I've already written this other places so I'm just copying and pasting cuz, why re-invent the wheel?!? ☺
Rec Hall was built in 1928 and opened in 1929. The average guy was 5'7" and weighed 150 lbs. Now the average guy is 5'9" and weighs almost 200 lbs. The benches in that place are way too close together from row-to-row and other than "indented" spaces near the mat you have serious butt-creep everywhere else. There are plenty of lousy seats in there where you have to bend your body at a 45-degree angle to see the mat. The restrooms are antiquated, tiny, and there are not nearly enough for the crowds (Two men's and two women's?) For 6,000 people?! Concession space is abysmal and the selection is limited due to the facilities. Heat and A/C are questionable at best. Lousy parking. Don't even start on the locker room facilities for the teams. And the space itself restricts any sort of high-tech production. Talk about "history" and "atmosphere" all you want. Those are the rationalizations people make to justify some odd sadistic/masochistic desires.
Give me a full-size seat of my own (my own!), with arm rests and knee room (some seats even have cushions!), that face the action. Plenty of restrooms with plenty of space in them. Real concession stands with real food options. 15,000 similarly-minded wrasslin' fans in the same space! (awesome!!) A comfortable temperature (except if you're near the flash pots!). Big open parking lots next to the building. So many locker/dressing rooms each wrestler can probably have their own! Goboes, follow-spots and light shows.
One other plus for BJC is that in Cael's stated efforts to grow the sport, doing wrasslin' in BJC allows more wrasslin' fans to buy season tickets. Sure I have tickets, but how provincial/entitled is that?!. A wrasslin' move to BJC opens up the doors to pent-up demand and gets people season tickets NOW if they want them, and allows for the possibility of creating new wrasslin' fans.
Bottom line... this isn't even close to being a competition. It's BJC all over a building that should be demolished and replaced. Every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
But, as an alternative, either a new build or just tear down Rec Hall gym is also acceptable. Just the northernmost section where the main gym is can be torn down (the rest can stay). New construction geared to wrasslin' and v-ball. 8,000 seats. And the sooner the better because it's my belief that between PSU and Penn, whichever one tears down their gym first, the other will be stuck with theirs for time immemorial to appease the historical folks. And I'm more than fine with Penn being stuck with the Palestra.
