Exit stage left for music acts and welcome wrestling! NXT wrestling tapings will begin taping this week in Midtown Atlanta’s Center Stage. The popular weekly WWE Network program is et to begin taping Thursday, Jan. 4, Thursday, Feb. 1, and Friday, Feb. 2, 2018.

Center Stage is no stranger to wrestling. High-profile bouts of NWA and WCW Saturday Night have been held there featuring ring legends such as Lex Luger and Sting.

While not as well known to Atlantans, the stars of NXT are going to be seen and heard a lot more around Atlanta. They include: NXT Champion Andrade “Cien” Almas, Mae Young Classic winner Kairi Sane, Aleister Black, NXT Women’s Champion Ember Moon, SAnitY, The Undisputed ERA, Johnny Gargano, Roderick Strong and more battle inside the squared circle.*

@WWEDozovic and I are ready to show Atlanta why we're the future of @WWENXT

Best believe we will run through anyone who gets in our way.#NXTAwardFutureStar pic.twitter.com/IUEdM18fOo

— Tucker Knight (@TuckerKnightWWE) January 4, 2018

Two Atlanta sports legends are getting the recognition they deserve later this month, it was announced Thursday. Former Atlanta Braves pitcher Tim Hudson and longtime Braves broadcaster Joe Simpson are both going to be inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame.

The honors will happen on Saturday, January 27 at the Coca-Cola Roxy in The Battery Atlanta. The tandem will bring to 33 the number of greats in the Braves Hall of Fame.

Hudson played in the Mayor Leagues for 17 years, joining Atlanta from the Oakland Athletics in a December 2004 trade. In his nine seasons in Atlanta, he accumulated 113 wins and a 3.56 ERA in 244 games, the Braves said.

Simpson, now in his 27th season as a Braves broadcaster, is a former player who starred in stints at several ballclubs, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, Seattle Mariners, Kansas City Royals and California Angels. Starting his playing career in 1973, he retired after the 1984 season.

Eleven years later, in 1995, he was named  “Georgia Sports Broadcaster of the Year.”

Alabama and Georgia fans will be hit with a feast of the senses when they visit Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta. For many, the College Football Championship on Monday, Jan. 8 will be the entree to a smorgasbord of experiences, including grade A restaturants, in the new venue.

No doubt, fans will want to try Kevin Gillespie’s Gamechanger, located in the 200 concourse Western end zone of Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Favorites there include the “Closed on Sunday” chicken sandwich, the pork shoulder “French dip,” smoked cheddar cheese steaks, fries and adult slushies.
 
Henri’s Bakery & Café puts football-s

If you can’t make the game, there are several eateries around the city that will be offering football fare. Here are several of them.
Atkins Park Restaurant & Bar in Virginia-Highland will have game-time grub, a large beer selection and of course, plenty of TVs.
HOBNOB Neighborhood Tavern locations in Midtown and Brookhaven will be game-ready as well with fan-centric fare, creative cocktails and cool craft brews. The Brookhaven location has even added a large-screen TV.
 
Marlow’s Tavern in Midtown will be catering to fans withseveral flat screen plasma TVs, booze and classic dishes to choose from.
 
Ormsby’s on the Westside will stay open until 3 a.m. for after-game festivities.

Ray’s in the City will be rolling out the red carpet for game fans, including a choice selection of hand-cut steaks, made-to-order sushi and fresh seafood from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Reservations: 404-524-9224.

College Football Playoff National Championship
Monday, January 8, 2018
Mercedes-Benz Stadium | Atlanta, Georgia

It wasn’t easy, but the Atlanta Falcons got the job done Sunday evening with a 22-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers. The win secured the final playoff spot in the NFC for the Falcons, who had to win to keep the Seattle Seahawks at bay.

Matt Ryan passed for 311 yards, besting Cam Newton, who had a terrible game. The Falcons outgained the Panthers 371 to 248 in a packed Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The Falcons will play the Rams in Los Angeles in the NFL Divisional Round of he playoffs. 

Newton was consistently pressured by the Falcons front four. He started the game 0-9, a record of futility that ironically tied Ryan in 2008 in his second career start.

The Falcons now turn their attention to the Rams, who have very little playoff experience and cold be vulnerable. The winner of that game will travel to Minnesota to play the red-hot Vikings.

Panthers fall to Falcons 22-10 #WXII pic.twitter.com/RtxqljmguO

— Brian Formica (@BrianFormica) January 1, 2018

The reminders of Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell are all around Atlanta, including the author’s longtime home in Midtown.

Her lasting testament was one solitary novel, “Gone With the Wind,” a Civil War-era masterpiece which won the title of Most Distinguished Novel in 1936 and a Pulitzer Prize the following year.

Mitchell, who was born in 1900 and died in 1949, was shaped by much of what she learned in “The ’60s” — the 1860s. That’s what the old-timers of her day often told her about when she listened to their stories. Civil War veterans waxed on about a poetic South where the white man’s enchanted existence was seen as unstoppable.

When recalling her mother, Mitchell once said, “She talked about the world those people had lived in, such a secure world, and how it had exploded beneath them. And she told me that my world was going to explode under me, someday, and God help me if I didn’t have some weapon to meet the new world.”

From her older relatives who remembered the genuine, slaveholding Old South, this is what she said: “On Sunday afternoons when we went calling on the older generation of relatives, those who had been active in the Sixties, I sat on the bony knees of veterans and the fat slippery laps of great aunts and heard them talk.”

As a literary superstar Mitchell was second to none in Atlanta. So it made quite a commotion when in August 1949, she died at Grady Hospital of injuries received when she was struck down by a speeding caron Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta.

The driver, a 29-year-old taxi driver, was charged with drunken driving, speeding and driving on the wrong side of the street.

Gov. Herman Talmadge ordered the flag over the State Capitol lowered to half-staff until after the funeral.

Crowds of people swelled to pay respects at a funeral service at Spring Hill, Atlanta funeral home. Today, she rests entombed at the historic Oakland Cemetery on the city’s east side.

Years later, it was disclosed that Mitchell secretly donated funds to educate young black men.

“We have in our archives, our collection, the bank books, the checks,” says college archivist Herman “Skip” Mason.

“Dr. Martin Luther King in his ‘I have a Dream’ speech talked about, ‘One day, I’d like to have a nation where the sons of former slaves will be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood with the sons of former slave-owners,'” Atlanta historian Ira Joe Johnson was quoted as saying. “And I say, at Morehouse, twenty years before Dr. King gave that speech, Margaret Mitchell not only sat down at the table, she pulled out the check.”

The long studied and anticipated plan to turn an old, abandoned granite quarry into prime green real estate is one step closer to reality. Outgoing Mayor Kasim Reed announced this week that the city has came up with $26.5 million to build the initial phase of the Westside Park at Bellwood Quarry.

The 280-acre space will also be able to house a 30-day supply of drinking water for the city, Reed said.

A fall 2017 tour revealed the city’s plans to reporters, as reported in Intown Atlanta. 

“We are very ambitious over here” said Amy Phuong, Commissioner of the Atlanta Parks & Recreation Department, was quoted as saying.  “As we grow to 1.2 million residents, how do we connect folks to nature?”