Kellie
03-23-2010, 06:41 AM
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/images/201003/rad_031610_spt_7_bruno_samm_500.jpg
Like anyone who has lived in the same house for nearly 48 years, Bruno Sammartino has accumulated his share of memorabilia.
For example, there's a key to the Italian city of Pizzaferrato, which erected a statue to her native son. There's a picture with Pope Paul VI, who granted him a Vatican audience in 1966, just 16 years after an 80-pound weakling left for America and returned as a world champion. And there's an Everlast boxing glove autographed by Jake "Raging Bull" LaMotta.
One cherished photo shows him with Joe DiMaggio. Not only do he and the Yankee Clipper share Italian heritage, they had similar approaches to their professions. DiMaggio said he played all out all the time because there might be a guy in the stands who had never seen him play before, and that strikes a chord with Sammartino.
"If people took the time to leave their homes and bought a ticket with their hard-earned cash to see me perform, the least I could do was give it everything I had every time out," Sammartino said. "I didn't care if I was aching or hurting. I wanted to give the fans their money's worth."
A two-time heavyweight champion of the world, Sammartino returns to the spotlight one more time Thursday to give his fans their money's worth. He will receive the Dapper Dan Lifetime Achievement Award, and the only thing he will be wrestling with is his celebrity.
Broadcasting legend Bill Cardille, who witnessed Sammartino's ascent from construction worker to star of "Studio Wrestling" to the headliner who sold out Madison Square Garden 187 times, said no one is more deserving.
"In his day, he was the hottest ticket in the world," said Cardille, who has been on Pittsburgh airwaves for more than half a century and who still has a radio show on WJAS-AM (1320).
"Every time he wrestled, whether it was in Japan or Australia or South America or around the corner, he was an ambassador for Pittsburgh," Cardille added. "He is a man of humility, accomplishment, compassion, strength and, above all, integrity. He is the consummate Pittsburgh guy."
A grandfather whose blue eyes have softened over the years, Sammartino lives a quiet suburban life in Ross with his wife of 50 years. He and Carol have a standing dinner date Saturdays, and they enjoy listening to Italian operas sung by Franco Corelli.
As a youngster who was new to America, Sammartino built himself up by lifting weights at a Jewish community center in Oakland because other kids picked on him for not being able to speak English.
He still works out six days a week, rising at 5:30 a.m. to begin his days in his basement gym. In his street clothes, he weighs 227 pounds, about 50 pounds below his wrestling weight.
Sammartino can bench press 225 pounds. That's down from the certified press of 565 pounds in his prime, but he will be 75 in October. He listens to KDKA's Rob Pratte on his AM radio as he pumps iron three days a week, and he runs three times a week, six miles at a time, up and down the terrain of the North Hills.
If you called him a homebody, he would accept it as a compliment.
"People have no clue how demanding my schedule was back in the day. There were times when I might be home for just one or two days a month," he said. "So now, I like to spend as much time at home as possible. People used to ask why I never moved somewhere else. But believe me, I would never consider living anywhere else in the United States. Pittsburgh is my home."
Sammartino has had a well-publicized divorce from professional wrestling over the direction it has taken. He admits that pro wrestling wasn't all pure in his day because promoters pre-determined some outcomes, and those who didn't play by the rules were blackballed. But he also said that many matches were real competitions.
"People can say it's fake and everything's fixed. Fine, whatever. But lots of guys protected their reputations," Sammartino said.
To that end, he talked about two matches that stand out from a career that spanned four decades. One made him a champion, and one highlights all the bouts he has had over the years at the Civic Arena before then-Mellon Bank bought the naming rights.
In 1963, after he was shut out of U.S. wrestling shows because he refused to take dives, Sammartino was wrestling out of Toronto as a Canadian champion.
"I was blackballed in the United States," he said. "I wasn't going to leave my wife and my job and not be given a chance at winning the championship, and they told me, 'Who do you think you are?'"
Then promoter Vince McMahon Sr. needed someone to go up against World Wide Wrestling Federation champion Buddy Rogers. It would be in Madison Square Garden, the epicenter of the wrestling universe, on May 17, 1963.
"When we were introduced in the center of the ring, I told Buddy to forget whatever they told him was going to happen. I told him to do his best because I was going to do my best," Sammartino said.
Seconds after the opening bell, Sammartino scooped up the champion and body-slammed him to the canvas.
Then he hoisted Rogers onto his shoulder and applied a closing hold known as the pendulum backbreaker.
"I told him to give up or I was really going to break his back," Sammartino said.
Every wrestling fan knows the championship belt can only be won with a pin fall or submission. Just 47 seconds into this match, Rogers submitted, and wrestling had a new king. Sammartino held the title for seven years, eight months and one day -- still the longest continuous reign in history. He would later become the first wrestler to win the championship two times.
It was during the first championship run that Sammartino was scheduled to appear in a 1968 bout at the Civic Arena against Hans Mortier, who was billed as Bridget Bardot's bodyguard. The two wrestlers had already engaged in a series of earlier bouts, and Sammartino was the only man who had ever broken out of Mortier's signature hold, the full nelson.
The show had been sold out for months. But then, Martin Luther King was assassinated, and an anonymous caller threatened to detonate a bomb inside the arena if the show wasn't cancelled in deference to the slain civil rights leader.
"In those days, promoters had the arena for a certain date, and if the show didn't go on, they lost the gate. They're the ones who made the business decision to go on with it," Sammartino said.
"They kept the bomb threat quiet, but I found out about it. Let me tell you, I wasn't too comfortable going out there. But I was in the main event, and I wasn't going to be the one to back out," he added. "Nothing happened, obviously, but I can't say I wasn't nervous."
Mortier, a native of Holland, found himself in a backbreaker and submitted.
Sammartino wrestled at the arena for more than 20 years, starting with a match against Moose Cholak of Moose Bay, Wis., shortly after the arena opened in 1961.
"I've wrestled in places that were bigger, and I wrestled all over the world," Sammartino said. "But in all honesty, I loved wrestling at the arena. The shape of it was so magnificent. From the air, it looked like a flying saucer or a space ship.
"But most of all, it meant coming back home," he added. "There's nothing like wrestling in front of people you know. It was like coming back home to be with family."
Spoken like a true Pittsburgh guy.
post-gazette.com
Like anyone who has lived in the same house for nearly 48 years, Bruno Sammartino has accumulated his share of memorabilia.
For example, there's a key to the Italian city of Pizzaferrato, which erected a statue to her native son. There's a picture with Pope Paul VI, who granted him a Vatican audience in 1966, just 16 years after an 80-pound weakling left for America and returned as a world champion. And there's an Everlast boxing glove autographed by Jake "Raging Bull" LaMotta.
One cherished photo shows him with Joe DiMaggio. Not only do he and the Yankee Clipper share Italian heritage, they had similar approaches to their professions. DiMaggio said he played all out all the time because there might be a guy in the stands who had never seen him play before, and that strikes a chord with Sammartino.
"If people took the time to leave their homes and bought a ticket with their hard-earned cash to see me perform, the least I could do was give it everything I had every time out," Sammartino said. "I didn't care if I was aching or hurting. I wanted to give the fans their money's worth."
A two-time heavyweight champion of the world, Sammartino returns to the spotlight one more time Thursday to give his fans their money's worth. He will receive the Dapper Dan Lifetime Achievement Award, and the only thing he will be wrestling with is his celebrity.
Broadcasting legend Bill Cardille, who witnessed Sammartino's ascent from construction worker to star of "Studio Wrestling" to the headliner who sold out Madison Square Garden 187 times, said no one is more deserving.
"In his day, he was the hottest ticket in the world," said Cardille, who has been on Pittsburgh airwaves for more than half a century and who still has a radio show on WJAS-AM (1320).
"Every time he wrestled, whether it was in Japan or Australia or South America or around the corner, he was an ambassador for Pittsburgh," Cardille added. "He is a man of humility, accomplishment, compassion, strength and, above all, integrity. He is the consummate Pittsburgh guy."
A grandfather whose blue eyes have softened over the years, Sammartino lives a quiet suburban life in Ross with his wife of 50 years. He and Carol have a standing dinner date Saturdays, and they enjoy listening to Italian operas sung by Franco Corelli.
As a youngster who was new to America, Sammartino built himself up by lifting weights at a Jewish community center in Oakland because other kids picked on him for not being able to speak English.
He still works out six days a week, rising at 5:30 a.m. to begin his days in his basement gym. In his street clothes, he weighs 227 pounds, about 50 pounds below his wrestling weight.
Sammartino can bench press 225 pounds. That's down from the certified press of 565 pounds in his prime, but he will be 75 in October. He listens to KDKA's Rob Pratte on his AM radio as he pumps iron three days a week, and he runs three times a week, six miles at a time, up and down the terrain of the North Hills.
If you called him a homebody, he would accept it as a compliment.
"People have no clue how demanding my schedule was back in the day. There were times when I might be home for just one or two days a month," he said. "So now, I like to spend as much time at home as possible. People used to ask why I never moved somewhere else. But believe me, I would never consider living anywhere else in the United States. Pittsburgh is my home."
Sammartino has had a well-publicized divorce from professional wrestling over the direction it has taken. He admits that pro wrestling wasn't all pure in his day because promoters pre-determined some outcomes, and those who didn't play by the rules were blackballed. But he also said that many matches were real competitions.
"People can say it's fake and everything's fixed. Fine, whatever. But lots of guys protected their reputations," Sammartino said.
To that end, he talked about two matches that stand out from a career that spanned four decades. One made him a champion, and one highlights all the bouts he has had over the years at the Civic Arena before then-Mellon Bank bought the naming rights.
In 1963, after he was shut out of U.S. wrestling shows because he refused to take dives, Sammartino was wrestling out of Toronto as a Canadian champion.
"I was blackballed in the United States," he said. "I wasn't going to leave my wife and my job and not be given a chance at winning the championship, and they told me, 'Who do you think you are?'"
Then promoter Vince McMahon Sr. needed someone to go up against World Wide Wrestling Federation champion Buddy Rogers. It would be in Madison Square Garden, the epicenter of the wrestling universe, on May 17, 1963.
"When we were introduced in the center of the ring, I told Buddy to forget whatever they told him was going to happen. I told him to do his best because I was going to do my best," Sammartino said.
Seconds after the opening bell, Sammartino scooped up the champion and body-slammed him to the canvas.
Then he hoisted Rogers onto his shoulder and applied a closing hold known as the pendulum backbreaker.
"I told him to give up or I was really going to break his back," Sammartino said.
Every wrestling fan knows the championship belt can only be won with a pin fall or submission. Just 47 seconds into this match, Rogers submitted, and wrestling had a new king. Sammartino held the title for seven years, eight months and one day -- still the longest continuous reign in history. He would later become the first wrestler to win the championship two times.
It was during the first championship run that Sammartino was scheduled to appear in a 1968 bout at the Civic Arena against Hans Mortier, who was billed as Bridget Bardot's bodyguard. The two wrestlers had already engaged in a series of earlier bouts, and Sammartino was the only man who had ever broken out of Mortier's signature hold, the full nelson.
The show had been sold out for months. But then, Martin Luther King was assassinated, and an anonymous caller threatened to detonate a bomb inside the arena if the show wasn't cancelled in deference to the slain civil rights leader.
"In those days, promoters had the arena for a certain date, and if the show didn't go on, they lost the gate. They're the ones who made the business decision to go on with it," Sammartino said.
"They kept the bomb threat quiet, but I found out about it. Let me tell you, I wasn't too comfortable going out there. But I was in the main event, and I wasn't going to be the one to back out," he added. "Nothing happened, obviously, but I can't say I wasn't nervous."
Mortier, a native of Holland, found himself in a backbreaker and submitted.
Sammartino wrestled at the arena for more than 20 years, starting with a match against Moose Cholak of Moose Bay, Wis., shortly after the arena opened in 1961.
"I've wrestled in places that were bigger, and I wrestled all over the world," Sammartino said. "But in all honesty, I loved wrestling at the arena. The shape of it was so magnificent. From the air, it looked like a flying saucer or a space ship.
"But most of all, it meant coming back home," he added. "There's nothing like wrestling in front of people you know. It was like coming back home to be with family."
Spoken like a true Pittsburgh guy.
post-gazette.com