“Monsoon and I were never close,” admitted Sammartino. As a result, he has lost touch with some of his old adversaries and friends. The two have legitimate hard feelings towards each other. over the direction the company was taking wrestling. After wrestling 25 years for the McMahon family, Sammartino had a falling out with Vince McMahon Jr. He was someone the fans saw as an awesome talent and people believed in wrestling back then.”ĭespite the respect he has for Monsoon, Sammartino won’t be attending the funeral. “That in itself will tell you how people viewed him. “All the times I wrestled him, we always sold out the Garden,” said Sammartino. One of the major reasons why it was such a big draw was because people considered Monsoon a legitimate contender for the World title. New York City fans came out in droves to see Sammartino square off against Monsoon in one of their epic battles. He knew good maneuvers from his experience in amateur wrestling. “He had a very good amateur background,” stated Sammartino. Sammartino was also impressed with Monsoon’s mat wrestling skills. He stayed in there with me for the duration. “I always had great respect for that because people that big run out of gas but he didn’t. “One time I wrestled him in Madison Square Garden for one hour and twenty minutes,” remembered Sammartino. He was amazed that a man of his size had such agility, speed and stamina. For a guy at 420 pounds it was rare a man that size could do what he did.” “When people would ask me through the years who some of the people that amazed were, guys like Don Leo Johnathan and Kowalski and Big Bill Miller, I always mentioned Monsoon. Looking back at all his opponents, he ranks Monsoon as one of the best. We packed the arenas.”Īs champion, Sammartino wrestled every major star that passed through the Northeast. “All the times I wrestled him, we sold it out. “We wrestled in Madison Square Garden 12 or 13 times through the years,” recalled Sammartino. During his first reign as WWF champion between 19, the two wrestled against each other over a hundred times, selling out major arenas through out the Northeast U.S. Sammartino had a long and storied history with Monsoon. “To have seen him deteriorate to what he had become, it was mind-boggling,” admitted Sammartino. He was very disturbed over the image of an aging Monsoon the past few years.

To me it was a real shocker.”Ī younger and healthier Monsoon is the one that Sammartino chooses to remember. “Knowing how sick he was, having received that call, I still couldn’t believe it. “Getting the call put a real big lump in my throat,” Sammartino told SLAM! Wrestling from his home in Pittsburgh, PA. Sammartino was devastated over the passing of one of his contemporaries. Sammartino received a phone call on his birthday that Gorilla Monsoon had passed away. It was going to be a birthday he would never forget.Īnd it was, but for all the wrong reasons. The former two-time WWF World Heavyweight Champion had plans to go out with his wife and visit his grandchildren. Bruno Sammartino turned 64 years old on Wednesday.

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