www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/bruno-sammartino-passes-away-82-256021?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Sad news, a cause of death hasn't been specified other than he had been dealing with health troubles these past few months.

Bruno was well and truly above my time, but he was an icon when I started following the industry and you'd often see it go Thesz, Rogers then Sammartino as far as the stars of the generation. He's one of the few Pros who seemed to have his life together outside of Pro Wrestling and it was good to see the WWE recognise him while he was still alive.

I still don't think there's been any result quite as shocking as Ivan Koloff beating Bruno for the title. That's how much the fans respected Bruno's stature in the ring.

Wrestlers keep dropping in the Pittsburgh area.

Kurt should stay away from home until the Rule of 3 works itself out.

Even though Bruno's gone, he is, was, and always will be The Living Legend.

Sorry, Larry.

Growing up in Maryland, Bruno was the one pre-Hulkamania wrestler everybody knew about. Even non-wrestling fans like my parents knew who Bruno was. It was also common to find dads who watched a bit of wrestling in their youth and railed against the then-current product because none of those guys could compare to Bruno San Martino, which is the way Maryland dads tended to pronounce his name.

I confess to being a Bruno hater for most of my life. The handful of Bruno matches I saw growing up were boring punch-kick affairs from the boring Era Before Pants. Then came his old man yelling at clouds hatred of my beloved WWF. Bruno was to the 90s and 2000s what Jim Cornette is to modern wrestling. So I just wrote Bruno off as a bitter old dinosaur who sucked even in his so-called prime.

I've grown to appreciate Bruno now that I've mellowed out in my old age. He set records that will never be broken. Definitely one of the all time greats. A Top 3 guy in WWE history for sure. He had a connection with the crowd that few have ever equaled. His feud with Larry Zbyszko was great.

RIP

I knew kayfabe was dead forever when Bruno finally started doing shoot interviews, and listening to Bruno in that environment I learned to respect the hell out of the man. I watched a shoot with Apter and Joey Styles interviewing Burno that was really insightful about his career. He really had his own code, and didn't take any shit from anybody, including Papa McMahon from day one. For a lot of his matches that may seem boring today, it's a testament to how over Bruno was where he just didn't have to do a lot of stuff, and the stuff he did do, he knew exactly when to do it. There should be a Bruno banner hanging from MSG. Elton John fucking has one. Bruno's should have happened years ago.

Similar to Baker 's experiences even people out here in the sticks of the Stampede Wrestling territory knew who Bruno was. I first knew of him as a commentator and thought he sucked at it (dad: "Don't you know that's Bruno Sammartino!") He was also difficult to root for when he did come back in 1986 as I found him just too old to be believable at beating guys up like Randy Savage. Much later I got one of those PWI "Press Conference" specials which had a Bruno interview in it where he just derided the industry so I knew to not take his opinions seriously. I didn't start coming around to him until the mid 2000's when WWE gobbled up everyone's tape libraries and were releasing DVD's. Seeing him in his prime and how much the fans were behind him and how he worked the crowd changed my opinion. His matches with Stan Hansen and Larry Zbyszko are some of the best emotionally charged matches of all time.

He took Vince Sr's company to new heights with the advent of television and the wrestling magazines and got huge publicity. He was magic with his expressions which got the crowd immediately invested in his matches. Very few were better at telling a story, his matches should be viewed by more newer wrestlers as you don't need flippity-flips every 30 seconds to have a great match. A sure fire top 5 of all time.

RIP

R.I.P to the longest reigning champion in history. He was a constant draw at MSG and was one of the most important wrestlers in the 70s. His slower style was considered boring to people outside of the Northeast, but he will be remembered as one of the greatest champions in wrestling history. Mr. Sammartino was so big, that the Pope requested to meet him and his family once.

The WWE special was a well put together truncated version of his life-story. You could tell the WWE had all this footage together for a future documentary but given the timing of it all, had to put together what they had. So a lot of his details about his career are glossed over in favour of his reconciliation with the WWE. From a WWE perspective it makes sense and it's an easy way to tell the story to WWE fans. I'm sure if Bruno had his way, it would have been about honoring his mothers spirits, sticking to his convictions and how ultimately he was proved right by his stance on steroids. If they had have gone down that path, it would have been too dark and distracting since the changes only came about due to the Eddie Guerrero & Chris Benoit deaths.

Still, there's a lot of great footage here. It's one thing to hear Bruno tell his life-story, it's another to see the footage. There wasn't a lot on his 60s run, but there was a lot of his 70s stuff including the Stan Hansen body-slam that broke his neck. It's one thing to hear him being spiked by it, it's another to see the surface he was spiked on and how little give the ring had. Then there's plenty of footage from the Hall of Fame ceremony including his rendevouz with HHH, Arnold & Vince. You could tell like Bret at first he was only doing it because it was the right thing to do, but when they started showing him old memorabilia like the original WWWF Championship he genuinely enjoyed being there.

After listening to all the shoot interviews, there's plenty of WWE spin involved. They keep trumpeting the 187 sold out shows, which I'm sure will make Meltzer happy. I believe the figure is more like 67-68, which was still impressive for the time, especially when kids under the age of 14 weren't allowed to be there. I believe Pedro Morales & Bob Backlund actually had more sell-outs but Pedro wasn't as popular elsewhere and the MSG abolished their under-14s policy when Bob was champion.

They also glossed over Vince Sr. blackballing Bruno after he decided to leave the territory the first time. That was an important story in Bruno's career because he really should have quit then and there because he barely had enough money to eat. He'd barely have enough to buy a loaf of bread and often would sit out in the lobbeys of hotels and pretend to be waiting for a guest so he could sleep. He made it big, Rogers wasn't doing well as a draw and so Vince Sr. basically begged for him to come back. The story about Rogers having a heart problem was also crap and just typical Buddy Rogers antics. We complain about all the tricks HBK, Hogan etc. used to get out of doing jobs, but Rogers left them in the dust. Still in the doco, they tell the same health problem story which is just typical wrestling folklore.

But hey as long as you're willing to go with the WWE spin, this was a fun piece on Bruno and his place in WWE legend. I hope we can hear more stories about Bruno in the future and we can hear more about his feuds with Watts & Tanaka since it'd give fans like me a deeper appreciation. However, this is a great introductory piece and a good place to start for any WWE fan.

As some that didn't watch Bruno during his last run in the 80's since it predates my fandom about 4 years, I was always intrigued by his status. I sought his matches when the Network put a collection out. Bruno's meat & potatoes style caught my attention and I really like the fact that he was a white meat babyface because he made it work when not many wrestlers can pull that off.