WWE Legends by Brian Solomon

Author:Brian Solomon [Solomon, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Wrestling, Essays, vl-wrestling, Sports & Recreation, General
ISBN: 9781451604504
Google: WrFWKBBQzAAC
Amazon: B002WTCBTU
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2006-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Ivan Koloff vs. Bruno Sammartino.

Three years later, he was back in the saddle again as champion, dismantling the top heels of the 1970s, just as he had done to the top heels of the 1960s.

He was a main attraction for twenty years—longer than anyone else in WWE history, even Andre the Giant. Madison Square Garden was his home field, and he sold it out more times than any other performer in any field of human endeavor. On a nearly monthly basis, hordes of raucous fans packed the Garden to witness their hero’s exploits, just as they did in other arenas like the Boston Garden, the Philadelphia Spectrum, and the Capitol Center, and in cities like Pittsburgh, Bridgeport, Baltimore, and Providence.

Those exploits included bodyslamming the 601-pound Haystacks Calhoun, as well as battling fellow fan favorite Pedro Morales before 30,000 people at Shea Stadium. In addition to his Northeast duties, Sammartino was the first WWWF Champion to defend the title overseas, taking on the late Giant Baba in Japan. He also frequently traveled to other territories throughout the United States.

“I traveled all over the world with him,” recalls his longtime manager Arnold Skaaland. “He was a great guy. We had a lot of good times together. He loved to eat Italian food. I never ate so much Italian food in my life! We really had a good rapport between us.”

He was no great technician, and possessed none of the over-thetop flash of today’s top Superstars. Yet few champions before or since possessed his kind of subtle charisma—the ability to get the people behind him, and most importantly, to believe in him. Fans invested their emotions in Sammartino, just as they would for any great sports hero.

That fact was put to the test in April 1976, when Bruno suffered a serious injury during a match with Stan Hansen in Madison Square Garden. Slippery with sweat and blood, Sammartino was dropped on his head by Hansen, who was trying to execute a bodyslam. The botched move broke the neck of the champion, who nevertheless continued the match, even after subsequently taking Hansen’s brutal lariat clothesline. The match was stopped due to excessive bleeding, and amazingly, Bruno left the ring under his own power. It wasn’t until he was found passed out in the locker-room shower that the severity of the injury was discovered. Bruno had come very close to being paralyzed, and spent the next two months in a hospital bed, in traction.

By his own admission, he returned to action way too soon, stepping back in the ring just two months later for a rematch with Hansen in Shea Stadium. Despite not being fully recovered, as well as being unable to train effectively, Sammartino’s intensity helped drive him to victory, which occurred when he beat Hansen so badly that the massive Texan fled the ring and was counted out.

“With Bruno, you knew you were really in there with a living legend,” says Superstar Billy Graham, the man who ended Sammartino’s second title reign in 1977.

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