memorial Arena also hosted the Final Four in 1968 and 1972 in men's basketball as well as the 1992 Final Four in women's basketball. While it hosted numerous sporting events in basketball, hockey and tennis, boxing was still very much attached to a place across town called the Grand Olympic Auditorium.
Still, despite its small history with the sport, Sylvester Stallone found it more than ideal to shoot scenes for Rocky II in 1979. Thus, while audiences across America were entranced in Rocky's second bout with Apollo Creed thinking that it was set in Philadelphia's Spectrum Arena, their classic fight was actually shot across the country at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
Witht the 1984 Olympics taking over the city as well as its neighbor, the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena hosted the Games' boxing matches. A few months later, the Clippers moved in from San Diego and would stay there until moving downtown in 1999.
In its final years, it hosted numerous concerts led by Michael Jackson, Madonna, U2, the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd. Bruce Springsteen closed it with one final concert in 2016. Demolition soon occurred. Today, the Los Angeles FC's BMO Stadium stands in its place.
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