In the late 1950’s one of the top tag teams in the wrestling world was the tag team of the Shires brothers, Professor Roy and his younger brother Ray. By the middle of 1960 Roy decided he had had enough of being a professional wrestler and settled down in the San Francisco bay area and decided to start his own wrestling promotion. The American Wrestling Alliance was born. This AWA, of course, should not be confused with the AWA from the Midwest. The American Wrestling Alliance’s home was the San Francisco territory, and consisted of San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno and other nearby cities.

Roy’s first act as promoter was to bring in the man who wrestled as his brother Carl Ray Stevens better known simply as Ray Stevens. Stevens captured the areas top singles championship, the U.S. belt in November of 1961, by defeating Cowboy Bob Ellis. Stevens quickly became the man Bay area fans loved to hate with his loud cocky ways and his great microphone skills. Ray was known to whisper to the announcer that he had never seen such a bunch of ugly women as he saw in whatever city the interview was done for. The new hatred the fans had for Ray as well as his exciting form of wrestling and bump taking made for a very entertaining wrestling star.

For every heel you need a hero and one had to look no farther than the Latin sensation from Mexico, Pepper Gomez. With Gomez’ exciting wrestling style he was the perfect foe for Ray Stevens. Just as their feud was about to heat up Ray broke his ankle in a Kart race and was sidelined for over six months. Pepper Gomez won the vacant title with a win over Freddie Blassie. Pepper carried the territory quite well while Ray was out selling out in all the arenas throughout the territory. As soon as Ray was well the decision was made to go back to Ray as United States champion. Ray had many exciting battles and eventually lost the championship to Wilbur Snyder, winning the belt back two months later from Snyder. Ray held the belt till 1965 when Kenji Shibuya took over as the Champion.