His performances and hard bumping style inspired generations of villain wrestlers who attempted to emulate his ability to provide high quality and heat-generating matches that continuously brought crowds of fans.

Stevens was born on September 5, 1935, in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and was raised by an aunt in Columbus, Ohio.

[4] Stevens's initial foray into main event wrestling involved his matches with one of the 1950s most colorful heels, Gorgeous George.

[2][4] One angle, which took place in Indianapolis on October 1, 1960, involved a "match" between boxer Archie Moore, a former World Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion, and the Shire Brothers.

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 rule-breaking Shire Brothers.

[4] By the end of the 1950s, Ray Stevens was 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.

During his first televised interview on the Bay Area's KTVU Channel Two weekly Friday night wrestling show promoting his upcoming match at the Cow Palace, Stevens, speaking with a low pitched growl from the side of his mouth in the manner of a movie tough, shocked the fans when he said San Francisco was a terrible place to live.

The insults thrown at the inhabitants of San Francisco caused a bit of a stir at the time which helped to further enhance Stevens's box office draw.

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 accepted a challenge from Ray Stevens to jump on his stomach off from a fifteen feet ladder which was placed in the center of the ring.

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.

[4] 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.

[5] This was the largest paying crowd to have attended any events at the Cow Palace, including a musical extravaganza which starred Elvis Presley.

After a heated exchange of blows, Gomez grabbed the rather hefty time keeper's bell and spun around to take aim at Stevens's head.

The San Francisco Examiner's columnist Jack Rosenbaum, headlining his story about the incident as "A Touch of Realism at the Cow Palace", compared Stevens to a fallen Greek warrior from ancient times.

Gomez was fined $5,000 (which was a large sum of money during those times) by the California State Athletic Commission for his part in this mishap.

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 others.

On July 15, 1967, Bruno Sammartino, WWWF World Heavyweight Champion, wrestled a two out of three falls match for the title against the Blond Bomber in San Francisco.

After being arm thrown into the far corner, Stevens would go into a half somersault landing with his back on the top turnbuckle and then do a blade job on his forehead before falling to the cement floor.

It was on January 20, 1972, when Stevens and Nick Bockwinkel first captured the AWA World Tag Team Championship from Crusher Lisowski and Red Bastien in Denver, Colorado.

[6] 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.

At this stage of his career, the mounting physical abuse after years on the road, with multiple injuries, difficulty in maintaining optimum conditioning, and his advancing age, along with promoters beginning to favor the use of more muscular physiques, had clearly begun to take its toll.

[8] 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.

[3][4][6] On May 3, 1996, Stevens died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Fremont, California, after drinking brandy and beer, and taking pills shortly before he slept.