I answered, “No.”
And then he said I should go and wait in his chambers.
I had no idea what was going on, but I was sure it wasn’t good. That was way too easy. He came back twenty minutes later telling me that my accuser was full of shit, but that they had to bring the case to court to dismiss it.
“Don’t worry, it’s not your problem anymore. Come with me to my office across the street.” He introduced me to everyone. “This is my man, Pat Patterson. Let’s get him a coffee.”
* * *
Working for Roy wasn’t always fun either. Shire was always screaming. He watched every match at every show, so there was always something new for him to yell about. Slowly, however, we developed a kind of trust. What really got us to a good place was that he began discussing match finishes with me, asking how I thought they might be improved. I would take my time and consider it, then I’d offer my two cents. More often than not, he thought my ideas worked.
As time went on, he came to me with ideas more and more frequently. I would help however I could and, in exchange, I was learning psychology from the other side of the curtain.
With that mutual respect, we reached a good place, business-wise. I became much more than just a wrestler even though I didn’t have an official role in the office. It also meant that I got mixed up in all of Roy’s problems. And that led to the single worst experience of my career.
We had a girl working for us called Miss Wrestling, who went on to become the movie star Adrienne Barbeau. In our show, her job was to look pretty and put a star beside the name of the match’s winner. After Adrienne left, she was replaced by another Miss Wrestling. This girl left because she had a falling-out with the promotion and Roy Shire. Seeking revenge, she had a truck full of horse manure dumped behind the studio where we taped our television show. She played dirty and it smelled nasty.
Let’s just say Roy had a lot on his mind after all of that transpired. He was in a hotel in Sacramento shortly after that one night and he got into a fight. The guy kicked the shit out of Roy, who was no spring chicken anymore. The police came and Roy had to be helped to his room. Roy’s wife called me, crying, “He’s at the hotel. He’s beat up, he’s alone, and he needs help. Please go get him.”
I lived south of San Francisco at the time and, from my place, it was a two-hour drive. I got there, helped him get cleaned up, and brought him back to his house. The shit had really hit the fan: he was so out of it we barely talked the whole trip. I had never seen him like that.
The coming week was the annual battle royal at the Cow Palace. It was our biggest show of the year, with wrestlers coming from all over the country. Roy was still out of it and could barely function — he could barely talk, he was a real mess. So I took it upon myself to organize everything and tell the guys how the battle royal was going to go. One of the wrestlers there hated me — and I can never forgive him for what he did that day. Everyone was listening as I gave the match layout, and everyone trusted me, considering Roy was unavailable and I was often in charge.
And then the wrestler who had issues with me stood up and said, “Boys, we don’t have to listen to that guy,” implying that they didn’t have to listen to me because I was gay.
“Sit down, you piece of shit. You want to try me?” I said.
It could have become an ugly fight.
Ten guys stood to back me up and things cooled down. All the wrestlers came to me afterward and told me not to worry, that they would keep an eye on him during the battle royal and watch my back.
Peter Maivia even said, “He won’t touch you, brother.”
I told them I would get him in the battle royal before he tried anything. I’m glad cooler heads prevailed and the match went on without a hitch.
Later he tried to apologize, but that was bullshit.
He even managed to talk one of my best friends, Ricky Hunter, to go along with his crap after the show. I had known Ricky since Portland, and I had brought him to San Francisco. The man even got married in my house. We went years without speaking after that. When I got to Florida years later, his wife finally helped fixed things between us. Later on, in New York, I got him work on television. But again I digress; let’s go back to that no-good bastard in San Francisco.
I don’t remember who won the damn battle royal, but that’s the only time when someone tried to undermine me in wrestling because I was gay and in front of the entire locker room on top of it. Writing about it, it still hurts today. I heard he quit the business not long after that. Which was good for all of us. Years later at the Cauliflower Alley Club in Las Vegas, his wife tried to patch things up, telling me he was sorry. I told her that I could never forgive him.
You can curse me all you want, but don’t ever hold that against me. I have been in charge for years, and you develop a thick skin in this business. But you never get used to being belittled for who you are, especially not in front of the dressing room. I wanted to fight and, I am not ashamed to say it, I felt like I could have killed him. I just saw red that day: it could happen in other places but not in my world. In my world, I was Pat Patterson — and I knew our business; being gay didn’t matter. I can’t fully explain it, but that was the most hurtful thing to ever happen to me in wrestling and I will never fully recover from the shame and pain of that day. I still have the scar, and that’s why I don’t want to give him any notoriety by naming him.
Roy finally got back on his feet. He ran a big territory and he did it all by himself from a small home office. I had his trust. And today that means more to me than it probably did back then. After a while, he decided to finally take a vacation, and he asked me to handle the wrestlers’ payoff. He put all their names and the amount they were due on a sheet, and then he wrote me a check for the total amount. I was to deposit the check and then write checks for each individual from my own account — that’s how much he trusted me. It went so well that we kept doing that until I left the territory. He was a tough man, but for some reason he liked me. If he didn’t, there was no way I could have lasted fourteen years working for him. In the end I left of my own accord. I had just had enough — fourteen years wrestling main events in the same territory, with the same crowd sitting in the same first five rows in every city . . . You can’t imagine the pressure I felt trying to find something new to do the next week to keep them coming back. They had seen me do everything twice, as both a good guy and a bad guy. Eventually, you start questioning yourself about everything. It had stopped being fun.
The business itself was also getting a bit messy at the end. Since our television show had become so strong, Roy got tired of giving a cut to the local promoters who barely did anything to promote the shows. Shire owned all the rings in every town, except for a few where he was partnered with a local promoter. One guy actually cut the ring in half and gave Roy his share when they split up. Others were mad because Shire would not let us work for them anymore. Some of them were mad because they felt they’d helped Roy establish the territory. As always, Roy Shire could really make your life miserable.
Despite all of this, toward the end of my run in San Francisco, Louie and I tried to buy into the territory, but Roy would not sell or even accept us as partners. I had been working so hard for him without getting much of anything for all the creative work and time I put into it. I wanted a piece of the action. By that point, I handled most of the shows on the road and Roy stayed home. So, I eventually told him that I had to leave. He finally did give me a town as a way of trying to keep me — and he said I could do what I wanted with the show, that I had free rein. But there was a local promoter already involved there and, by the time he had taken his share, there wasn’t much money left for me — certainly not enough to compensate me for all the work I had been doing for years. Hindsight being 20/20, buying into the territory would have been a bad investment. But just to show you how difficult Roy could be, even with me, consider this: one time I
wanted to do a cage match in my town, and Roy wanted me to rent my own truck to come and pick up the cage at his place. And then he charged me for using his cage . . . That did it; I needed to go. I never received anything for all the behind-the-scenes work I did; I was never paid for anything except for my wrestling matches. And, in truth, I also liked many of those local promoters he was warring with. They would all ask me what was wrong with Roy. I told them they already knew the answer: Shire was cheap.
I couldn’t do anything for them, and I couldn’t do anything for Roy when he was pissed at them. When times were tougher, he was happy to have those guys working with him, but when things got easier, well, he didn’t appreciate everyone who had helped get him where he was.
The last singles match I appeared in for Roy Shire was a loser-leaves-town gimmick against Alexis Smirnoff, a kid from Montréal playing a Russian. I dropped the championship, and that was it. I had done everything, and I desperately needed an incentive to stay. If none was coming, so be it. My years in San Francisco were some of the best of my life and of my career. I did get an education with Roy and the foundation of the career I had after I left the ring was laid in San Francisco.
I left for Florida to work for Eddie Graham, another wrestling genius. But I wasn’t just a wrestler there: with Johnny Valentine, I became a producer for the territory. I needed to go, and yes it took me a little while to find myself again . . . But first, if you have not jumped ahead already, the Ray Stevens chapter is finally next.
Enjoy. We’ll travel to Florida soon enough.
THE BLOND BOMBERS
“I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption”
Only Ray Stevens and I knew the whole truth of what am I about to tell you. I’m going to let you in on the special moments and secrets we shared, and about our deep friendship.
What do I mean?
No, I did not have sex with Ray Stevens . . . Well, OK, not exactly.
Ray Stevens was in Australia when I first arrived in San Francisco in January 1965, so we weren’t paired up until he returned. Roy Shire had me dye my hair blond to match Ray’s platinum locks and I became his new tag-team partner. Don Manoukian, a former Oakland Raiders football player, had been Ray’s partner. He was a great guy and one hell of a performer himself, but he was retiring — my timing could not have been better.
The match was scheduled for April 17, 1965: Roy Shire brought in Dick Beyer, as The Destroyer, and his tag-team partner, Billy Red Lyons, up from Los Angeles. Ray and I were facing the West Coast World Tag-Team Champions, and I knew things could go either way. Roy had never told me that we would become the champions, and I felt I still needed to prove myself every night and deliver on what I had promised him on my first day. But the fact was, because we were booked in a championship match, I knew there was a chance. The only problem was I was so sick I almost couldn’t get out of bed. Louie wanted me to stay home and even called in a doctor — he was that worried. The doctor said he wanted me to stay in bed for the next three days — no buts, and no wrestling for the championship. If I had listened to him, there is no telling the opportunity I might have missed, or how the path of my career might have been altered. Louie was furious with me, but he said he’d rather drive me to the arena and take care of me, rather than worrying about me getting there by myself. He probably didn’t really expect anything different — he knew that was how the business went. If I missed that night, who knew would happen to Ray and me when I was better? I knew I had to be there, and ultimately he respected that. And I was right. That night, we became the tag-team champions for the first time. Louie knew how I was and that the business came first. The truth is, Louie never really got involved in any decision I made in relation to wrestling. He trusted me and I truly appreciated that. After the win, everything fell into place professionally for Ray and me.
In my book, I would put Roy Shire, Eddie Graham, and Dory Funk Sr. on my short list of wrestling geniuses. There are many other good painters out there, don’t get me wrong, but not everyone can be a Picasso. But Ray Stevens, as far as wrestling performance goes, also has a place on that short list. He got it right, and got it right all the time. And it seemed like everything came to him naturally, that he never had to struggle to learn anything. Shawn Michaels might be the best comparison I can give to help you understand how good Ray Stevens was. Ray was a prodigy. Now, if you said that to his face he would probably tell you that you were full of shit and that he wished he would have worked openers instead of main events, so he could have more time to chase women and drink beer . . . Do you want even more proof of his talent? Before I got to the territory, he won the award for Most Hated Wrestler in the Bay Area. But what’s truly remarkable is that he also won Most Popular Wrestler for the same year. Ray was unique — just like me.
And what a great friend Ray became. Naturally, we spent a lot of time together when we were on the road, and from the start, we had a lot of fun. But he almost got me killed in the ring once. It was a three-man tag elimination match: Stevens and me, with Freddie Blassie as our partner, at the Cow Palace. On TV, the three of us explained in detail what we were going to do to the fans’ favorites. As the match wore on, we lost Fred. But as we had predicted on TV, in the end Ray and I, two-on-one, were running roughshod over crowd-favorite Pepper Gomez — his partners had already been eliminated. We beat the goddamn hell out of him. It was so intense that the fans wanted to jump in to help defend Pepper against our onslaught. Finally, unbelievably, they came out of the crowd — there must have been more than fifty fans in the ring with us. I was sure I was going to die — I was in the middle of a goddamn riot and I could not get out of the ring. Dozens of cops had to be called in just so they could “safely” get us back to the dressing room.
The cops encircled us and said they were going to bring us to the back one at a time. I told Ray to go first. As the police were pushing people out of their way, the angry mob pushed back. Suddenly I saw Ray’s blond head disappear into the crowd. It was terrifying, and I was sure something had happened to him. But then he popped up again and seemed to make it to the back. At that moment, the crowd turned all their attention on me. I was sure I was done.
Even with the police escort, I almost never made it to the dressing room door. Someone hit me over the head with a bottle and I was covered in blood, and I was sure it was my last day on earth. I actually don’t remember the moment I realized I was safely back in the dressing room, and all I could say, over and over again, was “I can’t believe I’m alive.”
Lying on the floor and trying to stop the bleeding, my only thought was how lucky I was. Ray was mad but, just like me, glad to be alive. For two guys who really just wanted to have fun, it was no laughing matter.
That Cow Palace was one of the most dangerous buildings in the country back then. (And even today you need to be careful when you wrestle in San Francisco. Chris Jericho was hit on the head by a D battery thrown from the crowd just a few years ago.) When the fans rioted, we had to wait two hours before we could even leave the building. The lynch mob was still waiting for us. Everybody was scared, even Ray. And scaring Ray was no easy feat.
There were a few times when issues like that turned into a good laugh. One night in Eureka, California, just before the show began the chief of police came to the dressing room and asked to speak to the person in charge. I pointed to Roy, and he started to explain there was a bomb threat. He told us there were two options: evacuate everybody and cancel the show, or sign a waiver saying Roy was responsible if something happened.
Roy picked number two, in case you were wondering. Everyone was nervous, and the main event pitted Ray and me against Mr. Fuji and Mr. Saito. When we made our entrance, the only thing in our mind was that a main event was about to blow us all to kingdom come. Before the opening bell, as the referee gave us instructions, we heard a pow! We all bolted from the ring, fearing for our lives.
Do you know what had hap
pened?
A kid at ringside had stomped on a paper cup. The tension broke and I think all of us were trying to hide our laughter for the rest of the match.
Not everything was as tense as that, of course. Once a month, we would go to Reno and Lake Tahoe to visit the casinos and see some shows. For three years, we also worked Las Vegas and enjoyed Sin City on a monthly basis. It was fun: we were both well known and the pit boss would get us into all the shows for free, so they could claim to have celebrities in attendance. We had front-row seats and complimentary champagne whenever we wanted. Ray enjoyed that even more than I did. We saw all the greats: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Tom Jones, Liberace . . .
I’m a smoker, and before you start admonishing me, I know it’s a fucking bad habit. Vince keeps telling me that all the time. But it’s all Ray Stevens’s fault: he’s the one who got me to try this shit. I was drunk one night and he pressured me, laughing because I was coughing and having a hard time. After a while, I stopped coughing but I never stopped smoking. There’s no doubt I picked up this vice hanging with Ray Stevens.
But not everything we did was bad for me. In a Reno club one night, two gorgeous ladies came over to talk to us. We were sure they recognized us. They told us we were handsome and that they needed two volunteers to get their hair colored on stage. Of course we said yes — I always loved to be on stage. People in the audience recognized us and we got a big reaction. And we got our hair dyed for free! Wrestlers and their freebies . . .
Even if I was stuck with him twenty-four hours a day, Ray was a blast to be around. In his mind, he was always nineteen. And he was always either a kid at a party, on a motorcycle, fishing, horseracing, hunting, in a wrestling ring . . . or in bed with a woman. He was always ready to try something new, and he could never get enough of the ladies.
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