Wrestling101.com recently conducted an excellent in-depth interview with 2013 WWE Hall of Famer Bruno Sammartino. Here are a few highlights:
His Career Highlights:
“In those eleven plus years that I was champion I wrestled all over but some of the most memorable matches that I had were against the likes of, Killer Kowalski, Ivan Koloff, Don Leo Jonathan, Dr. Bill Miller, Gorilla Monsoon, and Hans Mortier who was also European and the list goes on. I had some big matches in Japan against Shohei Baba and we fought for over an hour many times, I wrestled guys in Australia, Mexico, and Spain.”
“One of the highlights of my career was when I picked up Haystacks Calhoun, who was over 600lbs, that was exciting because no one had ever been able to lift him and when I did lift him I thought the roof of Madison Square Garden was going to fly off, people went absolutely wild.”
“Wrestling Buddy Rogers even though it was a short match it was great because that was my opportunity to become the headliner. I was very fortunate because I got to wrestle some of the truly great heavyweights in the business, I wrestled them all so today I look back and I’m very proud and happy.”
The Movie Being Made About His Life:
“I’m very pleased with the documentary and it has been completed, I’ve seen it and I was very happy with it because it’s one hundred per cent the truth. We made three or four trips to Italy and we even went up that mountain where we hid from the Nazi’s and filmed up there and we even interviewed the people of my town that are still around who went through the same ordeal as myself.”
“I did a lot in telling the story and they interviewed a lot of people, it’s about two hours but I was very pleased with it because it was very honest, very truthful and I’m very anxious for it to show. We are speaking to a number of distributing companies as there is a lot of interest from people in Japan, Germany, Italy and England that want to see it and it will be broadcasted by one of the networks over here in America later on in the year.”
“The movie, they have finished the screen writing and I’ve been told by the producer that there are two studios in Hollywood that are interested in the film but there are some independent producers that would like to produce it as well. They are at the process of who is going to fund it, but the producer Scott Rosenfelt has told me they are going to start casting people who are going to play the part of myself and other people that are going to be involved.”
“To be honest I’m more excited about the documentary because the documentary is all factual and it involves the people that were actually involved.”
There’s much more to the interview, including his childhood during World War 2, how he got into wrestling, his relationships with Vince McMahon Sr. & Jr., his view on current WWE Superstars and more.
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