Ray Stevens (wrestler)

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This article is about the wrestler. For the singer, see Ray Stevens.

Carl Ray Stevens, better known as Ray "The Crippler" Stevens or Ray "Blond Bomber" Stevens (born September 5, 1935 in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, died May 3, 1996), was an American professional wrestler.

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[edit] Early career

Ray Stevens, a peroxide blond, began a career, which spanned five decades, as a top rated professional wrestler in 1950 at the astonishingly young age of 15. Within a few short years, he became a main eventer and remained on top for many more years to come.

One of Stevens' mentors was the great "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, a former NWA World Heavyweight Champion. When commenting on the ability of his long time friend, Rogers consistently said "Ray was one of the most talented and graceful wrestlers I've ever watched and been a part of. He won titles at the youngest age of any wrestler I've ever known, and was a credit to the game."

In 1952, Stevens was married to woman wrestler Theresa Theis. Ms. Theis also did some work as Stevens' trainer and helped to hone his skills as a professional wrestler during the initial stage of his career. They were divorced in 1972.

Throughout most of his working years, Stevens was a villain. He has occasionally turned into a baby face. His most famous finisher move was the "Bombs Away" knee drop which involved Ray "the Blond Bomber" jumping off the top turnbuckle and landing with his knee on the throat of his hapless foe.

Stevens' initial foray into main event wrestling involved his matches with one of the 1950s most colorful heels, the great Gorgeous George. It was a result of his outstanding work with George that Stevens became a main event star. At this stage of his career, Ray Stevens was 17 years old.

Stevens further developed his legendary wrestling skills in tag team matches. He initially went into a partnership with Don Fargo as Ray and Don Stevens. In addition, during the late 1950s, Stevens teamed up with "Professor" Roy Shire as "brother" Ray Shire to win the NWA World Tag Team title from Dick the Bruiser and Angelo Poffo. The Shire Brothers were involved in many famous angles until Roy moved on to become promoter of wrestling programs in San Francisco's famed Cow Palace.

In one unusual angle, which took place in Indianapolis during 1959, was a “match” between boxer Archie Moore, a former World Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion, and the Shire Brothers. This match did not show Ray and Roy having any significant advantage over Moore. For one thing, the Shire Brothers were required to wear boxing gloves and follow the rules of boxing when they went against professional boxer Moore. Both Ray and Roy were “knocked out” in a matter of minutes. This match did not settle the argument as to who is the superior athlete, the professional boxer or the professional wrestler. A positive outcome of this "match" was the fans, who attended this event in large numbers, having the pleasure of seeing the long awaited comeuppance of the arrogant and rules breaking Shire Brothers.

By the end of the 1950s decade, the charismatic and talent laden Ray Stevens had grown rapidly into a wrestler of near unsurpassable capabilities. His skills evolved to the point of becoming virtually unmatchable in providing realistic appearing wrestling matches of excellence even under the most adverse conditions. He was then ready to move on to the next stage of his wrestling career, which took place in the city of San Francisco and throughout Northern California. The following decade represented, perhaps, the acme of his superb career.

[edit] The San Francisco Years

Stevens, reverting to his real name, started out in San Francisco, California in November 1960, where he was involved in an angle with Pepper Gomez and captured the San Francisco versions of the NWA United States Heavyweight title nine times and the NWA World Tag Team title three times.

During his first televised interview on the Bay Area's KTVU Channel Two weekly wrestling show promoting his upcoming match at the Cow Palace, Stevens shocked the fans when he said San Francisco was a terrible place to live and referred to those who watched the wrestling programs as "hillbillies" and "pencil neck geeks." The insults thrown at the inhabitants of San Francisco caused a bit of a stir at the time which helped to further enhance Stevens' box office draw ability.

One noteworthy characteristic of Ray Stevens was his flexible use of different cities being referred to as his birth place. His actual birth place was Point Pleasant, West Virginia. He was, shortly afterwards, raised in Columbus, Ohio by his aunt. Whenever he was introduced by a wrestling program announcer in San Francisco, his birth place was New York City. After moving to the East Coast during the early 70s, his birth place became San Francisco. This was probably done to plant the idea in the minds of the fans that he was an outsider and was not one of them.

The matches between Pepper Gomez and Ray Stevens, during the early part of the 1960s, certainly set the tenor for the Blond Bomber’s dominance as top heel in the Bay Area during the entire decade. Gomez, at the time, had the reputation of having a “cast iron” stomach. He constantly challenged other wrestlers to jump on his stomach and try to get him to sell. Until the Blond Bomber came along to pick up on this challenge, no wrestler was able succeed in causing more than just a little discomfort from jumping on his stomach. Gomez accepted a challenge from Ray Stevens to jump on his stomach off from a twenty-four feet ladder which was placed in the center of the ring. Stevens did so from the half way point on the ladder. He did not succeed in getting Gomez to sell. Drawing from his seemingly inexhaustible arsenal of nefarious tactics, Stevens then went to the top of the ladder and, instead of jumping off feet first, he quickly switched to using his Bombs Away knee drop. The impact caused Gomez to spit blood and put him out of action for several weeks. After Gomez recovered from his "injury," he and Stevens had a bout at the Cow Palace which was attended by approximately 17,000 fans with many more turned away due to lack of space. This was the largest paying crowd to have attended any events at the Cow Palace, including a musical extravaganza which starred Elvis Presley. Since then, Stevens and Gomez had many spectacular bouts which were always well attended by the fans.

During his San Francisco years, Stevens took on and vanquished wrestlers of such caliber as Cowboy Bob Ellis, Karl Gotch, Pat O'Connor, Pepper Gomez, Kinji Shibuya, Bobo Brazil, Bruno Sammartino (through a count out), Pedro Morales, Dr. Big Bill Miller, Ernie "Big Cat" Ladd, Jose Lothario, and many many others. More than any other moves, the Bombs Away knee drop was the deciding factor in his many victories.

In 1962, Stevens' phenomenal success was noted in a poll of wrestling fans in the Bay Area. The poll was set up to determine which wrestler was considered to be the most popular and which one was the most despised. Believe it or not...Ray Stevens was elected by the fans as number one in both categories. He was probably one of the earlier examples of an anti-hero in wrestling.

In 1965, Stevens teamed up with Pat Patterson to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship. They were known as the "Blond Bombers." To this day, many wrestling insiders and fans considered the Stevens-Patterson combo as one of the finest, if not the very best, tag teams in the history of professional wrestling. Stevens and Patterson had two runs holding the NWA World Tag Team title and one run with the AWA World Tag Team title. In 1969, after making a baby face turn, Stevens went against Patterson in a number of heat generating mat wars which drew huge crowds of fans.

On July 15, 1967, Bruno Sammartino, WWWF World Heavyweight Champion, put his title on the line against the Blond Bomber in San Francisco. After Stevens applied the Bombs Away, Sammartino was counted out and lost the match. Ray Stevens was then announced as the new World Champion. However it was later determined that, according to the WWWF rules, a champion could not lose the title due to a count out. Thus, Bruno Sammartino was able to return to the East Coast with his title still intact.

A spectacular move, invented by the great Blond Bomber during the latter part of the 1960s, was the famous Turnbuckle Flip. This move involved Stevens being arm tossed into the far corner by his opponent. Prior to hitting the corner, Stevens would go into a half somersault flipping over the top turnbuckle and do a blade job before touching the cement floor. This extraordinary bumping technique, among many other innovations of Stevens, was simply beyond the skills of most wrestlers. A few very talented wrestlers like Ric Flair were able to effectively use the Stevens Turnbuckle Flip as part of their in-ring repertoire.

Over the years, many people expressed the opinion that Ray Stevens was the best worker ever during the 1960s. Despite not being large in size, he was a dynamic wrestler with unsurpassable bouncing capability. Stevens had the ability to make any opponent look good, no matter how badly they may perform in the ring. In addition, he has been able to demonstrably convince the fans, through his ring work and his equally great interview work, that he could methodically and completely destroy anyone regardless of how strong or how big they may be. This mesmerizing talent has also resulted with him getting into a number of fracases in bars with those who wanted to find out how tough he really was. His professionalism and dedication to giving his best in the ring has been admired and appreciated by the fans and fellow wrestlers.

During his San Francisco phase, Ray "Blond Bomber" Stevens had consistently been rated among the top ten best singles wrestlers in the world by magazines of the period such as Stanley Weston's Wrestling Revue.

[edit] American Wrestling Association (AWA) and National Wrestling Alliance (NWA)

He then moved on to the American Wrestling Association (AWA) in 1971, where he enjoyed huge success as a five-time AWA World Tag Team champion (four with Nick Bockwinkel, one with Pat Patterson); after that, he captured three NWA World Tag Team titles in Jim Crockett Promotions.

It was on January 20, 1972, when Stevens and Nick Bockwinkle first captured the AWA World Tag Team Championship from Crusher Lisowski and Red Bastien in Denver, Colorado. The team was managed by Bobby Heenan.

While working with the AWA in 1972, Stevens had a crowd rousing match with a masked wrestler known as Doctor X (Dick Beyer) in which he applied the Bombs Away coup de grace to win the match. This resulted in the "breaking" of Doctor X's leg (which allowed Beyer to leave the area to work with a wrestling tour in Japan as "The Destroyer") and also led to the outlawing of the Bombs Away maneuver by the AWA. It was shortly after that match when Ray Stevens was no longer called the Blond Bomber and became known as "The Crippler."

In 1976, Stevens and Bockwinkel were still the team the beat, but frictions were growing within the team. When Bobby Heenan was named the 1976 Manager of The Year by a wrestling fan magazine on a Christmas Day episode of AWA All-Star Wrestling, Bockwinkle attacked Stevens. This happened because the Crippler pushed Heenan, while Bockwinkle was trying to congratulate Bobby on being manager of the year. This led to the eventual break up of the team.

[edit] World Wrestling Federation (WWF)

From there, he moved to the WWF. In the WWF, he was managed by Capt.Lou Albano. Stevens and Albano turned on Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka in 1982. This angle had the Crippler piledriving Snuka onto the concrete floor (This was before padding was introduced) two consecutive times. This dastardly action by the Crippler put over the "Superfly" to become one of WWF's beloved baby faces during the 1980s. Stevens fizzled out in the WWF afterwards.

At this stage of his career, the mounting physical abuse after years on the road, multiple injuries, difficulty in maintaining optimum conditioning, and his advancing age, along with promoters beginning to favor the use of steroid enhanced behemoths, has clearly began to take its toll.

[edit] Late Career

After leaving the WWF, Stevens returned to the AWA, where he joined forces with Larry Zbyszko in feuding with the babyface-turned Bockwinkel, only to turn face himself after Zbyszko turned on him. Stevens was in Bockwinkel's corner when interference by Zbyszko led to Curt Hennig winning the AWA World Heavyweight title from Bockwinkel in San Francisco on May 2, 1987; Stevens and Bockwinkel protested the outcome of the match to the AWA Championship Committee, but the decision was upheld days later after the committee ruled that there was no evidence that Zbyszko had illegally aided Hennig; as a result, the now heel-turned Hennig remained champion. Stemming from the events of that match, Stevens feuded briefly with Zbyszko before finishing out his career in 1992.

He appeared in the 1978 Sylvester Stallone movie Paradise Alley.

[edit] Death

On May 3, 1996, Stevens died from a heart attack at the age of 60 while sleeping at his home in Fremont, California. He was survived by five children: Carl, Timothy and Laura from Fremont, Roy from Sacramento, California, and Kelly from Las Vegas, Nevada.

[edit] Legacy

To this day, Ray Stevens continues to be a positive influence on professional wrestling. He has mentored many wrestlers including the superstars who have since emerged. These included individuals like "Superstar" Billy Graham, Ric Flair, and others. He has injected rollicking humor into his interactions with others, whether with wrestlers he worked with or those he became friendly with on the outside. He also demonstrated a very strong sense of work ethics and commitment to doing his best in his work as a professional wrestler to ensure that the fans will always get their money's worth when watching him perform. The relationships he has built over the years were spotlighted at his memorial service shortly after his death when rodeo stars, bikers, wrestlers, pipe fitters, and many others came together to celebrate the life of a man who gave so much of himself to others and to the joy of living to the fullest.

Many have wondered why this hugely talented wrestler was never elected to become a World Singles Heavyweight Champion. The most probable reason has to do with the life of Ray Stevens outside of the ring. He was a restless man who constantly seeked challenges in many different activities. He performed in rodeos, car races, motorcycling, and other activities. He has from time to time injured himself in those activities. Those injuries and the possibility of box office revenue loss due to no shows probably provided promoters with the reason for not picking Stevens as a World Singles Champion despite his ability to become one of the best if offered the chance. Despite the wide ranging interests he had outside of the ring, he was considered to be a "working machine" who would always show up to meet his wrestling obligations as long as he was physically able.

On May 20, 2006, Ray "The Crippler" Stevens was posthumously honored by being inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame at Amsterdam, New York. He was the first professional wrestler to be selected for induction into two separate categories: Tag Team (with Pat Patterson) and Modern Era (for his superlative work as a singles wrestler).

[edit] Championships and accomplishments

  • NWA United States Heavyweight Wrestling Champion (9);
  • AWA World Tag Team titles w/Nick Bockwinkel defeating Red Bastien & Crusher Lisowski (January 20, 1972);
  • AWA World Tag Team titles w/Nick Bockwinkel Awarded (December 1972);
  • AWA World Tag Team titles w/Nick Bockwinkel defeating Verne Gagne & Bill Robinson (January 6, 1973);
  • AWA World Tag Team titles w/Nick Bockwinkel defeating Crusher Lisowski & Bill Robinson (October 24, 1974);
  • AWA World Tag Team titles w/Pat Patterson defeating Jim Brunzell & Greg Gagne (July 7, 1977);
  • Amarillo Brass Knuckles title (2);
  • NWA Tag Team titles w/ Greg Valentine defeating Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood (March 29, 1980);
  • NWA Tag Team titles w/Jimmy Snuka defeating Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood (June 22, 1980);
  • PWI Magazine Tag Team of the Year w/Jimmy Snuka (1980);
  • NWA Tag Team titles w/ Ivan Koloff defeating Paul Jones & Masked Superstar (February 22, 1981);
  • Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight title;
  • Southern Junior Heavyweight title (3);
  • Florida Television title (2);
  • Mid-Atlantic Tag Team titles (3);
  • Hawaii United States Heavyweight title;
  • In 1995, the mayors of San Francisco and Oakland jointly proclaimed April 5 "Ray Stevens Day", and he was honored as a true local legend;
  • Inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (1996)
  • Inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in two categories - Tag Team and Modern Era (May 20, 2006);

[edit] References

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