Cody Says WWE Has A Lock On Another Arena, What Was The Last Non-WWE Wrestling Event At MSG?

- As noted, Ring of Honor announced that they will be holding a joint card with NJPW called G1 Supercard at Madison Square Garden during WrestleMania weekend on Saturday, April 6, 2019. That same night, WWE will be presenting NXT Takeover six miles away at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It was originally revealed last month that ROH was trying to hold an event at the arena, but WWE had managed to temporarily block it. Until now, no other wrestling promotion had been allowed to run MSG due to their relationship with WWE. Wrestling Inc. was on hand at last week's NJPW G1 Special press conference, and Cody Rhodes revealed that other wrestling promotions also can't run the Staples Center in Los Angeles due to their relationship with WWE.

"I found out the hard way that Staples Center is locked down to WWE," Cody said, while discussing how he'd like to see NJPW take more chances with bigger events in the U.S.

- I was looking into the last time a non-WWE pro wrestling show was held at the Garden, and it appears that it has never happened since the formation of the company in 1963 as the WWWF. Before that, the NWA Capitol Wrestling Corporation would exclusively run the Garden, however that was still owned by Vince McMahon Sr. (and Joseph "Toots" Mondt) and was the precursor to the WWWF. Before that, you'd have to go to 1957 when Manhattan Wrestling Enterprises stopped running the Garden, which was owned by Mondt.

As noted, WCW did hold an event at the Paramount Theater (now called the Hulu Theater) in 1996, which is a 5,000 seat facility located beneath the Madison Square Garden arena, but not at the arena itself.