Those of you who followed wrestling in the '60s should remember kenji Shibuya. He was born in Utah, but from his interviews you'd think he just came over from japan. The upload is his obituary.

... "the good American dollar". He started as a bad guy, but didn't he later morph into a good guy?

He does look familiar....I remember one Japanese wrestler who was mainly a bad guy....must be him... I remember those days of Haystack Calhoun, Gorilla Monsoon, Ray Stevens et al... those guys are old school long before Andre the Giant or Ric Flair...

Cal_Fan2;324567 said:

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He does look familiar....I remember one Japanese wrestler who was mainly a bad guy....must be him... I remember those days of Haystack Calhoun, Gorilla Monsoon, Ray Stevens et al... those guys are old school long before Andre the Giant or Ric Flair...

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And let's not forget Pepper Gomez


(April 21, 1927-May 6, 2004)



http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2004/05/06/449622.html

bearister;324575 said:

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And let's not forget Pepper Gomez

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Hear, hear for Pepper Gomez! I remember Kinji. And Ray Stevens' partner Pat Patterson...
Ah, Saturday afternoons with a small b&w TV that only received 4 channels...

Kenji and Mitsu Arakawa were tagteam champions for a while, they fought Pepper Gomez and his partner Jose Latharo?, and Ray Stevens and his partner Pat Patterson.
Once at the cow palace they had a 6 man tag team match, Kenji shabuya, Mitsu Arakawa and Gorilla Monsoon against ray Stevens, Pat Patterson, and Haystack Calhoon,

Sad to hear that. He was of my faves growing up.

I remember Pat Patterson bleeding through his blond hair, and Rocky Johnson doing his patented shuffle, and Peter Maivia, and Pepper Martin with his sleeper hold, and the Great Mephisto tapping his loaded boot, and Man Montain Mike sitting on people ... simpler days...

If you remember Big Time Wrestling in Nocal, check out this site:http://homepage.mac.com/viktor2/btw/index.html

I'm not sure he made it into the '60s, but 49'er star Leo Nomellini was on the circuit for many years in the off-season. Clearly, NFL'ers didn't make the $ in those days that they do today. I remember sitting in a bar when he came in after one of his matches and sat on the stool next to me . He wasn't much taller than I but about 3 times the girth.

RIP, Kinji Shibuya, and thanks for the memories. The whole family used to watch the delayed telecasts of matches from the West Coast that included other "bad" guys like Mr. Moto and Tosh Togo.

Does anyone remember [URL="http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Jul/24/il/507240325.html"][COLOR="Blue"]Curtis "The Bull" Iaukea [/COLOR][/URL]who played football at Cal in 1956 and 1957? I met him and Joe Kapp in the I-House lobby in September, 1957 through a mutual friend. Curtis was smartly dressed in polished cotton pants and Ivy League shirt while Joe had on a tee shirt, jeans, and slippers. It was hard to imagine who was the one from Hawaii!

do commentary...others haystack calhoun, bobo brazil, The shiek, & cowboy bob ellis..and etc. Those were the time.

More "wrastlers" from the past---Gorgeous George, Wilbur Snyder, Man Mountain Dean,and, my favorite, Strangler Lewis, creator of the "sleeper hold".

And the winner is Antonino Rocco

My favorites were the Kangaroo Brothers and the flying Frenchman, Edward Carpentier. The Torres brothers - Ramon and Enrique - were also kind of cool.

Wow what memories! I used to go watch those guys at channel 40 in Sac on Thursday nights and the big events at the Memorial Auditorium..Was it Billy Graham who had that sneaky little manager that would always clobber someone with a chair?

My favorite - Bear Cat Wright

when I walked by our front lobby (in Sunnyvale, CA), and spotted Shibuya out there. He was with another guy trying sell us something (can't remember), but I did get to talk with him briefly. Seemed like a pretty good guy.

Anyone remember Rikidozan, the popular Japanese wrestler with the sleeper hold. I remember idolizing him as a kid until I was invited to his house after a night of matches at Winterland and seeing him boss and belittle his family and friends around him. I heard later that he was stabbed to death by some yakuza in Japan. Something to do with illegal gambling. Now my favorite childhood memory.

You guys missed one or Pepper Gomez' main partners- Pedro Morales. I used to loved watching wrestling in that era and now appreciate Miss Wrestling alot more now!

wallyball2003;324599 said:

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I remember Pat Patterson bleeding through his blond hair, and Rocky Johnson doing his patented shuffle, and Peter Maivia, and Pepper Martin with his sleeper hold, and the Great Mephisto tapping his loaded boot, and Man Montain Mike sitting on people ... simpler days...

If you remember Big Time Wrestling in Nocal, check out this site:http://homepage.mac.com/viktor2/btw/index.html

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Soul Man Rocky Johnson's son was "the Rock" aka Dwayne Johnson.

6956bear;324637 said:

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My favorite - Bear Cat Wright

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Bear Cat Wright was "the man". He had great moves!

Who was the wrestler that would yell "That's a damn lie Renner" when being interviewed by Hank Renner.

The Bear Cat's favorite hold? Who could forget the "figure 4 leg lock"?

Friday night "National Allstar Wrestling" with your host Walt Harris! KTVU Channel 2

Great grainy b&w memories...

This thread brings back great memories...like me arguing with my dad that wrestling was real and me slapping the figure four leg lock on my friends, as long as they laid on the ground perfectly still while I applied it. It really worked!!

I remember him as one of the best "losers". User to wear what looked like
a large Pamper. Favorite move....running away from his opponent. :rollinglaugh:

randythebear;324578 said:

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Hear, hear for Pepper Gomez! I remember Kinji. And Ray Stevens' partner Pat Patterson...
Ah, Saturday afternoons with a small b&w TV that only received 4 channels...

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It's a shame the young guys today have been polluted with Vince McMahon's schlock and steroid-enhanced soap opera. Those guys back in the day were REAL to us.

One name I remember really well was Peter Maivia. the "High Chief":


http://www.wrestlingmuseum.com/pages/wrestlers/petermaivia2.html

He was also Duane "The Rock" Johnson's grandfather! His legendary tag-team battles with his partner Ray "The Crippler" Stevens... ahh, memories on that four-channel black and white.... :axe

Also, I had the good fortune to be at Gorilla Monsoon's (real name Bob Morella) South Jersey house in 1991 for a party. I was dating a woman at that time who's best friend was his daughter. I got to sit with him and talk for a long time, he was the most down to earth guy and really soft spoken! Though the one thing I'll never forget was shaking his hand.... it went halfway up my arm! An awesome wrestler in his day, at that point he was the color announcer for WWF broadcasts with Jesse Ventura; in fact almost up until his death in October 1999 from a heart attack and kidney failure. Some of you may remember he airplane spun and body slammed Muhammed Ali!

I loved watching Stevens, Gomez, Shabuya, and those guys in the 60's. They had something these present guys don't have.
Here's a link about wrestling on KTVU.

http://www.ktvu.com/station/1854299/detail.html

I think Big Time Wrestling, or more accurately Rasslin', was pretty much local in the old days. You had World Champions around here but the world they were champion of was Northern California. I don't even think there was much crossover between Northern and Southern California. I would never watch the WWE or whatever crap is on now but the old days were a total kick. Kinji Shibuya and Mitsu Arakawa used to do tag teams, and they had their own mysterious secret Asian holds. If in fact they were actually Americans........hey, that's all part of the act! Ray Stevens, Pepper Gomez, Haystack Calhoun.......the stars of my youth. They did the Norcal circuit - I remember seeing Haystack Calhoun at the Uptown Arena in Modesto, a wonderfully seedy boxing dive above an auto parts store. One of the Fresno TV stations had live wrestling in a studio that was open to the street. Pepper Gomez was the hero and Ray Stevens always attacked the "pencil-neck dirt farmers" and "Mexicans" was razzed him. No political correctness in those days. We could get channel 2, barely, in the valley and watched essentially the same characters with Walt Harris as the announcer. Remember the Masked Interns, with their manager Dr. Ken Ramey, or maybe Raney, I don't quite remember? Ah, those were the days.

Old guys, boxers, and several NFL guys who later wrestled----Rowdy Roddy Piper, Bobo Brazil, Classy Freddie Blassie, Primo Carnera, Dick the Bruiser, Chief Kit Fox, Fritz von Erich, Killer Kowalski, The Mummy, "2-Ton" Tony Gallento, Big Daddy Lipscomb, and Wahoo McDaniel.

Watching wrestling and roller derby on channel 2, and also Captain Satellite! What could be better? Somebody pass the Coco Puffs!

bar20;324791 said:

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Watching wrestling and roller derby on channel 2, and also Captain Satellite! What could be better? Somebody pass the Coco Puffs!

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Don't forget Creature Features and Dialing for Dollars.....

egbear82;324625 said:

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Wow what memories! I used to go watch those guys at channel 40 in Sac on Thursday nights and the big events at the Memorial Auditorium..Was it Billy Graham who had that sneaky little manager that would always clobber someone with a chair?

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You got that right! "Dr." Ken Ramey was his weasal manager. I used to do the Channel 40 events too. Who can forget Hank Renner as the announcer and the fabulous Miki Garcia as Miss Wrestling. It was cool how the camera guy always got her breasts into the shot while she was turning the pages of pictures of the wrestlers who were being announced by Renner for the upcoming big event at the Auditorium or for next weeks show. Almost like she was pointing with them :p
Always liked the Great Pampero from the "jungles of S. America" who used to carry around shrunken heads. Or George "the Animal" Steele who used to bite open the turnbuckle covers. Any masked guy from "parts unknown" was always cool. What memories compared to the crap today.

randythebear;324578 said:

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Ah, Saturday afternoons with a small b&w TV that only received 4 channels...

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Yeah, but remember in about 1967 when KEMO, Channel 20 on the UHF band started broadcasting? They played uncensored Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve films and for a 7th grader that beat wrassling by a long shot!

http://www.uhfnocturne.com/20KEMO_index.html

Larno;324783 said:

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I think Big Time Wrestling, or more accurately Rasslin', was pretty much local in the old days. You had World Champions around here but the world they were champion of was Northern California. I don't even think there was much crossover between Northern and Southern California. I would never watch the WWE or whatever crap is on now but the old days were a total kick. Kinji Shibuya and Mitsu Arakawa used to do tag teams, and they had their own mysterious secret Asian holds. If in fact they were actually Americans........hey, that's all part of the act! Ray Stevens, Pepper Gomez, Haystack Calhoun.......the stars of my youth. They did the Norcal circuit - I remember seeing Haystack Calhoun at the Uptown Arena in Modesto, a wonderfully seedy boxing dive above an auto parts store. One of the Fresno TV stations had live wrestling in a studio that was open to the street. Pepper Gomez was the hero and Ray Stevens always attacked the "pencil-neck dirt farmers" and "Mexicans" was razzed him. No political correctness in those days. We could get channel 2, barely, in the valley and watched essentially the same characters with Walt Harris as the announcer. Remember the Masked Interns, with their manager Dr. Ken Ramey, or maybe Raney, I don't quite remember? Ah, those were the days.

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One of my favorite moments was when Ray Stevens and Pat Patterson changed from "bad" to "good". Actually, I don't remember the "moment" it happened, it just sort of happened one week. That would be something I'd like to "own on DVD".

Instructive, in a way, about the meanings of "good" and "bad"... sort of like Darth Vader in "The Empire Strikes Back"... Wait: could that have been the inspiration for George Lucas?!?

First of all, I practically "knew" the guy, because he used to live in the Hayward area in the 1980s and he would shop occasionally at a store I worked at. I was there for a couple of months and a co-worker pulls me aside and says, "Recognize that guy on aisle 12?" I'm like, "hmmmm", because it had been almost 20 years... He's like, "Remember Kinji Shibuya?" I'm like, "Damn!"

Well, we were afraid to even talk to him, even after all those years, because, you know... One day, I was a cashier and he came through my line... paid with a check, so I'm looking at his name, seeing yes, it's really him... finally I build up the courage: "Mr. Shibuya, I loved watching you on All-Star Wrestling!" He looked at me like he was going to kill me and grunted, but, upon closer inspection, had a twinkle in his eye. Reading his obit, I see he was just "in the role" still, for fun.

Best memory from "in the ring": The announcer talking about how the two Japanese guys knew Karate. (but using it was forbidden in the ring)... Ya gotta remember, the times were different, the Asian martial arts had sort of a mystery about them... now, we know, for example, that boxing is a martial art, but then, boxing was American fighting and Karate was mysterious. Plus, it was a time when Americans never even SAW inside "Red" China (Karate's Japanese, I know, just making a point about the times.)...

Anyway, the guys are wrestling, including punching each other in the face, etc. It was tag team... one Japanese guy distracts the "ref" and the other one uses a Karate chop to practically kill the oponent: Match over! The spectators are like, "Whoa!"

Also, it was still playing on fears of/sentiments against the Japanese from WW II (which was only 2X years prior).

I was a kid watching this stuff... Once I begged my Dad to take me to a "match". He's like, you gotta be kidding... Good times!

Went to the Cow Palace once with my neighbors who used to love watching Big Time Wrestling. I'd watch it with them at their house and was soon hooked. I was about 12 at the time I think. Anyway, we saw all the greats that night, Kinji Shibuya, his partner (Mr. Saito I think), Ray Stevens, Pat Patterson and, who could forget, "Haystack" Calhoun. Patterson beat Stevens that night. I sure thought it was real because Stevens looked to be bleeding pretty good from his forehead. What a dastardly guy that Patterson was, but then, next season, he was a "good guy." By then I had pretty much stopped watching. I think it was the fact that good (Stevens) had not triumphed that turned my attention away to other things. What a great time we had though. I haven't been to the Cow Palace since.