- Vik Berry

What are my qualifications for writing about Roy Shire's Big Time Wrestling promotion? I've never been a wrestler, although when I was a teenager I thought I wanted to wrestle. And I'm not a wrestling "historian" like many you can find on the Internet. But I was lucky enough to spend several years close to Roy Shire and his company, the Pacific Coast Athletic Club. He was the promoter and booker during wrestling's heyday in Northern California.
 Next month I am going to begin my series and tell you about Roy Shire and his television operations.  This month I'll give you a brief introduction to how I became involved with Roy's Big Time Wrestling shows so you know where I fit into these events: 

I lost track of wrestling for awhile until my family got a new Color TV which was able to receive Sacramento's newest UHF channel, KTXL Channel 40. It was 1969 and they just started broadcasting a new show from their studio, Big Time Wrestling.  I remembered watching many of these guys with my uncle but I wasn't afraid of them anymore -- I loved it! It took awhile, but my brother and I finally convinced our dad into bringing us to one of the "big" shows at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium where the Championship matches were held. The auditorium held about 4,400 people (including standing room) and those shows were selling out -- legitimately turning people away!
 
I was thirteen and fourteen years old then and I immersed myself in wrestling -- I bought all the magazines, had pen pals who wrote to me about wrestling in other territories and I started phoning Hank Renner, Big Time Wrestling's popular announcer to make "Group Reservations" for my Boy Scout Troop. This way, I was able to see the wrestlers in person every week and it didn't cost me a penny -- not to mention the fact that we got to watch ourselves on TV every week, too!  If you wanted to attend the live tapings at Channel 40, you had to pick up free tickets at one of the show's sponsors on Monday morning. For many years it was Marshall's Furniture.  But I had to go to school and couldn't get them. Then I heard an announcement Hank made once that groups of fifteen people or more could phone in reservations and that's what I did. For every group my friends and I could think of!

We were having a great time at the matches and we started showing up a couple of hours early to get autographs and talk to the wrestlers as they showed up for the shows. The magazines never seemed to write much about the wrestlers in our area though, and there were no programs for sale in Sacramento, so I started bringing my mom's camera equipment with me to take pictures. She is an aerial photographer and I had learned to take photos over the years, so she didn't mind too much.

When I started bringing my 8x10s to the shows to get autographed, everyone wanted to buy copies -- even the wrestlers! I started going into my mom's photo lab when it was closed to make photos and that was when I had the idea to print programs and sell them at the matches. I had worked on Saturday's at my grandfather's printing company and I loved the printing business. I thought it would be easy -- until I tried to talk Roy Shire into letting this fourteen year old kid print programs for him!
 
I couldn't even get Roy to listen to me at first, but then I started giving him copies of my 8x10s. I started giving copies to Hank Renner, too, and he went to bat for me. I gave the boys free 8x10s in exchange for their talking about how awesome my photos were whenever Roy was close enough to hear them.  More...