Portland Wrestling Tee

The Pacific Northwest's pro wrestling heyday started in the 1950s, when the weekly TV program "Portland Wrestling" ran on various local channels. For much of its long run, the production was broadcast from the then-rundown Portland Armory. 

Plenty of well-known names -- such as Rowdy Roddy Piper and Jesse Ventura -- regularly took to the ring in Portland.

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“Portland Wrestling” ended on KPTV in 1991 after the station entered into an agreement with the now legendary Vince McMahon to exclusively carry his fledgling show, “WWF Championship Wrestling.”

“Portland wrestling kind of did have a very countercultural feel,” says Kerby Strom, a collector of wrestling memorabilia and a historian of its golden days. “All that kind of got lost once ‘Portland Wrestling’ went away.”