NWA San Francisco

Top to bottom is Kezar Pavillion, Winterland, Cow Palace and the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

 

There was another promotion in San Francisco besides the Roy Shire version going back to 1935.

 

NWA San Francisco was started by Joe Malcewicz in 1935.  He was known as the Utica (NY) Panther is his day.  He wrestled over 600 times before going over as a promoter.  

 

The region he worked in Northern California was known back in 1935 as the San Francisco Booking Office.  In November 1949, Joe registered the area with the National Wrestling Alliance.

 

His promotion based from Fresno in the Central Valley to the Oregon border produced over 3000 matches in the 27 years of existence.  In the San Francisco region, Joe would hold his shows at Dreamland (later called Winterland), Civic Auditorium, Kezar Pavillion and the Cow Palace.

 

Up until March 1961, NWA San Francisco was the only wrestling promotion in town.  Then came Roy Shire's Big Time Wrestling, at the time an outlaw promotion.  Eventually, Shire's promotion was badly outdrawing that of Malcewicz.  He would retire early in 1962.  Unfortunately later in the year, he died of a heart attack.

 

The region would have great stars under his watch.  Wrestlers such as Lou Thesz, Art Thomas, Jerry Graham, Freddie Blassie, Jerry Graham and Eduardo Carpentier would work in his shows.    

 

   

Big Time Wrestling San Francisco

 

Cow Palace (Daly City) and Sacramento Memorial Auditiorium (Sacramento).
 

 

This wrestling blogger grew up with a promotion that spanned the San Francisco Bay Area, Northern California and parts of Nevada.  There would also be a couple of shows in Hawaii.    It was officially known as Big Time Wrestling San Francisco.  Originally, this was an outlaw promotion.  NWA San Francisco was the major promotion in the area between 1935-1962.  I will share more of NWA San Francisco in a future post. 

 

Wrestling fans were fortunate to see the likes of many wrestlers throughout North America and in Europe.  The names of Ray Stevens, Pat Patterson, Pepper Gomez, Peter Maivia, Rocky Johnson, Nick Bockwinkel, Bruno Sammartino, Verne Gagne, Dory Funk, Dusty Rhodes, The Sheik and many others had a match or two in the area.

 

This blogger has seen numerous types of matches in the arena such as singles, tag team, Battle Royals and more.  The Cow Palace held up to 15,000 for wrestling back then.

 

Per several databases such as Cagematch, the promotion, under mostly Roy Shire, had 1411 shows over the 21 year time frame.  His biggest shows were mostly at the Cow Palace in Daly City and the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium near the state capital.  Both pictures are on top of the post.   

 

Here is the timeline of the promotion.  Also, I'll share several links to the promotion below the timeline.  When finding this in Cagematch, it goes under two promotions.  Between 1961-1968, the wrestling shows were under the American Wrestling Alliance (not affiliated with the American Wrestling Association).  In 1968, the promotion switched to the National Wrestling Alliance where it remained until the doors shut in 1981.

 

04 March 1961 - First Big Time Wrestling show at the Cow Palace.  Bruno Sammartino, Verne Gagne and Ray Stevens appeared on the show.

30 March 1961 - Ray Stevens would defeat Bill Melby and become the first area United States Champion.  Pat O'Connor (c) would defeat Ernie Dusek to remain the NWA Heavyweight Champion.

17 June 1961 - The Brunetti Brothers defeated Art Neilsen and Don Leo Jonathan to win the AWA (area version) World Tag Team Championship.

18 December 1965 - First ever Battle Royal took place in Sacramento with 18 wrestlers.  It ended up a tie with Luis Martinez & Ray Stevens splitting the prize.

26 December 1965 - Women appear and wrestled at a BTW show for the first time at the Cow Palace as Bette Bouche and Betty Grable wrestled.  The event drew a near capacity crowd.

24 January 1981 - Big Time Wrestling held their final show at the Cow Palace.  Pat Patterson would win the 16 man Battle Royal.  He would defeat Harley Race, the NWA World Champion by count out.  Race would retain the title.  An estimated 8500 (including me) was at the show. 

23 May 1981 -  Big Time Wrestling would have their final show at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.  There were five matches on the show. 

 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy4FNJCysso

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy9kM5XkixQ

 https://www.cagematch.net/?id=8&nr=668

Brawl Pit Bulusan

Pro Wrestling is great with all the different venues around the world.  The first show attended was in an arena that was really built for rodeos.  That was how the Cow Palace began.

 

The Brawl Pit Bulusan pictured above, in this fan's opinion, is a great place to watch a wrestling show.  Yes, it's small and crowded.  However, it has an atmosphere like no other!  For pro wrestling shows, it holds around 150 people. 

 

In August 2023, this blogger attended his first wrestling show at Brawl Pit.  World Underground Wrestling - Philippines and Dexcon together combined to put on their very first show which was very memorable.

 

WUW Philippines did their very first show at Brawl Pit on 5 October 2019 with an event called Dojo Storm.  There were seven matches that night, all exciting.

 

Today, Dexcon, WUW - Philippines and PUSO Wrestling hold wrestling shows at the venue.  Please check most social media outlets on when a wrestling show appears there.

 

The venue has a basketball area for athletes as well as an area for wrestlers to train when a show is not going on.  It's also a martial arts school for those interested.  Also, there's a nice adjoining restaurant in Onyang's Place where good food and drinks are served.

 

When and if in Quezon City, the address is 41 Bulusan right off Calamba Streets and just north of Quezon Blvd.

My First Wrestling Show

 

Hello everyone.

 

Recently, this blogger celebrated an anniversary of sorts.  It was this blogger's 55th anniversary of his first wrestling show.  NWA Big Time Wrestling took place at the Cow Palace (pictured above) in Daly City, California right near the city limits of San Francisco.  Hopefully, those reading this won't mind this being posted again since it was posted on another blog and shared on Pro Wrestling Asia.  You can say it's one of the reasons of being a pro wrestling fan and doing blogs! 

 

This fan remembers the day so well.  For a couple of years, this fan watched Big Time Wrestling on Friday nights on local television.  It was a one hour production that took place at the KTVU TV studios in Oakland that was located near Broadway at the time.  The show was used to promote matches, mainly at the Cow Palace.  However, other locations throughout the Bay Area were mentioned for local shows.  It wouldn't be surprising that wrestlers in the Big Time Wrestling - NWA stable would wrestle three to five times per week.

 

Legendary wrestler, and WWE Hall Of Famer, Pat Patterson, was the area's version of the United States Heavyweight Champion at the time.  Patterson, who went on to become the first WWE Intercontinental Champion, would face an old rival.

 

The wrestler was Ray Stevens, Patterson's former and future tag team partner in the NWA and AWA.  Stevens had come off a very serious motorcycle (true) accident and the previous year, he had to vacate the belt.  The match that they would have was called a "Texas Death Match" which today has a different name.  The stipulation was falls did not count.  It was if you could respond and stand by the referee's count of 10 to continue whether in or outside the ring.  Just to keep both wrestlers in line, Promoter Roy Shire assigned 600+ pound Haystacks Calhoun as the special referee.

 

Patterson would win the first fall.  However, Stevens "rebounded" and won the next three falls.  Because of the severe punishment that Patterson took, he did not answer by the count of 10.  The 15,000+ that were in attendance at the Cow Palace that night went bananas as Stevens hand was raised.

 

Big Time Wrestling NWA in Northern California lasted roughly about 20 years (1961-1981).  Unfortunately, because of a lack of a television contract and because of the issues of Mr. Shire, the promotion eventually folded.  The American Wrestling Association came in and had shows in the area until roughly mid 1987.  Then, it would be between WCW and today's WWE.  Every so often, New Japan Pro Wrestling will have a show or two in the area.  Other than that, it's basically small independent companies in the area.

 

Here were the full results of the show on July 11, 1970.  One might recognize several names such as Pedro Morales (a future WWE Heavyweight Champion), Peter Maivia (one of the major reasons for The Rock as well as The Usos) and Freddie Blassie (WWE wrestling manager for several wrestlers).

 

Leo Garabaldi def. Jerry Monti.

Jerry London and Pepper Martin wrestled to a 15 minute draw.

Pedro Morales def. Don Serrano.

Pampero Firpo def. Earl Maynard.

Ciclon Negro, Haystacks Calhoun and Peter Maivia def. Freddie Blassie, Stan Stasiak and The Gladiator.

Ray Stevens def. Pat Patterson (c) and won the Big Time Wrestling - NWA U.S. Heavyweight Championship.