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More than 25 years after Bruno Sammartino left his announcing position with WWF, mad at what pro wrestling had become, he signed a deal on 2/1 to return for induction into the company’s Hall of Fame on 4/6 in Madison Square Garden.

Sammartino, 77, who had been a staunch critic of the Hall of Fame, between the people selected for it, the lack of an actual physical structure, and the process of how people were put in, was approached months ago by HHH and asked about going in. He was negative about it, but described the conversation with HHH as pleasant.

HHH was persistent for months and listened as Sammartino explained his issues, both personally and professionally, to him. The issues were deep seated, dating back to 1976, when he never got any of his promised 3% cut of the closed circuit revenue in the Northeast for his Stan Hansen cage match at Madison Square Garden when he came out of the hospital with a broken neck to do the bout (Vince McMahon Sr. after the fact told him that Bob Arum, who was co-promoting the event, headlined by Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki from Tokyo, had decided against it), to issues with merchandising over the years.

There is some irony in this because in the 80s, after Sammartino retired, he filed suit against Vince Sr., claiming that he found out he wasn’t really getting his contracted 6% of the gate and 5% at Madison Square Garden. At the time, the suit was settled by Vince McMahon Jr., who gave Sammartino a job as a television announcer, making a six-figure salary working roughly every third week of tapings.

Even before that, McMahon Sr. had him blacklisted and nearly forced out of the business after he got a big initial push as the Italian Strong Boy, one of the strongest men in the world when he first got into pro wrestling. But after establishing himself as a draw for promoter Frank Tunney, McMahon Sr. wanted to build the promotion around him. Originally earmarked as an Italian ethnic star, he became almost a mythical figure due to his longevity at the top and that, in the end, he vanquished every heel foe that he was put against.

Nearly 30 years later, after problems between Sammartino and the current Vince McMahon, which peaked in the early 90s with Sammartino an outspoken critic of steroid issues, it was the next generation heir apparent who smoothed things over and working out a deal.

Sammartino approached this as a purely business decision, giving HHH a price that he thought would be turned down. In a number of conversations, he spoke of the deal as something he didn’t expect to happen. There was a long period before there was any answer from WWE, with him figuring that Vince McMahon likely nixed the deal due to price. The WWE could obviously afford the price, in line with what one of the company’s top stars would earn for a WrestleMania payoff. Really, it was a question of ego and precedence more than anything. There has been bitterness for decades on both sides between Sammartino and McMahon, but McMahon’s history is always to work harder and do what it takes to make deals with those who are the most outspoken against him. There has always been the complaints of people who worked for rival groups but refused to ever say anything bad about McMahon, who would see people who would lambast him be brought back with more fanfare and with deals that some big names who never said anything bad could never get a whiff of. It’s simply one of the unique things about McMahon.

The only question in the end was would he see the price as setting a bad precedent for the Hall of Fame, although there is no living omission left who from a credibility standpoint would make close to the difference in how it was viewed. The other question would be if he would view meeting the price as somehow, after all these decades, that he had to meet the terms of one of his most high-profile critics. But the situation years back with Bret Hart established McMahon has little problem with that.

Unlike everyone else who had entered the Hall of Fame, nobody had ever asked a deal anywhere near that level. At that point, the ball was in McMahon’s court, even though HHH was the point man. They decided it was worth it to them as a business decision, and ultimately, that’s what this is, with those close to the situation saying it was a win/win. Sammartino got a significant deal, and WWE will be rewriting its rewritten version of history, portraying him as something of the Babe Ruth of the business, a role they had previously decreed for Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and even Shawn Michaels all in the last ten years. The WWE gets whatever goodwill there is from an older age group that has fond memories of Sammartino. They get to present a moment where the Madison Square Garden crowd will go crazy, and ultimately, they take a step in their Hall of Fame no longer being considered a joke by most serious historians.

McMahon and Sammartino have not spoken, with HHH as the intermediary in the deal. HHH said that he is hoping to get the two of them together to mend fences in April.

Rumors were around a few weeks ago that the deal was done and I actually expected an announcement on the 1/21 Raw. But lawyers on both sides were struggling over different points and it wasn’t signed until this past Friday, and WWE released the information through ESPN Monday afternoon, before Raw.

From a public perspective, Sammartino claimed his issues with the WWE were that he didn’t want to have any part of the company that had taken wrestling into the gutter with vulgarity and the scantily clad women, along with the drug issues that led to a terrible death rate.

HHH from the start had told him they had cleaned up the product, that in his viewpoint when he got more power, he wanted to make the product similar to the product Sammartino headlined. HHH portrayed himself as a student and fan of Sammartino’s era, noting his own trainer being Killer Kowalski. Kowalski was arguably Sammartino’s leading long-term career opponent and someone who always spoke of Sammartino in positive terms.

While this was a business deal, a major breakthrough was also the sheer coincidence that Pittsburgh neurosurgeon Dr. Joseph Maroon, who Sammartino credits with keeping him out of a life in a wheelchair due to successful back surgery several years ago, was later hired as the head of the new WWE medical team. In doing wonders for his own quality of life, Sammartino viewed Maroon in high regard when he spoke of changes that had been made when it came to health of performers and drug testing.

Maroon is not without controversy. While a first-class surgeon, he has many critics when it comes to his role when it comes to the heavily political field of concussion research. Maroon created the Impact testing after a concussion used by the WWE as well as the NFL to establish whether athletes are healed enough to go back in the game. The WWE adheres strictly to Maroon’s policies, but in that field, there are a number of political factions who debunk the work of the so-called experts in different factions. But Maroon and HHH impressed Sammartino on the drug testing, the overall Wellness policy, and the PG guidelines of the product.

There is no question the WWE has, after decades of tragedies and deaths, enacted the most all-encompassing health program ever in the profession. They have a drug testing program. From all accounts, the company is cleaner when it comes to drug usage, both recreational and performance enhancing, than probably any period in modern history. But to say it’s clean is naive. In 2007, one drug bust of Signature Pharmacy netted a solid percentage of the roster as clients during a period when the drug testing program was, with a few minor modifications, identical to what it is today. The bodies are not like they were in the late 80s WWF, or late 90s WCW, when use was rampant. At the same time, one would have to be incredibly naive to believe the roster is clean, particularly when even those on the roster in recent weeks have made comments about several of the biggest stars and physical changes before their eyes or freakish physiques that people are very skeptical about as being natural. But the nature of the talk is also different from 15 or 25 years ago, when it was acknowledged the vast majority were obviously using, as opposed to skepticism regarding some.

The company doesn’t test for Growth Hormone or doing any blood testing, and that’s not a knock, because I’m not convinced the current Growth Hormone testing is nearly what it’s cracked up to be since it has caught so few in others sports where use is rampant. In the major sports where testing is as extensive or even more extensive than WWE, revelations of star athletes using PEDs while being heavily tested and beating tests come out regularly. The fact that certain steroid monster types of the past for the most part don’t exist also has to do with more emphasis on performance than in the past, when emphasis was on look first. The huge bulky and massive physiques that could only do slow moving matches aren’t looked favorably upon as in the past. That’s not necessarily an indication things are cleaner because you don’t see a roster of 280 pound jacked up guys, as much as guys are lighter, for performance, but being 235 and staying lean and hard while on the road doesn’t lead to any less temptation, just different eating, training and methods that have to allow you to avoid the drugs that make one pop dirty.

Even with the current program in place, a significant percentage of talent were shown in records from raids to be using not just Growth Hormones that the current testing wouldn’t catch, but other PEDs that it should, but somehow didn’t.

Sammartino had said during the negotiations that if the deal didn’t come through this year, that he was not open to it any time in the future. He had told his sons that if something was to happen to him, that it was his wish not to be inducted after his death and they had agreed to respect those wishes.

The deal that ended up being structured was for Sammartino to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and also being a part of their promotion in some form going forward. In particular, he was asked to be a part of DVDs involving his era, including a 50th anniversary History of WWE release scheduled for late this year. He would also do voice overs of some of his matches. There would likely be a Sammartino DVD release. He will also appear at times on the WWE Legends Round Table show on 24/7 Classics on Demand.

The deal in the end was a major coup for HHH, because he put together a deal that most in the company had long given up on when previous attempts to mend fences went nowhere. In all media publicity, this was not portrayed as a WWE deal as much as HHH putting together a deal, publicly positioning him for his eventual role running things.

While privately portraying it as a business deal, publicly, in an ESPN interview, he said, “Being inducted into the Hall of Fame at Madison Square Garden is the biggest thing in my life. Anytime that people feel that you accomplished enough to enter a Hall of Fame, of course, this is a tremendous thrill for me. I had a lot of my success due to appearing at the Garden. I wrestled there over 200 times. It’s where I won the title, and it’s where I picked up 630-plus pound Haystacks Calhoun.”

The company’s willingness to meet his price was in a sense an attempt to buy legitimacy for their Hall of Fame, as well as create a special aura for this year’s ceremony. While in reality, of the truly biggest top-tier historical names in history, a large percentage are not in. Names like Lou Thesz, Frank Gotch, Strangler Lewis and Jim Londos, all of who should be in the inaugural class of any American pro wrestling Hall of Fame, are never spoken of, but all are from a far more distant era.

It was also the Sammartino and Randy Savage omissions that were the most mentioned as to why the WWE version had no credibility.

Whether Sammartino was the most important star in company history depends upon your framework. But he was the biggest star in the company starting when he won the newly-created WWWF title from Buddy Rogers on May 17, 1963, in Madison Square Garden with an over the shoulder backbreaker in 47 seconds. Even though he lost the title in 1971, by his own choice, in most of the cities on the circuit, with the exception of New York, where Pedro Morales drew great numbers 1971-73, he remained by far the biggest star for his occasional appearances. He was asked back for a second run, which was agreed on to be one year, but ended up being three-and-a-half until he made it clear he was done as a full-timer. But in reality, he was the most popular wrestler in the Northeast from that first win over Rogers until his retirement in 1981. He was undeniably the wrestler was most associated with Madison Square Garden, the site of the ceremony, headlining it nearly double as many times as anyone else in history.

Sammartino noted to us that he was shocked at the reaction, the standing ovation, from the crowd in Atlanta after the video announcing his induction was played, noting that virtually nobody in that crowd would have ever even seen him wrestle live and he rarely had appeared in the city.

It was a big week for Sammartino because the city of Pittsburgh decided to build a life-size statue of Sammartino on the site of what was the old Pittsburgh Civic Arena, since he headlined so many shows there in the 60s and 70s. The city has erected statues of several of its sports heroes, notably Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Bill Mazeroski, Mario Lemieux and Franco Harris.

In addition, Sammartino was named to a second Hall of Fame this week, as he will be inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame as part of the Arnold Fitness Expo on 3/2 in Columbus, OH in an exclusive ceremony where only the media and maybe a few dozen VIP’s will be allowed to attend. Among those attending will be Arnold Schwarzenegger, who Sammartino had trained with and judged bodybuilding contests with in the 70s.

Sammartino will be inducted with former Ohio State football star Archie Griffin, NBA legend Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, former Mr. Olympia winning bodybuilder Franco Columbu and former world gymnastics champion Blaine Wilson.

A documentary on his life that is just about completed, as they are waiting for final release forms to be signed, has five or six outlets showing interest, including CBS and HBO. The much talked about movie which has not been filmed, does have the script completed. Paul Guay, a lifelong wrestling fan from California who wrote the movie, “Liar, Liar,” and later was on the WWE creative team, finished it and there are two studios that have shown some interest. WWE has also talked about producing the movie as part of the WWE Films division, but that is all very preliminary talk.

Ed Zachary wrote:Awesome.

Strangely enough I've been reviewing Fatcat's thread on Bruno's training recently.

Fat Cat wrote:
Check this out if into it.

http://rippeder.com/content/bruno-samma ... ge-workout

T200 wrote:Since I know there are Bruno fans on here (from the Wrestling Observer):

More than 25 years after Bruno Sammartino left his announcing position with WWF, mad at what pro wrestling had become, he signed a deal on 2/1 to return for induction into the company’s Hall of Fame on 4/6 in Madison Square Garden.

Sammartino, 77, who had been a staunch critic of the Hall of Fame, between the people selected for it, the lack of an actual physical structure, and the process of how people were put in, was approached months ago by HHH and asked about going in. He was negative about it, but described the conversation with HHH as pleasant.

HHH was persistent for months and listened as Sammartino explained his issues, both personally and professionally, to him. The issues were deep seated, dating back to 1976, when he never got any of his promised 3% cut of the closed circuit revenue in the Northeast for his Stan Hansen cage match at Madison Square Garden when he came out of the hospital with a broken neck to do the bout (Vince McMahon Sr. after the fact told him that Bob Arum, who was co-promoting the event, headlined by Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki from Tokyo, had decided against it), to issues with merchandising over the years.

There is some irony in this because in the 80s, after Sammartino retired, he filed suit against Vince Sr., claiming that he found out he wasn’t really getting his contracted 6% of the gate and 5% at Madison Square Garden. At the time, the suit was settled by Vince McMahon Jr., who gave Sammartino a job as a television announcer, making a six-figure salary working roughly every third week of tapings.

One of the byproducts of the Bruno Sammartino deal with WWE is, as noted last week, that WWE Films had expressed interest in producing the long-talked about movie on his life.

Scott Rosenfelt, whose background includes being the Executive Producer of “Home Alone” in 1990 and “Mystic Pizza” in 1988, will be the producer and director. He’s finished a script written with Paul Guay (“Liar, Liar”), which covers Sammartino’s life from being a sickly child living in the mountains outside Pizaferato, Italy, to hide from the Nazis, to his pro wrestling career up until the present day.

Rosenfelt said this week that he considers talks with WWE Films serious. He also noted that casting the person to play the adult Sammartino, would not be easy. You’d have to find an actor who can carry a feature film, who also would have to be a big Italian thick weightlifter type.

The movie as is planned right now will cover his wrestling career honestly, in the sense pro wrestling is not presented as real and his WWWF championship is not presented as a sports title as much as an entertainment pinnacle. A number of Sammartino’s major opponents and noteworthy characters in wrestling history are part of it, including Vince McMahon Sr. and his son, Toots Mondt, Ivan Koloff, Hulk Hogan, Chief Jay Strongbow, Arnold Skaaland, Larry Zbyszko, Superstar Billy Graham, Cowboy Bill Watts and many others.

What is going to be interesting is how the portrayal of both McMahons are done. At this stage of the game, I don’t know that Vince would necessarily have a problem producing a movie that doesn’t always cast him in a positive light, and doesn’t portray pro wrestling in the 80s with the drug culture in a positive light. But that’s hard to read. But a movie that doesn’t cast his father always in a positive light, may be more difficult.

Sammartino is a stickler for accuracy in how he sees the story of his life. Even with the attempts to largely write based on what happened, Sammartino at times has made the point of changing things if they veered from the truth.

WWE Films has never done a pro wrestling movie, and attempts brought to them in the past, like a movie on the life of Frank Gotch, were turned down with them saying they never wanted to do a wrestling movie. However, they did plan on doing a movie based on the life of Gorgeous George, which was dropped and then interviews were instead done to release a DVD on George, and eventually, that didn’t happen either.