Image copyright Matthew Simmons/Getty Images Image caption Bruno Sammartino is pictured here at an event in Hollywood in 2005
Bruno Sammartino, who fled his Nazi-occupied hometown before emigrating to the US where he became an icon of professional wrestling, has died.
Sammartino, who was known as "The Living Legend" in his time, fled Italy as a child after World War II, later settling in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The WWE Hall of Fame confirmed his death at age 82, praising his life story as the "American dream".
Celebrity wrestlers have been paying tribute to him on social media.
His death was announced on the website of WWE, the organisation known as World Wrestling Entertainment.
As a child, his hometown of Pizzoferrato was occupied by German forces, causing him and his family to flee into the mountains around Abruzzo before coming to the US.
Skip Twitter post by @DennyBurkholder RIP to the "Living Legend" Bruno Sammartino. The Italian superhero, the ultimate strongman. Make no mistake: For a generation of wrestling fans, Bruno Sammartino was THE top guy and always will be. pic.twitter.com/a4Iwh5a74r — Denny Burkholder (@DennyBurkholder) April 18, 2018 Report
"When I came to this country, I was a human skeleton," he once told KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh.
Before becoming a strongman, he was bullied in school due to his lack of English proficiency and slight frame.
He began his athletic career by lifting weights, and caught the attention of WWE Chairman Vincent McMahon after breaking a world record in 1959.
Sammartino, who was also dubbed "The Italian Superman", bench-pressed 565lbs (256kg).
He performed at Madison Square Garden in 1968, only eight days after the famous New York City venue opened to the public.
He later when on to sell out the stadium an astonishing 187 times, according to the WWE.
In 2013, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Skip Twitter post by @Schwarzenegger Bruno Sammartino was a legend. He was the American Dream personified. From his childhood in Italy hiding from Nazis to selling out Madison Square Garden 188 times as the biggest star of professional wrestling, he was a hero in every stage of his life. pic.twitter.com/29KDwT3gcA — Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) April 18, 2018 Report
Sammartino was a two-time champion of the WWWF, which preceded the WWE, reigning for a combined 11 years.
His career mostly existed during a time before the WWE admitted that its bouts were not actual competitions, but rather staged performances.
Hulk Hogan wrote on Twitter: "RIP Bruno, thank you for loving and living our business".
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto praised him in a statement as "one of the greatest ambassadors the city of Pittsburgh ever had".
Singer Bruno Mars, who met Sammartino last year, says that he chose that performing name because of a nickname his father gave him as a child, which was based on the WWE legend.
"I was nicknamed after this professional wrestler Bruno Sammartino," the singer wrote on Instagram after the meeting.
In June 2010, Mars told the website RapUP that he was given that nickname by his dad, because he was "a chunky little baby".
Bruno Sammartino was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013. WWE
"The Living Legend" Bruno Sammartino, one of the greatest icons in the history of professional wrestling, has died at age 82, WWE confirmed on Wednesday.
At his time, Sammartino was the most transcendent figure the business had ever seen, and he quickly became one of professional wrestling's most accomplished performers.
A two-time WWWF champion with reigns surpassing 11 combined years, Sammartino stands to this day as the longest-reigning world heavyweight champion in the history of what is now known as WWE. His first reign of 2,803 days (May 1963-January 1971) is the longest single reign for the company's signature title, while his second reign of 1,237 days (December 1973-April 1977) is the fifth-longest the world heavyweight championship has been held.
Sammartino was a staple at Madison Square Garden during his time atop the then-WWWF with his legendary clashes against some of the most dastardly heels in professional wrestling history. Some say Sammartino is responsible for a historic 187 sellouts of MSG with him in the main event match, though that figure has been disputed.
A true brawler who utilized his power to subdue opponents -- many of whom made their names as mat wrestlers -- the native of Italy dominated the professional wrestling scene in the 1960s and 1970s, standing as an unbeatable strongman and the cornerstone of Vince McMahon Sr.'s World Wide Wrestling Federation.
After leaving Italy with his family following World War II, Sammartino settled in Pittsburgh. He was famously bullied in school for being frail and foreign with no command of the English language. This led Sammartino to begin lifting weights and developing his body. He set a world record in the bench press at 565 pounds in 1959 after missing out on joining the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team three years earlier.
The relationship between Sammartino and McMahon Sr. began around 1960 when Sammartino joined the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, a precursor to the WWWF. Though the two had a rocky relationship for years, they eventually linked up again in 1963 after McMahon pleaded for Sammartino to return to the WWWF and immediately granted him a title shot against the company's first world heavyweight champion, "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers.
Sammartino beat Rogers in 48 seconds to claim the title and never looked back, fighting and/or defending the world heavyweight championship against some of the biggest names in professional wrestling history, including Killer Kowalski, Giant Baba, The Sheik, Freddie Blassie and George "The Animal" Steele, among many others.
He did not drop the title until 1971 when Ivan Koloff beat him at Madison Square Garden, and at first, it looked like his tenure with WWWF had come to an end. However, while trying to convince Sammartino to return to WWWF for a second lengthy title reign, McMahon Sr. made what was believed to be a rare offer from a wrestling promoter, promising to not only book Sammartino at only the nation's top venues but also pay him a percentage of every gate for events in which he participated.
RIP to the "Living Legend" Bruno Sammartino. The Italian superhero, the ultimate strongman. Make no mistake: For a generation of wrestling fans, Bruno Sammartino was THE top guy and always will be. pic.twitter.com/a4Iwh5a74r — Denny Burkholder (@DennyBurkholder) April 18, 2018
Sammartino defeated Stan Stasiak to regain the WWWF world heavyweight championship in December 1973 and took on another slew of now-famous challengers, including Waldo Von Erich, Bruiser Brody, "Superstar" Billy Graham, Nikolai Volkoff and Ernie "The Cat" Ladd. The final two years of his title reign, Sammartino fought through a fractured neck suffered in a match with a young Stan Hansen. Sammartino dropped the title to Graham in April 1977 and once again reduced his active schedule.
His feud with former student Larry Zbyszko culminated with one of the most famous steel cage matches of the modern era, a grudge match at Shea Stadium in the summer of 1980. Sammartino formally retired as a full-time competitor in 1981 and did not return to the WWF again until 1984, beginning a stint as a color commentator and part-time wrestler in support of his son, David, who had begun his own wrestling career in the WWF. Bruno accompanied David during his match at the inaugural WrestleMania in 1985.
With McMahon Sr. having died, Sammartino's third and final run with the company came under Vince McMahon, and it was one that saw the former champion return to greatness. Despite being in his 50s, Sammartino remained in excellent physical shape and grappled with some of the company's new stars, including "Macho Man" Randy Savage and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. He fought in a battle royal at WrestleMania 2 (getting eliminated by Big John Studd), was the sole survivor of an elimination match against The Hart Foundation and The Honky Tonk Man, and teamed up with Hulk Hogan to defeat King Kong Bundy and One Man Gang in his final WWF match in 1988.
Not long after his departure from the WWF, Sammartino and McMahon became foes, with Sammartino heavily criticizing McMahon and eventually working rare dates for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). It was not until nearly 25 years after his departure from the company that Sammartino and WWE rekindled their relationship when "The Living Legend" was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.
In all, Sammartino held five championships in WWE and earned "Match of the Year" honors five times from Pro Wrestling Illustrated (1972, 1975-77, 1980). He lived up to his nickname many times over and will stand forever as one of the greatest professional wrestlers in the history of the business.
Sammartino often feuded with promoters who arranged his matches. But he insisted that he never took a dive and held his titles legitimately in two reigns, from May 17, 1963, to Jan. 17, 1971, and from Dec. 10, 1973, to April 30, 1977. He lost a few matches: One foe threw salt in his eyes and pinned him while he groped about blindly; another leapt from the ring and ran off with his “diamond studded” championship belt. But these did not count.
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He sometimes made $150,000 a year, headlining cards featuring the “bad guys” — Killer Kowalski, Hans Mortier, Waldo von Erich, Ivan Koloff, Gorilla Monsoon, Professor Toro Tanaka and George (the Animal) Steele. Feuds and insults fueled the publicity hype, and outrages in the ring sent crowds wild. Every wrestler had a gimmick: ethnicity or nationality, the personas of cowboys, lumberjacks or farmers, and sports reporters went along with the fun.
“Chief Big Heart, no cigar-store Indian, used his ‘tomahawk chop’ to advantage,” The New York Times related in 1965. “The referee warned the Chief, ‘Don’t use your foot.’
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“What do you mean?” replied the Chief. “I’m only stepping on his head.”
Sammartino and many of his opponents were under contract to the wrestling federation, which arranged matches, orchestrated publicity and made millions from ticket sales and television broadcasts.
The money was good, but Sammartino said he was motivated by pride, not howling fans who admired his headlock on the Sheik of Araby or goaded him to kick and stomp Crybaby Cannon.
Sammartino was a “good guy,” but like all the others, he pounced, grimaced, grunted and rolled with the blows — a heroic Italian vs. a villainous Manchurian or a giant from Berlin: a different scenario for every match.
In February 1961, Sammartino body-slammed Chick Garibaldi to the canvas at Sunnyside Gardens in Queens. Garibaldi did not get up. The referee stopped the match and determined that Garibaldi was dead. A medical examiner later said he had suffered a heart attack. Sammartino was stricken with remorse for months.
Sammartino himself almost died, of a broken neck, when Stan Hansen, in a match in New York in 1976, dropped him on his head. Sammartino spent weeks in a hospital.
Sammartino did not dispute that professional wrestling matches were fixed. But he bristled at suggestions that he had ever taken a fall and said his injuries were proofs of his honesty.
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“I would be a fool to tell you that there was no fixing,” he told The Washington Post in 1980 as his career wound down. “You ask if wrestling is for real? Well, I think my own body answers that question. I have broken more bones than any of the others — my neck, my collarbone, both arms, wrists, knuckles, all of my ribs, my back. A hairline fracture of the kneecap. My jaw has been wired and rewired. It’s incredible to think people would fake that.”
In 1989, Vincent K. McMahon, the owner of WWE, acknowledged for the first time that its matches were not contests, only entertainment shows featuring story lines, scripts and sometimes dangerous choreography. The admission was made to avoid taxes and licensing fees imposed by state athletic commissions.
Bruno Leopoldo Francesco Sammartino was born on Oct. 6, 1935, in central Italy, in the town of Pizzoferrato. He was the youngest of seven children of Alfonso and Emilia Sammartino. Four siblings did not survive childhood.
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After the father left for America in 1939, the remaining family fled invading German forces during World War II and hid in the mountains of Abruzzo for 14 months, subsisting on little food. After the war, they immigrated to the United States and were reunited with the father in Pittsburgh.
Bruno, a sickly 90-pounder who spoke little English, was a target of bullies at Schenley High School and resolved to build his physique with weight lifting and wrestling. He weighed 225 at graduation in 1953.
He went on to work out with the University of Pittsburgh wrestling coach, Rex Peery, competed in locally televised amateur matches, and narrowly lost a spot on the 1956 Olympic weight-lifting team to Paul Anderson, who won the heavyweight gold medal in Melbourne, Australia.
Sammartino married Carol Teyssier in 1959 and had three children with her: David and the twins Daniel and Darryl. All survive him. David Sammartino, a former professional wrestler, had briefly lured his father out of retirement to form a tag team.
In 1959, Sammartino signed a $250-a-week contract with Capitol Pro Wrestling, owned by Mr. McMahon and Joseph Mondt, and wrestled in Pennsylvania, New York and other states. Mr. McMahon and Mr. Mondt later formed the World Wide Wrestling Federation and awarded its heavyweight title to “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers in April 1963.
A month later, Sammartino faced Rogers at Madison Square Garden for the title. Rogers was supposed to win. But in a story often told in wrestling circles, Sammartino broke the bad news to him in the ring.
“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” Sammartino said. He pinned Rogers in 48 seconds, launching his championship career.
After his second reign ended in 1977, he wrestled on tours. He retired in 1981 from full-time professional wrestling, although he later appeared in exhibition matches. In 2013, he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He had declined induction several times, dissatisfied with what he called lurid story lines, over-the-top theatrics and drug and steroid abuse by professional wrestlers.
As he explained in “Bruno Sammartino: An Autobiography of Wrestling’s Living Legend” (1990, with Bob Michelucci and Paul McCollough): “If the general public knew how much of this was going on today in wrestling by some of these so-called heroes that the children are rooting for, they would be shocked and devastated by it all.”
