Cody Rhodes triumphs in final WWE show at James Brown Arena

The venue that hosted 2006’s December to Dismember event is closing its doors soon.

The Road to WrestleMania rolled through Augusta, GA, on Saturday night (March 16). For WWE and its Superstars, this was their final time at the historic James Brown Arena.

And they went out with a bang.

In the evening’s main event, Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre put it all on the line in a street fight match. In February, McIntyre got the best of Rhodes in a singles match on Raw ahead of Elimination Chamber. But luck was not on McIntyre’s side on Saturday.

After an intense battle, Rhodes, a Georgia native, caught a charging McIntyre with a superkick. Next, he placed his stunned opponent onto a table and began battering McIntyre with a series of strikes. With the Scottish Warrior incapacitated, Rhodes ascended the top rope, à la Jimmy Snuka, and dove off with a flying splash on McIntyre through the table to score the victory.

As he builds momentum for his title match against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania, it would appear that Rhodes has the whole world in his hands. While that may be true, that honor still belongs to the late Bray Wyatt, as his Firefly fan base in Augusta paid tribute to him during the main event.

More than 6,000 fans were in attendance for what was WWE’s final event at the James Brown Arena. The 40-year-old arena is closing this summer as a new, state-of-the-art James Brown Arena will be built from the ground up. The new facility is expected to open sometime in 2026.

In 2006, the arena hosted the heavily panned December to Dismember, an ECW pay-per-view event under the umbrella of World Wrestling Entertainment. It was named Worst Major Wrestling Show by readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and had only 90,000 pay-per-view buys. It was the last ECW-branded pay-per-view show by WWE and was the end of Paul Heyman’s run with the company following creative differences with management regarding the event.

Heyman returned to WWE in 2012, where he has remained ever since, and will be inducted into this year’s Hall of Fame class.