Hall of Fame

1. NWA World Tag Team Champions

2. NWA U.S. Heavyweight Champions

3. Photos of wrestlers who appeared in Roy Shire's promotion

Pampero Firpo interview on TV

Someone on the message board mentioned that he ran into Pampero Firpo (Karach Manion) recently so I thought I would throw this photo in. I always enjoyed watching him. I can still hear him growling out "OOOOOOOOH YEAAAAAH" -- you could hear it from every corner of the arena. When I was young I was never sure he was just acting or if he really had been found in a jungle somewhere. His shrunken head looked real, too.

This is Ed Moretti and Lonnie Mayne. I remember Ed from the Cow Palace shows when he was 12 or 13. He was a huge fan and always wanted to learn everything he could about the business. He even built a wrestling ring in his backyard which was very impressive. When he got older he became a referee for Roy and finally became a wrestler! He is the only person I can think of who started as a fan in this territory and actually made it into the business here and got to wrestle! Ed developed into a very successful wrestler and has a great career.

This is what Ed Moretti looked like when he worked for the WWF. Ed is a very active member of the San Francisco Forum on the Kayfabe Memories MessageBoard and offers everyone great recollections of the good old days from a wrestler's point-of-view.

This is another photo from 1969 taken in back of the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium. Spiro Arion is on the left, my brother Erik, (at age 12 or 13) who took over publishing the programs when I left, is in the middle, and Jerry London is on the right. London committed suicide in San Francisco in 1970 after a Cow Palace show. He did a lot of jobs, rarely winning a match, but fans liked him.

I took this photo of The Masked Gladiator in 1969 with an old Kodak Instamatic camera before I started doing the programs. He teamed up with Stan "The Crusher" Stasiak to challenge Ray Stevens and Peter Maivia for the NWA World Tag Team Championship many times. He also teamed up with Karl von Brock in other challenges. I thought he always sounded very intelligent during his promos. I remember rumors at the time speculated that he was a doctor or a college professor.

Ricky Hunter, The Masked Gladiator

This was The Masked Gladiator without his mask on, Ricky Hunter. He wrestled for Roy in the mid 1960's as Ricky Hunter, the late 1960's as The Masked Gladiator and then returned again in the early 1970's as Ricky Hunter. I heard a few fans speculate they were one-and-the-same, but very few fans ever caught on that I heard about.

Everyone probably knows about "The Rock", Rocky's son. Rocky was a great guy, and always friendly. I always thought that heels were generally nicer than the babyfaces, but Rocky and Peter Maivia were two exceptions of that rule.

Peter was always very nice -- just like you saw on TV. I just found out last week that one of his nephews who was part of WWE has a wrestling school in Sacramento now.

Mr. Paul DeMarco and his manager, Dr. Ken Ramey really actracted a lot of heat out here. I can remember several nights where I was worried a riot would break out when they were trying to get back to the dressing rooms from the ring. Paul DeMarco telephoned me in the mid-1990s right after I came home from the hospital from having spine surgery after a crash with a drunk driver. He wanted to stop by and see me but was feeling too rotten to have visitors. I asked him to call me in a week or two (that was when he had the wrestling school in Sacramento) but he didn't, and that is the last time I heard from him. Anyone know where Paul is living now?