I apologize for the abrupt ending. This was not my plan. Several audiobooks were downloaded to my audible account therefore, eating up my free storage space. The storage issue has since been addressed, this will not happen again. 90% of the video and information was already “in the can” as they say. Therefore you you’re not missing much. Rather than scrap the whole video I thought there was enough useful information captured about California, San Francisco, Los Angeles, the sheiks venture outside the territory of Michigan, to The Midwest Territories, Tennessee and New York, as well as rounding out the Georgia territory, mentioning All South Wrestling Alliance from the Gunkel family. Tune back in the future time for part 2 A more in-depth look at the California wrestling scene
Thank you! That’s what I love to hear the most. Please keep collecting and saving these historical time capsules! My hopes are to expose some ppl to different magazines they haven’t seen before. Thanks for watching.
I remember going to wrestling shows on Saturday nights with my mom and dad at Strongbow stadium or Arena starting in the mid 70s to about 1981 or 1982 here in Bakersfield California .I remember Black Gorman and the Great Goliath,The Guerrero Brothers, John Tolos, Victor Rivera,Ron Starr and many others.
Living here in the Northern we missed out of California wrestling. But in 1986, possibly even late 85 we got California championship wrestling on TV. They had all the above wrestlers that you just named, as well as Rocky Johnson and Superfly Snuka who just left the WWF. I liked it a lot. It was good.. It was my first look at those guys in action. Up until that point they were just guys in a magazine. They even had Victor Rivera v John Tolos on tv. Of course past their prime but still great for me to see that legendary feud that started in the early 70s.
Superstar said in his 2006 book "Tangled Ropes" that he caught some Hell wearing that American Flag robe from people in 1972. I owned that one too, in fact, at the time, it was my oldest pro wrestling magazine; another one mom purchased for me back in the early 80's, '80/'81. Thank you Mom love you.
@@prowrestlingmags : Yes, I think Superstar said that about the police and security guards if I remember correctly because at that time wearing the American Flag like a robe or jacket wasn't very popular, esp. back then, cheers friend.
@ 21:00 That Gong issue with Superstar Graham and the belt is fucken 🔥 thanks for another great video. I was like wth happened? It’s over?? That sucks I know the feeling.
Great video as usual. Your wrestling knowledge never ceases to amaze me. The Bruno/Sheik pics are really cool. Also, that Destroyer action figure is unbelievable. Thanks for sharing!
So much wrestling knowledge on your channel! That Abdullah the Butcher rare photo is EPIC! The newspaper clips from the Bruno/Sheik feud are priceless! Happy Holidays, my friend!
Happy holidays to you, thanks for the kind and positive comment. Much appreciated. Having what I have is overwhelming sometimes. It’s hard to organize and store. Hard to remember where I put everything. The upside of that is finding things I forgot I already have.
Damn, what an interesting video Bill, really enjoyed it. I don’t know much about the West Coast specifically LA and San Fran from the 60s and 70s but the items you displayed were phenomenal. Really enjoyed the photos the pamphlets the programs, all of it was great stuff, stuff I have never seen before, which seems to be the norm with your videos brother lol. Always surprised and always learning. I love those old grainy photos from the early 70s like the cage match with Bruno and the Sheik, just a classic look that really represents that era! I’m not a wrestling figure guy so much, even though I got tubs and tubs of them in my house from when my son was growing up in the 2000s, but your custom ones are really unique. They’re not the traditional look that everybody thinks about when they put a thought of a certain wrestler in their head so that’s why they’re really cool to me when you show them. You have motivated me to get my wrestling magazine collection together. I bought the covers and cardboard and started putting them in some type of order. I have so many boxes of collectibles and sports memorabilia, and just trying to pull out all the magazines, especially the wrestling ones. I’m assuming the vast majority of your stuff is in those covers with cardboard? Much easier to store them that way.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate everything you said. It’s comments like yours. that keep me moving with these videos. It’s so important people like us rescue these from extinction. You sound exactly like me, not really a figure collector, but I have boxes full lol it’s ridiculous. I only got the guys from the 70s and early 80s. My custom guy is incredible, very, very talented. He doesn’t really make them for selling. He makes them for his own pleasure He did sell a couple over the years that I bought. I have a very good way of persuading him (“$$$”) into making me customs. I show some pictures and ask “can you make that” he says I can try! That means yes! Takes about a month but worth the wait. Some with my belt guy.
Great video Bill. All your videos are awesome. Superstar Graham was ahead of his time. His charisma alone drew people in. I had that Annual where Bill Apter and Graham walked the streets of New York. Graham had to be one of the most popular heels ever. I never knew Johnny Rodz had another gimmick out in California. Talk about a wrestler who does not get enough credit. The Sheik legit scared me as a kid. I was in shock when i saw him throw fire. Roddy Piper definitely filled out as he got older. He was a great heel from the get go. Oh, I meant to comment too on Don Ross. He had a monthly column up until he passed in Muscular Development. I think it was MD. Maybe it was Iron Man. Either way, he died young. I don’t think I ever saw Tony Atlas that big in the photo you showed of him in a bodybuilding competition. He was jacked! I am sure I will think of some more from this video later. Loved it.
Thanks buddy, appreciate it. I was so pissed. I thought I forgot to push record, I had no idea the video stopped until I finished. Yes Atlas wow his chest almost looked like Arnold. The way the muscle was cut and curved he looked enormous for that competition.
Yes T, we can call this the prequel to California of sorts. There’s so much history in that section of the country that it’s hard to put in order. The information is scattered all over and hard to put into a uniform for a video. Los Angeles was unique for the fact that they had their steady homegrown talent that never really ventured outside that state. They didn’t get much exposure in the magazines and a lot of people don’t know who the heck they are. Like Rock Riddle Rick Drasin, the great Goliath, Steve Strong, Ripper Collins all the forgotten Guerrero’s etc. So I wanted to try to showcase some of those forgotten legends as well as the bigger name guys like Pedro Morales, Buddy Rose, Roddy Piper, the original moon dog Pat Patterson, etc. sorry the film cut off. I was pissed and surprised and felt like crying lol but I think I captured enough to upload it.
Pro wrestling in California has always been a bit of a conundrum to me. I grew up on the east coast in the nineteen seventies but my mother is from Southern California and every summer we’d go out west to visit her family and while out there I couldn’t catch hide nor hair of professional wrestling. It was seemingly non-existent and what did exist was not promoted well at all comparatively speaking to how (as I would subsequently learn) wrestling was promoted throughout the country. I don’t know if it was ever as much of an attraction in California, particularly Los Angeles. I know there was Roy Shires up in San Francisco and Gene Labell was the local promoter in LA but gosh even when Vince McMahon took his troupe out west when he went national, WWF never drew as well in California. The well traveled “WrestleMania VII” debacle, the Hogan/Flair house show loop in California that they thought was going to draw the biggest gates ever and ended up doing substantially less. I don’t know but aside from what WWE is doing every few years now with WrestleMania on the west coast, wrestling as a whole never seemed to draw all that well in California.
Yes sadly by the 90s with the exception of a few small independent places wrestling was swallowed up between the two big companies. Gone was the Los Angeles territory the San Fran territory, Seattle big Time wrestling was also gone. Not long after Don Owens Portland wrestling folded. It’s really a shame. The whole country was left with WCW or WWF. None of which had anything to do with building wrestling in California.
Oh, how I'd love to own that August 1974 issue of "The Wrestler" with Ernie Ladd vs Ox Baker. I remember owning the July 1974 issue of "The Wrestler" that featured that buffed up Superstar Billy Graham on the cover with vest. I loved looking at that mag when I had it in 1991.
That "Action Wrestling" mag with Paterson and Graham was when he wrestled in San Francisco in 1971 under Mike LeBelle's territory I think or was that Los Angeles?
Sorry I'm so late getting to your newest video my man! Unfortunately the notifications for your videos run about 50/50 as to whether the gods of RUclips deign to let me know you've put out a new one. Oh well... Cool to see the programs with Wildman Jack Armstrong on them. I remember he was in one of the Apter mags where he attacked Argentina Apollo with a nail file or something, with the title "Don't Hurt His Face!" or something like that. When I started watching wrestling he was a job guy in WWWF under the name Lenny Solomon. (His real name is Leonard Ornstein.) He's in an episode of Night Court, the one where Bull the bailiff quits his job at the courthouse to become a pro wrestler, and in an episode of the original Andy Griffith Matlock series dealing with the murder of a heel wrestler. Professor Tanaka is in both those episodes as well. Thanks pardner!
Ahhh yea, the good ol RUclips algorithm. It knows best what you should be watching. A few guys have stated the same thing on their end. I was told I need to post more videos. That will stimulate the algorithm for my videos. But I’m not trying to grow a channel or push a product. Don’t get me wrong I’m happy with new viewers etc but I’m not looking to make money off of RUclips like so many others are. I have my own money, I don’t need other peoples to make these vids. I’m making these for the guys who have been here and want to be here. I can EASILY make a video twice a week for 15 mins and water it down. But I like to made a video with a topic so it has more meaning. I’m not gonna make a video because I’m bored. I probably should make them shorter. Averaging an hour n half a vid the last 18 months is kinda long. Someone commented once my videos are like a feature movie lol. Anyway my thinking is “to too much is too much” Ppl will lose interest if I’m in their face a few times a week idk. Thanks for watching brother. Always appreciate you commenting. I never heard of Jack until 1986 when California championship wrestling came to television on the East Coast. I liked that show a lot, it’s kind of cheesy looking back at it now, but still better then anything in the last 20 years. They took Superfly, Rocky Johnson after the WWF release them.
@@prowrestlingmags Of course, not a complaint against you. I understand completely your feelings on this issue. Your videos are great fun for all us "older heads" and we appreciate what you do, Thanks man!
Oh no doubt man! I forgot to say it’s annoying when YT does that. There’s a ch I watch that YT seems to be suppressing intentionally. Subscribers are becoming unsubscribed, comments aren’t posting when people comment and their thumbs up isn’t counting. That’s pretty shitty how they control certain subject matter. Gonna do one soon for 1979 by the end of the weekend if I can, just a heads up man.
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I apologize for the abrupt ending. This was not my plan. Several audiobooks were downloaded to my audible account therefore, eating up my free storage space. The storage issue has since been addressed, this will not happen again.
90% of the video and information was already “in the can” as they say. Therefore you you’re not missing much. Rather than scrap the whole video I thought there was enough useful information captured about California, San Francisco, Los Angeles, the sheiks venture outside the territory of Michigan, to The Midwest Territories, Tennessee and New York, as well as rounding out the Georgia territory, mentioning All South Wrestling Alliance from the Gunkel family. Tune back in the future time for part 2 A more in-depth look at the California wrestling scene
Awesome presentation. Thanks for sharing these. Love the old school history especially when I learn something new. Thanks again. 😝🤟😈🇺🇲
Appreciate that. Thank you for watching.
I so enjoy this, helps me with my ongoing collection, thanks again !
Thank you! That’s what I love to hear the most. Please keep collecting and saving these historical time capsules! My hopes are to expose some ppl to different magazines they haven’t seen before. Thanks for watching.
I remember going to wrestling shows on Saturday nights with my mom and dad at Strongbow stadium or Arena starting in the mid 70s to about 1981 or 1982 here in Bakersfield California .I remember Black Gorman and the Great Goliath,The Guerrero Brothers, John Tolos, Victor Rivera,Ron Starr and many others.
Living here in the Northern we missed out of California wrestling. But in 1986, possibly even late 85 we got California championship wrestling on TV.
They had all the above wrestlers that you just named, as well as Rocky Johnson and Superfly Snuka who just left the WWF. I liked it a lot. It was good.. It was my first look at those guys in action. Up until that point they were just guys in a magazine. They even had Victor Rivera v John Tolos on tv. Of course past their prime but still great for me to see that legendary feud that started in the early 70s.
Superstar said in his 2006 book "Tangled Ropes" that he caught some Hell wearing that American Flag robe from people in 1972. I owned that one too, in fact, at the time, it was my oldest pro wrestling magazine; another one mom purchased for me back in the early 80's, '80/'81. Thank you Mom love you.
Yea I read that. Early 70s Vietnam fresh on everyone’s mind, ppl hating our military people. It’s pretty fucking disgusting.
@@prowrestlingmags : Yes, I think Superstar said that about the police and security guards if I remember correctly because at that time wearing the American Flag like a robe or jacket wasn't very popular, esp. back then, cheers friend.
@ 21:00 That Gong issue with Superstar Graham and the belt is fucken 🔥 thanks for another great video. I was like wth happened? It’s over?? That sucks I know the feeling.
Thanks yes that pic of superstar is the main reason I bought that issue. Great shot!! Sorry about the ending I was pissed!!
Great video as usual. Your wrestling knowledge never ceases to amaze me. The Bruno/Sheik pics are really cool. Also, that Destroyer action figure is unbelievable. Thanks for sharing!
I appreciate you always watching. Thank you for your comment! And yes the guy really did a great on Destroyer.
So much wrestling knowledge on your channel! That Abdullah the Butcher rare photo is EPIC! The newspaper clips from the Bruno/Sheik feud are priceless! Happy Holidays, my friend!
Happy holidays to you, thanks for the kind and positive comment. Much appreciated. Having what I have is overwhelming sometimes. It’s hard to organize and store. Hard to remember where I put everything. The upside of that is finding things I forgot I already have.
Damn, what an interesting video Bill, really enjoyed it. I don’t know much about the West Coast specifically LA and San Fran from the 60s and 70s but the items you displayed were phenomenal. Really enjoyed the photos the pamphlets the programs, all of it was great stuff, stuff I have never seen before, which seems to be the norm with your videos brother lol. Always surprised and always learning. I love those old grainy photos from the early 70s like the cage match with Bruno and the Sheik, just a classic look that really represents that era! I’m not a wrestling figure guy so much, even though I got tubs and tubs of them in my house from when my son was growing up in the 2000s, but your custom ones are really unique. They’re not the traditional look that everybody thinks about when they put a thought of a certain wrestler in their head so that’s why they’re really cool to me when you show them. You have motivated me to get my wrestling magazine collection together. I bought the covers and cardboard and started putting them in some type of order. I have so many boxes of collectibles and sports memorabilia, and just trying to pull out all the magazines, especially the wrestling ones. I’m assuming the vast majority of your stuff is in those covers with cardboard? Much easier to store them that way.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate everything you said. It’s comments like yours. that keep me moving with these videos. It’s so important people like us rescue these from extinction.
You sound exactly like me, not really a figure collector, but I have boxes full lol it’s ridiculous. I only got the guys from the 70s and early 80s. My custom guy is incredible, very, very talented. He doesn’t really make them for selling. He makes them for his own pleasure He did sell a couple over the years that I bought. I have a very good way of persuading him (“$$$”) into making me customs. I show some pictures and ask “can you make that” he says I can try! That means yes! Takes about a month but worth the wait. Some with my belt guy.
Great video Bill. All your videos are awesome. Superstar Graham was ahead of his time. His charisma alone drew people in. I had that Annual where Bill Apter and Graham walked the streets of New York. Graham had to be one of the most popular heels ever.
I never knew Johnny Rodz had another gimmick out in California. Talk about a wrestler who does not get enough credit.
The Sheik legit scared me as a kid. I was in shock when i saw him throw fire.
Roddy Piper definitely filled out as he got older. He was a great heel from the get go.
Oh, I meant to comment too on Don Ross. He had a monthly column up until he passed in Muscular Development. I think it was MD. Maybe it was Iron Man. Either way, he died young.
I don’t think I ever saw Tony Atlas that big in the photo you showed of him in a bodybuilding competition. He was jacked!
I am sure I will think of some more from this video later. Loved it.
Thanks buddy, appreciate it. I was so pissed. I thought I forgot to push record, I had no idea the video stopped until I finished. Yes Atlas wow his chest almost looked like Arnold. The way the muscle was cut and curved he looked enormous for that competition.
Yes the cailfornia territories are never talked about would love to see there library,s of la and san fran
Yes T, we can call this the prequel to California of sorts. There’s so much history in that section of the country that it’s hard to put in order. The information is scattered all over and hard to put into a uniform for a video. Los Angeles was unique for the fact that they had their steady homegrown talent that never really ventured outside that state.
They didn’t get much exposure in the magazines and a lot of people don’t know who the heck they are. Like Rock Riddle Rick Drasin, the great Goliath, Steve Strong, Ripper Collins all the forgotten Guerrero’s etc. So I wanted to try to showcase some of those forgotten legends as well as the bigger name guys like Pedro Morales, Buddy Rose, Roddy Piper, the original moon dog Pat Patterson, etc. sorry the film cut off. I was pissed and surprised and felt like crying lol but I think I captured enough to upload it.
Pro wrestling in California has always been a bit of a conundrum to me. I grew up on the east coast in the nineteen seventies but my mother is from Southern California and every summer we’d go out west to visit her family and while out there I couldn’t catch hide nor hair of professional wrestling. It was seemingly non-existent and what did exist was not promoted well at all comparatively speaking to how (as I would subsequently learn) wrestling was promoted throughout the country. I don’t know if it was ever as much of an attraction in California, particularly Los Angeles. I know there was Roy Shires up in San Francisco and Gene Labell was the local promoter in LA but gosh even when Vince McMahon took his troupe out west when he went national, WWF never drew as well in California. The well traveled “WrestleMania VII” debacle, the Hogan/Flair house show loop in California that they thought was going to draw the biggest gates ever and ended up doing substantially less. I don’t know but aside from what WWE is doing every few years now with WrestleMania on the west coast, wrestling as a whole never seemed to draw all that well in California.
Yes sadly by the 90s with the exception of a few small independent places wrestling was swallowed up between the two big companies. Gone was the Los Angeles territory the San Fran territory, Seattle big Time wrestling was also gone. Not long after Don Owens Portland wrestling folded. It’s really a shame. The whole country was left with WCW or WWF. None of which had anything to do with building wrestling in California.
Oh, how I'd love to own that August 1974 issue of "The Wrestler" with Ernie Ladd vs Ox Baker. I remember owning the July 1974 issue of "The Wrestler" that featured that buffed up Superstar Billy Graham on the cover with vest. I loved looking at that mag when I had it in 1991.
Do it!! They are out there! Buy one again. It may give you the itch to start collecting again.
That "Action Wrestling" mag with Paterson and Graham was when he wrestled in San Francisco in 1971 under Mike LeBelle's territory I think or was that Los Angeles?
The Action issue was released for San Francisco Big Time Wrestling. Lebell had the LA territory
Sorry I'm so late getting to your newest video my man! Unfortunately the notifications for your videos run about 50/50 as to whether the gods of RUclips deign to let me know you've put out a new one. Oh well... Cool to see the programs with Wildman Jack Armstrong on them. I remember he was in one of the Apter mags where he attacked Argentina Apollo with a nail file or something, with the title "Don't Hurt His Face!" or something like that. When I started watching wrestling he was a job guy in WWWF under the name Lenny Solomon. (His real name is Leonard Ornstein.) He's in an episode of Night Court, the one where Bull the bailiff quits his job at the courthouse to become a pro wrestler, and in an episode of the original Andy Griffith Matlock series dealing with the murder of a heel wrestler. Professor Tanaka is in both those episodes as well. Thanks pardner!
Ahhh yea, the good ol RUclips algorithm. It knows best what you should be watching. A few guys have stated the same thing on their end. I was told I need to post more videos. That will stimulate the algorithm for my videos. But I’m not trying to grow a channel or push a product.
Don’t get me wrong I’m happy with new viewers etc but I’m not looking to make money off of
RUclips like so many others are. I have my own money, I don’t need other peoples to make these vids. I’m making these for the guys who have been here and want to be here. I can EASILY make a video twice a week for 15 mins and water it down. But I like to made a video with a topic so it has more meaning. I’m not gonna make a video because I’m bored. I probably should make them shorter. Averaging an hour n half a vid the last 18 months is kinda long. Someone commented once my videos are like a feature movie lol. Anyway my thinking is “to too much is too much” Ppl will lose interest if I’m in their face a few times a week idk.
Thanks for watching brother. Always appreciate you commenting. I never heard of Jack until 1986 when California championship wrestling came to television on the East Coast. I liked that show a lot, it’s kind of cheesy looking back at it now, but still better then anything in the last 20 years. They took Superfly, Rocky Johnson after the WWF release them.
@@prowrestlingmags Of course, not a complaint against you. I understand completely your feelings on this issue. Your videos are great fun for all us "older heads" and we appreciate what you do, Thanks man!
Oh no doubt man! I forgot to say it’s annoying when YT does that. There’s a ch I watch that YT seems to be suppressing intentionally. Subscribers are becoming unsubscribed, comments aren’t posting when people comment and their thumbs up isn’t counting. That’s pretty shitty how they control certain subject matter. Gonna do one soon for 1979 by the end of the weekend if I can, just a heads up man.
You have some very desirable mags my friend .