Uptown Wrestling News Blog #4 The History of Roy Shire's Big Time Wrestling

Uptown Wrestling News
Blog Entry #4



The History of Roy Shire's Big Time Wrestling
By Mike Vanek

People ask me why I named this blog Uptown Wrestling News. The name comes from the legendary Uptown Arena here in Modesto CA where they used to have Wrestling matches for many years. This was one of the stopping points for Roy Shire's BIG TIME WRESTLING which was the Northern California leg of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) starting in 1968. Starting as the American Wrestling Association starting in 1960. The area's that made up the BTW territory were San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, San Jose, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno and surrounding smaller city's.

Roy Shire started his promotion the American Wrestling Association aka Big Time Wrestling in 1960 he shortly after moved it to the SF Bay Area to compete against the promoter Joe Malciwics. Roy Shire's first camp included such great wrestlers as Nick Bockwinkle, Ray Stevens, Joe Blanchard, Kinji Shibuya, Mitsu Arakawa, Angelo Poffo (Father of Macho Man Randy Savage & the Genius Leaping Lenny Poffo) and many others. Roy Brought many of these Wrestlers with him to California. Where they would make homes legendary building's like The Cow Palace in San Francisco, Memorial Autotorium in Sacramento, and The Uptown Arena in Modesto just to name a few. Big Time Wrestling aired on TV originally on KTVU ch2 in San Francisco and then later on they were on KTXL ch40 in Sacramento.

The first thing Roy did as a promoter in The Bay Area was to bring in Ray "The Crippler" Stevens Stevens captured the areas top singles championship, the U.S. belt in November of 1961, by defeating Cowboy Bob Ellis. Stevens quickly became the man Bay area fans loved to hate with his loud cocky ways and his great microphone skills. Ray was known to whisper to the announcer that he had never seen such a bunch of ugly women as he saw in whatever city the interview was done for. The new hatred the fans had for Ray as well as his exciting form of wrestling made for a very entertaining wrestling star.
　

Ray's first main competition was the Mexican sensation Pepper Gomez who was the immediate fan favorite!! With Gomez’ exciting wrestling style he was the perfect foe for Ray Stevens. But just as their rivalry was heating up Ray Stevens broke his ankle is a cart racing accident. Pepper Gomez defeated Freddy Blassy for the now vacant U.S. Title. As soon as Ray recovered from his accident he won back the U.S. belt. Ray had many exciting battles and eventually lost the championship to Wilbur Snyder, winning the belt back two months later from Snyder. Ray held the belt till 1965 when Kenji Shibuya took over as the Champion.

In 1965 a new champion was crowned his name was Kenji Shibuya from Japan. With Kenji as champion and being very hated by the fans as most Japanese wrestlers were in the mid to late 60’s, Ray was teamed with a newcomer to the SF region Pat Patterson. Stevens and Patterson or the Blond Bombers as they were known became one of the very best tag teams in wrestling history. With their bombs away from the top rope finishing move to their master rule breaking, the wrestling world was abuzz with talk of this great tag team.

By 1968, many of the top stars of wrestling wrestled in main events in the SF booking office amon those Dom Denucci, Bobo Brazil, Bill Watts, Bearcat Wright, King Curtis Iaukea, Mitsu Arakawa, Jose Lothario, Dan Manoukian, The Destroyer, Billy Red Lyons, Ciclon Negro, Mongolian Stomper, Haru Sasaki, Mr Saito, Red Bastien and a very young Puerto Rican wrestler by the name of Pedro Morales, a future WWWF champion. There was also a match in San Francisco between Ray Stevens and Bruno Sammartino with Ray winning by count out and originally being named the WWWF champion but later being stripped of the title because of not winning by pin fall or submission. Also in 1968 is when the SF booking office joined the NWA and their tag team title was renamed the NWA World tag team title and the singles title was now known as NWA U.S. Championship.


In the middle of 1969 Ray Stevens broke his leg in a motorcycle accident. This again left the singles championship vacant where Pat Patterson now emerged as a big star in his own right winning the vacant championship from Pedro Morales. By the time Stevens returned to wrestling he came back and announced to the public that he was tired of his being a cheater and wanted to follow the rules and be a role model for the kids. Well the fans fell in love with Ray and he was now not only one of the most popular wrestlers in the promotion but one of the most popular people in the area. From musicians to politicians everyone loved Ray Stevens in the Bay Area. Everyone that is except for his former tag team partner Pat Patterson. Pat said he was going to beat some sense into Ray. This started one of the greatest feuds in Bay Area history. Pat and Ray fought in all kinds of matches. Cage matches, Texas Death matches, tag teams etc. One of the best matches had to be their series of matches with Archie Moore as the referee. The result was always the same. Archie would get fed up with Pat and punch him and Ray would cover him for the pin.

By the start of 1971 Ray held both the US championship and also shared the World tag team belts with Peter Maivia. (The Rock’s Grandfather). Ray also felt he was getting stale in the Bay area and after a ten year run as the man in SF, Ray decided to leave for Verne Gagne’s AWA territory. Before he left a couple of wrestlers were brought in to help make up for the upcoming loss of Ray Stevens. On his first appearance in the territory Superstar Billy Graham was given the tag team titles with his partner Pat Patterson on television by beating Ray and Maivia. Ray and Superstar had some great singles matches during that time frame also. The US belt was dropped to Mr.Paul DeMarco and his hated manager Dr.Ken Ramey.

With the loss of Stevens, many were worried about how the territory would do. Their concerns were alleviated because Dr. Ramey became one of the most hated managers to ever appear in the area. Along with Paul De Marco, Pat Patteron, Billy Graham as the heels facing off against Peter Maivia, Rocky Johnson and Pepper Gomez as the heroes, wrestling was still drawing huge crowds everywhere in the territory. Around this time with Stevens gone, Patterson did the turn and soon became the top face. Roy Shires did a fantastic job in bringing in talent such as Lars Anderson, The Great Mephisto, Stan Stasiak, Moondog Mayne, Angelo Mosca, Mr.Fugi,The Brute (Bugsy McGraw) The Interns, The Von Brauners, The Royal Kanaroos, Tony Garea, The Invaders, the Valiant brothers and the Von Steigers. Ray Stevens also came in and worked the area a couple of times a year.
By the mid 70’s Pat Patterson had decided to revive his tag team with Ray Stevens once more, only this time they were a team in the AWA. In the SF area Bob Roop and Alexia Smirnoff were brought in along with Dean Ho while Moondog Mayne was the top face in the area, The crowds started to drop off and wrestling just wasn’t drawing in the Bay area the way it used to. Kevin Sullivan tried his luck at being a face for awhile and while drawing respectably he was not the answer either. In an interview around this time, Pepper Gomez said that Roy Shires had almost stopped caring and Pepper felt Bob Roop as booker was killing the area.

Tragedy struck the Bay area as US champ Moondog Mayne died in a car accident on in August of 1978. From there, hoping to rekindle past success, a Ray Stevens look a like was introduced. A young "Playboy" Buddy Rose was brought in to the area. While Rose drew ok at the box office, the next two years also brought in an array of talent to continue trying to rekindle this booking office to its glory days of yesterday. Others brought in were: Red Bastien, Ron Starr, Jimmy Snuka, Roddy Piper, The Guerreos, John Mantell, Bob Sweetan, George Wells, and Ed Wiskowski. By 1979, the tag team titles were abandoned. The crowds were dwindling and there was not much draw anymore....

Dusty Rhodes came in and won the US title in a tournament victory over Dirty Dick Slater after Bob Sweetan had just left the area without losing the belt. Four months after Dusty won the belt the SF booking office with Roy Shires closed in January 1981. It was an incredible 20-year reign as one of the great wrestling areas in the United States. Pat Patterson used many of the booking ideas that originated here in the SF area when he was part of the expansion of the WWF in the early 80’s. After the booking office closed here, we had a Texas promotion come in and promote for awhile as well as Verne Gagne’s AWA with such stars as Hulk Hogan. While the AWA shows drew well they were not run on a consistent basis and lacked any long term success. A few independent groups worked here including Woody Farmer and Red Bastien’s group. None brought back the magic of the Shires promotion.

For those that love the old "BIG TIME WRESTLING" I found a great group on Facebook called "WHEN IT WAS BIG TIME WRESTLING" It is full of photo's Programs and other priceless knowledge from one of the great lost wrestling Territory's!!
Some footage is available on youtube from the KTVU ch2 in SF and KXTL ch40 in Sacramento hosted by the legendary Hank Renner.
　
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