Zbysko grew up in Pittsburgh, PA watching Bruno wrestle in his hometown on a regular basis, since Sammartino made the steel city his home as well.  And Larry loved wrestling, so when he and a friend found out exactly where Bruno lived, he basically started stalking him, according to an interview in one wrestling rag.  Finally, he and another young teenage friend found Bruno in his backyard one day, and got up the gumption to go talk with him.  Bruno was very cordial and invited the starry-eyed teenager to join him in the gym one day.  Like any youngster meeting their idol, Larry cordially agreed, and there is in fact a lot of truth to the angle that the legendary Bruno trained Zbysko.

But like all great relationships in this business, it was eventually time for the baby bird to fly the coop, so Larry challenged Bruno to a match: student vs. pupil.  Looking back it’s amazing they used this match on free TV.  I know they do it every week today, but even as a baby vs. baby match, this thing could have easily packed MSG.  But instead there it was, coming to you right from the Agricultural Center in Allentown, PA.

I also want to stress that when we old school marks and smarks talk about the Classic style matches telling a story, this is exactly what we’re talking about.  Bruno dominated the match with a surprising repertoire of scientific holds, not usually seen by the brawling Bruno.  He used a headlock, and drop toe-hold, but each time released the hold before Zbysko could counter.  Yet whenever Zbysko got a hold, Bruno would reverse it.  This only served to frustrate the younger star.  Finally, Zbysko pulled his coop and applied his finisher, the abdominal stretch, but Bruno countered with a hiptoss to escape.  Only moments later Bruno applied his finisher, the bearhug, but before Zbysko could counter, Bruno let go of the hold.

This infuriated Zbysko, who exited the ring to grab a chair and plowed it against the former two-time champion’s head.  Bruno rose, his forehead dripping blood, but Zbysko plowed it against his head again.  This went on for several minutes until Bruno’s head was literally pouring blood, and he was lying in a pool of his own blood.  Zbysko came into his own, while Bruno got a feud for his final hurrah (I hope you’re reading this Hogan, because that’s three youngsters Sammartino helped get over huge on his out, and neither one were well established beforehand, ahem, like the Rock).

Ah, but I digress, they held a rematch, this time in Shea Stadium, for the third installment of a Shea Stadium Showdown that was big enough to fill that venue.  This time held inside a steel cage, since the two had already fought all over the country to no contests.  Bruno won a hard fought battle that left his head and left arm a bloody mess (when was the last time somebody bladed their arm?).

That probably could have been a fitting enough end to such a lucrative career, but he decided to do one more tour, this time against his long-time nemesis, George “The Animal” Steel.  There are many Bruno battles that I have not yet seen, but from hearing these two in interviews, I think these guys probably had some of the best battles ever in WWWF history, and I’m just speculating here, but I think these two were each other’s all time favorite opponents.  At any rate, the series of matches and tour was advertised as a farewell for the Living Legend.  So where do you culminate such a grand exit?  MSG?  Nope.  Allentown?  Guess again.  You end it near the promotion’s most important city in a brand new venue: The Meadowlands, in East Rutherford, NJ, just a river crossing away from New York.  So Bruno won the big match again, and went away forever, right?

Not so fast.  You don’t get rid of Legends that easily, there has to be a comeback.  Everyone probably remembers his big return shortly after WrestleMania 1, but Bruno actually ran the exact same angle several months earlier in MSG with Ken Patera and Bobby Heenan.  Patera and Heenan fell to Bruno and son David just like Beefcake and Johnny Valiant did several months later.  Unfortunately, Bruno’s return garnered far more publicity and wound up overshadowing young David’s career (in hindsight of today’s wrestling scene, he may have done his son a favor, since old school style wrestling seems to be a complete thing of the past now, which is what young David excelled at).

And Bruno stuck around for some time after that, garnering himself a job as color commentator on Superstars of Wrestling.  There he could not only be seen and heard every week, he could also set up a few feuds to run tours with.  Over the next several years he would run matches with Roddy Piper, his old nemesis Nikoli Volkoff, whom he used to wrestle for the title, Adrian Adonis (by this time “Adorable”), and set up a feud with Jesse “The Body” Ventura (but I’m not sure if they ever actually wrestled).  His final feud takes us as late as early 1987 where Randy Savage just wrestled a grueling Inter-Continental Title match with Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, where “The Dragon” saw his throat get injured after the match.  Bruno interviewed Savage after the match and Savage actually bragged about injuring Steamboat, which angered Bruno, and they actually had a pull-apart brawl in the locker rooms.  Although Bruno lost most of his matches to Savage, his last feud saw him receiving Inter-Continental Title matches in the main event of the promotion’s top venues, so Bruno still went out on top.  And I cannot think of a more fitting end for a “Living Legend.”

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