Roland Alexander, APW Owner
Let me introduce myself. My name is Roland Alexander and I am the owner and founder of All Pro Wrestling in Hayward, California. I grew up with pro wrestling since age 7 and wanted to be a pro wrestler in the worst way. I attended live pro wrestling events in the San Francisco regional territory run by Promoter, Roy Shire from 1968 through 1980. He ran the territory from 1961 through 1980. Roy Shire had a vision of one of the regional promoters turning his back on the pro wrestling industry and running off the regional promoters and creating a monopoly for himself. The guy was a real genius and I am proud of the fact I was a student of his for many years. In 1972, I had many scholarships to attend college but never graduated because I became obsessed with becoming a pro wrestler.
Roy Shire and Rocky Johnson
Cow Palace, San Francisco
Ray Stevens, Best wrestler ever
In 1972, I met Rocky Johnson and when I found out he also lived in Hayward, I attended many live events with him and some of the boys and put in my mileage up and down the California highways although the boys were lucky because the drives in this territory were short. I tried to absorb as much as I could from Rocky. He was like an older brother to me. The sacrifices one will make to become a pro wrestler is simply amazing. I went as far as babysitting Dewey (now known as the Rock) just to get free training from Rocky and make Peter Maivia’s (Rocks grandfather) daughter happy (Good idea since Peter was a bad ass and I wanted to be on his good side). I didn’t like babysitting “The Rock” because that candy ass used to drool all over me. Okay, enough with the Rock jokes. I babysat Dewey because Rocky had a key to the Hayward Boys Club where he and former Pro Boxing Heavyweight Champion, George Foremanused to train together and I wanted to get in the ring. Early on, I never got in the ring but I got to meet George Foreman. I learned to take bumps on the Boys Club tiled floor with amateur wrestling mats on them. I got to learn many holds, counters and take-downs in the boxing ring. I think the ring was harder than the tiled floor so I didn’t bump in there. There were some lucky days when Rocky and Ric Thompson would take me to the Oakland Auditorium once the ring was up in the afternoon prior to a Saturday night show and I would get my gear on and bump in the ring and I felt privileged.
Louie Miller, Local Promoter
Louie Miller was the local promoter in Oakland and he also liked me and he used to rib me with his cigar box which would slightly electrocute you when he asked you to carry it for him. He would smile when he saw you got the jolt. Louie would pay me $6 and buy me a hot dog and coke if I took the ring jackets back to the dressing room and ushered fans to their seats. That is almost more than Indy wrestlers make today. Boy, has pro wrestling changed but what a job being in charge of the jackets. I got to see the wrestling matches for free and meet more of the wrestlers. Of course, I was their favorite target for ribs. The local promoter always ribbed me too. Louie had a tough handshake because he was a carny from way back when and that is where he learned all the carny tricks. Hell, I guess you could say that was the beginning of when I learned to become a carny. When Rocky left the territory in 1976, I felt my dream slipping away because I didn’t have the genetics and was real lazy because it took such hard work to build a body. Eventually, pro wrestling got the best of me and I dropped out of college at the end of my sophomore year.
I had a tryout with Kurt Von Steiger in 1974 and he had told me although I was very talented in the ring, at 170 pounds, my chances were slim and none and none left town with no payoff. I needed to build a body. He told me that unless you were Chavo Guerrerro Sr. at 220 with his God given ability, you have to be 240 or higher to get into pro wrestling. The doors had not yet opened for the little guy until Rey Mysterio Jr. was discovered wrestling for AAA from Mexicoon their shows promoted in Hispanic communities in California. He was discovered by ECW promoter, Paul E. I went on with my life as a Corporate Tax accountant specializing in sales & use tax returns, personal property tax returns etc… In early 1990 I found myself between jobs and burned out with accounting and had no idea what to do until my good friend, pro wrestler, Ric Thompson (the guy who trained the Wild Samoans, Afa and Sika, who when inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame recently, thanked Ric) approached me and told me I was too smart not to have been a part of pro wrestling. After investigating other pro wrestling training schools in the area, I was not impressed and still am not impressed with what I see today. I sold my house and opened All Pro Wrestling in 1991. At my first Cauliflower Alley Banquet, I met many legends. I got to meet two of my many idols. One was former NWA World Heavyweight champion, Buddy Rogers. Buddy spent 5 hours with me that weekend talking wrestling shop. He told me he would have never had these type of conversations years ago but the business had changed and he liked me and couldn’t believe how smart to the wrestling game I was. Remember, the sheets were barely out and I don’t think the Internet had done its thing yet. I learned allot and Buddy and I kept in touch on a monthly basis until his death. The thing I remember most about Buddy Rogers was him saying, “You can make hamburgers, kid, but remember you can’t make wrestlers, wrestlers are born!”. Boy was he right although APW has done a great job for 16 years of making wrestlers. The other guy I spent lots of time with and he was very accommodating was San Francisco regional promoter, Roy Shire. Roy told me the same thing Buddy told me but he also liked me. Roy tried to throw me out of many shows in my younger days because he thought I knew too much back in the day when nobody was smart to the sport of wrestling and people who were ended up in the river with broken arms. Thanks Roy for not breaking my arms and may you rest in peace, I owe you big-time. Roy almost fired Ric Thompson because he thought Ric had smartened me up when in fact, I was smartened up by an old-timer by the name of Handsome Paul Diamond who used to pass out roses to the women at ringside. He is now in his sixties and is still handsome and probably has a better physique than anyone in APW right now. Hell, if his knees are good, he could wrestle today. I still see him every year at the CAC banquet. Ric Thompson told Shire that it was I who was smartening up Mr. Thompson, LOL. Roy offered me free consultation for my training school because he still loved the sport of pro wrestling and wanted to see it do good. Roy saw the expansion of cable television ruining regional pro wrestling and giving some promoter with guts the opportunity to go national and monopolize the wrestling industry and that promoter turned out to be Vince McMahon Jr. in 1984. It is amazing Roy had that vision in 1980. Unfortunately, Roy passed on with a heart attack and I never got to pick his brain the way I really wanted to. Shire was certainly ahead of his time and was the creator of Miss Wrestling and many other great things in his territory.
Miss Wrestling
I was a student of his and learned lots about pro wrestling from him. I learned fundamentals from Rocky Johnson and Ric Thompson, who were both very fundamentally sound.
APW BOOT CAMP
When we opened APW in 1991, Ric Thompson and I went to work on the curriculum of the training school and wrote handouts, written tests and in-ring skill tests. I won’t say nobody in pro wrestling has these methods because they have been successful and anytime you develop successful game plans, everyone wants to steal it and copy it and that is flattering. I know for a fact that in California alone, our manuals are used in teaching at their training school. Do we sue, not really, we want as much as our knowledge passed on to the young student who wants to learn the industry.
The Wrestling Promotion - APW
In 1995, we started the wrestling promotion with a hot show in front of over 500 fans in Moraga, California. I remember Matt Hyson (AKA Spike Dudley) stealing the show although our main events including the midgets were very entertaining.
GYM WARS at the GARAGE
In 1996, we created Gym Wars. With the popularity and the evolution of ECW taking place in Philadelphia, APW’s Gym Wars became a cult following in Hayward, California. The crowds started at 18 and we kept doing things to fit more and more people into the training facility including building a wooden wrestling ring. Manny Fernandez and Vic Grimes built a 16 foot ring so we could fit another 20 people or so. Our Gym Wars events became legendary in 1997. At the end of 1998, we had to shut down gym wars because of the building was not zoned for entertainment and we could not charge to get in and had to keep capacity at a certain level inside the building. In 2002, Gym Wars returned with the city’s blessing because we did not charge to get in and we kept the overflow of crowd outside in the parking lot. We started charging 3 canned food and an unopened toy to get in. By doing the above, Gym Wars enabled the APW Boot Camp to provide some very important experience to some young men and women who were students. It also fed many needy families in the Bay Area while making sure the underprivelged children had toys. What a win-win situation Gym Wars has been since 2002. It took a while but the Gym Wars interest was built back to the level it stood in 1997.
People have been known to make fun of the famous APW Garage (seen in the movie Beyond the Mat) but that little ole garage has produced lots of talent including some of which have gone on and enjoyed careers in the sport of pro wrestling.
The Production is Awesome!
If you have never been to an APW live event, you don’t know what you are missing. They consist of HOUSE SHOWS and GYM WARS. We currently do house shows at Kezar in San Francisco and The Dome in Bakersfield. Fans attending our shows have always told us, “This show was awesome. You are better than the WWE”. We certainly don’t have the resources of the major promotions but you wouldn’t know it when you see the quality of the in-ring wrestling and the production values provided by our friends at Black Pants Production http://www.blackpants.net/index.html and http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/onestopwrestlingshop/StoreFront
The production values include big screens, great audio and lights, strobes and fog galore. It is easy to see why APW is one of the top Indy wrestling promotions in the U.S. If you have never attended an APW live event including our house shows and Gym Wars, please do so. These events are presented monthly as an extension of our training camp. They are training shows that allow our students the opportunity to perform in front of a small live audience. Nothing changes from our house shows. There are still lights, fog, big screens and stages for ring entrances. They are also FREE. Since the city does not permit us to charge because of zoning your price of admission is 3 canned goods of food and an unopened toy and we donate it to the needy. Although we don’t have budgets for these shows, we still bring in big-name talent from time to time and it is a bonus for the fans because we utilize these big-name talents to pass knowledge and experience to our students. Many pro wrestling training schools tried to offer the same thing but few still do and GYM WARS was the originator.
CLICKWRESTLE
Our friends at ClickWrestle at http://www.clickwrestle.com were one of the originators of pro wrestling online footage. Please support them by visiting and seeing some viewing some great wrestling footage from all over the world and many of your favorite APW matches.
ONE STOP WRESTLE SHOP
If you are looking for merchandise including kids items, DVD’s etc… look no further, visit
http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/onestopwrestlingshop
for all your pro wrestling merchandising needs. You won’t find better prices.
APW home of all your Pro Wrestling needs!
As you can see, All Pro Wrestling and its affiliates are not just the best Minor League feeding system with one of the top pro wrestling training schools in the industry. We are more than that! We do live events, we feed the needy and make sure kids have toys and students get pro wrestling experience with the Gym Wars events. Our affiliates are the leaders in pro wrestling production, merchandising and online wrestling footage.
With the background stuff out of the way, you now know my credentials and probably have a better understanding of how we are able to run a pro wrestling minor league feeding system that includes one of the top training schools in the U.S.. We do this without any of us ever having a pro match. Let’s face it, you are not officially a pro wrestler and don’t have your first pro match until you earn a living from the industry. Therefore, none of us have had any pro matches yet.
I was smart enough to surround myself with knowledgeable people with great skills and backgrounds to learn the wrestling business including, all aspects of the training side. I then took the same philosophy used to learn pro wrestling and applied it to APW and my business and surrounded myself with the best in volunteers and people like Jason Deadrich and Gabe Ramirez who have shadowed me and learned from me what I learned from my pro wrestling legend friends and have also learned from many legends as well. Without Jason and Gabe and a few others including our students, APW would be nothing. It is called passing down knowledge to make sure the business continues after I am gone and that is what we do best at APW. It is important to preserve the pro wrestling industry we all love.
Hopefully, you’ll decide to check us out, if that is not possible, then I wish you the best of luck and hope you follow my advice regarding the industry we all love - professional wrestling.
Sincerely,
Roland Alexander
Owner of All Pro Wrestling
Home of APW Boot Camp, the #1 pro wrestling training school in America.
{I want to thank Viktor Berry for all the great memories and pictures. For many that don’t know Viktor, he used to work with former Cow Palace ring announcer, Alan Bolte who was also in charge of the great souvenir program. As you can see, Viktor is one heck of a photographer and you can learn more about California Roy Shire wrestling by visiting Viktor’s website at: http://homepage.mac.com/viktor2/btw/index.html }
