Stories and Photos in Wrestling – Roy's Wrestling Vault

MARCH 24th, 1991 – This was taken at Wrestlemania 7 in Los Angeles.That’s me to the left in the blue “Macho King” shirt. I’ve been to 4 Wrestlemania’s in my life, and this one was my favorite, as I was a huge Macho King fan and my mother actually bought me a 7th row ticket on the floor for the show, being 16 years old. This is my favorite live match I’ve been to (non-Lucha). I was so used to matches ending in 10-15 minutes, that it really felt like the match went over 30 minutes, and I kept looking at the clock, surprised at the length of the match

EST – Oct. 1993 – Here’s an early picture of either an 18 or 19 year old me in Carson, CA with a “100% RUDOS” sign with rudo Frankenstein.

JANUARY 2ND, 1995 – Taken at the Huntington Park Casino, with huge AAA Luchador, El Torito. Even though I was completely 100% Rudo at this time, this was one picture I really wanted to take. Great guy in and out of the ring.

JANUARY 11th, 1996 – Meeting Antonio Inoki for the first time. An amazing guy, so much history he has in, not just pro wrestling but movies and the MMA world. He once fought Muhammed Ali back in 1976 in a “memorable” fight. There was a press conference announced in Los Angeles the first week of January 1996, and I was told to be there to meet Inoki, Antonio Pena, KGB (Tom Howard) and many more. A month before the Peace Festival, Inoki asked a local cable radio show “Squared Circle” to have me host the show for two weeks leading up to Peace Festival, because I knew the wrestlers, the feuds, the storylines, etc. For my efforts, myself and my friend Peter Shank were given front row tickets to the Peace Festival show. I’ll never forget this event as long as I live.

JUNE 1st, 1996 – These photos were taken the night of the World Wrestling Peace Festival, after the show at the New Ohtani Hotel downtown in Los Angeles. Great times, there was a ton more photos that were taken that, sadly, were thrown away by accident in the summer of 1996. The ones that survived, luckily, was these three, with Benoit, Jericho, and Benoit/Jericho/Neidhart, and the two guys did sign the photos. One of the best times I ever had as a wrestling fan

AUGUST 13th, 2011 – Taken at Summerslam Axxess the day before Summerslam, here’s myself with The Miz. To be honest, and this isn’t a knock on him, apparently on StubHub that morning, there was $25 access tickets for John Cena that people were getting rid of. Cena stayed 3 hours past his scheduled time to meet everyone who came to see him, and trust me, I would have loved to ask Cena about the time he wrestled for Martin Marin and WPW at the Anaheim Marketplace in early 2002, I believe. Miz was great, by the way. Same with Hornswoggle, who at the same was doing a mute gimmick and couldn’t talk on TV, but broke it to talk to fans.

AUGUST 14th, 2011 – Myself and long time friend Brandon Chow at Summerslam 2011. Attended so many shows with him dating back to late 1993, I’ve honestly lost count. At the time, Zack Ryder’s YouTube show was the hot deal, so we were both doing the Long Island hand signal

JANUARY 14th, 2012 – The first time I was able to take my wife and son to a pro wrestling show, so we went to the Arco Arena in Sacramento for a house show, featuring CM Punk vs Dolph Ziggler for the WWE title as the main event. My kid was such a great guy that night, and he made this sign “EVEN KIDS HATE CENA”. According to the people at the door, they were under instructions to take away signs like this, but they were laughing so hard, they let it through.

FEBRUARY 5th, 2012 – One of my oldest friends in this business is WPW promoter Martin “El Genio” Marin. I believe this show was the last one that I attended that Martin promoted, as I had begun my move to Northern California. Here’s some photos of me in the ring, with Martin, and also with one of Martin’s top trainees, Lil Cholo. Great show that happened on Super Bowl Sunday 2012

SEPTEMBER 8TH, 2013 – While I had been living in the Sacramento area for a year and a half, I had yet to really catch the “indie bug” yet and didn’t know anyone to attend shows with or where they were happening. That all changed with Kai Mozeb. We ended up connecting on Facebook, as he was running a show at the Scottish Rites Masonic Center, as I heard that Sgt. Slaughter was going to be there. After hours and hours of talking to him, we agreed on having Bushwhacker Luke, Angelina Love, Marty Jannetty, Leilani Kai, Tatevik the Gamer, along with the Sarge. Great times, as it was the first time I met Leilani, who I am still close to even today. Great times all around

SEPTEMBER 28TH, 2014 – Great day at the Scottish Rites Masonic Center in Sacramento, as we ended up bringing in Greg “The Hammer” Valentine for the event (Toy Con), along with the man who once co-starred in “The Toy”, Scotty Schwartz! If any of you ever get to meet Scotty, ask him about his stories in the pro wrestling business, he’s a huge fan and has a ton of them!

FEBRUARY 14TH, 2015 – A few months after I started my job working for the Mobile Dept. at Target, I had a huge surprise, when legendary Minnesota trainer Eddie Sharkey was in town with his wife Beth, and they stopped by my store in Rancho Cordova. I could have talked to them for hours!

OCTOBER 24TH AND 25TH, 2015 – All of the following photos were taken at the NXT event in conjuction with Aftershock in Sacramento. Earlier in the week, I had bought a new car, and was pretty excited to make it to this show on my own