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Post by brutuscheesecake on Nov 20, 2009 0:20:36 GMT -5
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Goldenbane
Hank Scorpio
THE G.D. Goldenbane
Posts: 7,331
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Post by Goldenbane on Nov 20, 2009 0:41:19 GMT -5
After reading this little snippet, I can't help but think that Bruno is kind of in the same situation Mick Foley was in when he was just starting out:
In his first book Mankind: A tale of blood and sweatsocks, Mick talked about his first ever trip to Africa, where he got to wrestle his mentor and trainer. He went into the match doing all the stuff we modern day American fans love...punch, kick, ect. The Africans were crapping on the match, until Mick's Mentor made his comeback...and took down Foley with armbars and headlocks. Then the crowd went totally crazy.
I think if Bruno ever tried to wrestle today...especially someplace besides the northeast, he'd find his matches getting crapped on as the audience has changed.
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reckoner
Tommy Wiseau
Kings Of The Midlands
Posts: 76
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Post by reckoner on Nov 20, 2009 5:41:18 GMT -5
I think its a shame he says this stuff about Rock, Austin, Hogan etc. It seems he has a legitimate gripe with Mcmahon (it seems, I can't honestly say one way or the other) but it just looks as if that has embittered him against every other aspect of wrestling. Credit wher credits due Sammartino, guys like Rock, Austin and Hogan deserve it just as much as you.
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Post by quantum on Nov 20, 2009 6:13:31 GMT -5
The Tardis is waiting for Mr stuck in the past over the hill very delusional Bruno Sammartino to take him back to his own dimension. Where at least some of what he says is true.
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efarns
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,273
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Post by efarns on Nov 20, 2009 7:23:26 GMT -5
My dad has told me more than once that Bruno's matches were repetitive, and other wrestlers from his era have said Bruno was not a draw outside of the Northeast. He sounds very jealous to me. People have so many more entertainment options now than they had back when Bruno was wrestling, and the audience is a lot more savvy and demanding than the fans he wrestled in front of. If Vince Jr. was trying to run the other promoters out of business, how did he get other promoters to cooperate with him in blackballing Sammartino from the business? Didn't he say it was Vince Sr. who was trying to blackball him from the business? If that's the case, it makes sense as Vince Sr. was vehemently opposed to going national. He wanted to keep the territories system alive. So it would make sense that other promoters would agree with him on blackballing Bruno (hell, he probably wouldn't have drawn for them anyway). It was when Vince Jr. took over afterwards that all bets were off. Maybe he did say that. I stopped reading closely after awhile. So, he should have a big beef with Vince Sr., too. If he'd gone to another territory, this beef with Jr. wouldn't be such a big deal. If a worker can draw that well, some promoter would have taken the chance to bring him in - especially as Vince was taking over their territories. Wouldn't it have made sense for Crockett to bring in Bruno and make a big push into the northeast? In other words, he directs all his hate to Vince, but if he wasn't getting work for other companies, there must have been some reason other than a retired promoter's blacklist.
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Post by HMARK Center on Nov 20, 2009 9:39:38 GMT -5
I think another factor to consider is whether the format of wrestling today really allows for just about anybody to be a big draw for longer than maybe a couple of years at a time.
The business grew and expanded, but people's attention spans and patience shrank proportionally.
Vince Jr., it seems, found the method of promoting that offers the most lucrative short term possibilities, but is one of the tougher methods to uphold over the long term.
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efarns
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,273
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Post by efarns on Nov 20, 2009 9:47:02 GMT -5
Vince is pretty amazing to build his little territory into the global worldwide force it is today . . . and somehow he did that without a single guy who could draw money ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png)
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Post by Joseph S. Hasan on Nov 20, 2009 10:17:43 GMT -5
I really like and respect Bruno. He is wrong about the beards, though.
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Post by Crazy Diamond on Nov 20, 2009 11:04:58 GMT -5
I can't speak on drawing really, but considering some of the stuff Vince has pulled in the past and all the horror stories you hear about promoters I can't blame Sammartino for hating him. I don't think Bruno is bitter for having an opinion on the problems of pro wrestling today, but I don't think he needed to disparage Hogan, Austin, and Rock to make his point. I can't speak on Bruno as a wrestler (I don't think it's relevant to what he's talking about anyways) because he was before my time.
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Post by Lenny: Smooth like Keith Stone on Nov 20, 2009 11:33:35 GMT -5
I respect Bruno very much and after having met him at an autograph signing, I can say that he's a very friendly guy.
Having said that, I don't know how anyone can say that Hulk Hogan wasn't a draw. As a child of the 80's, I feel that there was a span of a few years where the name "Hulk Hogan" was in fact more well known than "WWF". In other words, there was a point where Hogan was bigger than the company he worked for.
Likewise Bruno says that the violence from the old days was OK because you'd see the same violence at a football game. Well I feel that by this logic, hearing Steve Austin use profanity is OK because many kids hear this exact language used at the dinner table nowadays.
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Post by T.J. "the Crippler" Stevens on Nov 20, 2009 13:03:07 GMT -5
I'll even meet him half way and say that it is entirely possible that if Hogan, Rock or Austin headlined MSG for event after event after event they would not consistently draw like Bruno did. Of course, it doesn't matter since they never had to, but I'm willing to say it's a possibility. I think this is a very good point that I'd like to expand on a little bit. I think Bruno may be right when he makes this point, but it's totally devoid of some much needed context. In Bruno's day the only way to keep up on wrestling was to go to the live events that were in your area every week, or month, or whatever their schedule was. Fans went to the arena shows the same way we plop down in front of the couch to watch Raw nowadays. There was no cable then, there was no internet. Big time fans, like us, who didn't want to wait for the magazines to hit the news stands in a month, had to go to the live events to keep up. And let's be honest about something else. A decent ticket in those days probably cost $1.50, even at MSG. It wasn't like today where it's a big event that a family has to save up for to attend. There was no Ticketmaster online either. The fans who wanted to attend could make the decision that day, walk up to the MSG box office, pay a reasonable ticket price and spend the afternoon smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and getting their wrestling fix. Selling out an arena in those days was a totally different animal and can't still be held as the barometer for success nowadays when fans have so many other ways to get their wrestling fix.
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Post by jamofpearls on Nov 20, 2009 13:09:58 GMT -5
He'd rather stick his fingers in his ears than hear the truth. But he can't...you know, cause of the cauliflower ear.
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Post by squaredcircle on Nov 20, 2009 16:02:38 GMT -5
just so young'uns understand - in his day, Bruno was HUGE. I saw lots of his matches back in the day. Bruno's pop at the old Boston Garden was always bigger, by far, than Hogan's. i saw Bruno have spectacular matches against LarryZybysko, Stan Hansen, Ken Patera to name a few.
that said...
Bruno comes over like a bitter old man. he's bitter about apples when the world is now oranges. it's sad.
I agree with the idea that Bruno was the right man in the right place at the right time. the Northeast in the 60s and 70s. Bruno used to do interview segments in Italian on Saturday mornings.
and, yeah, Bruno's moveset was pretty limited, but we didn't care back then...this was Bruno!
i'm gonna read the whole thing a little later. thanks to the OP for posting the link.
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Post by Macho Dude Handy Damage on Nov 20, 2009 17:01:59 GMT -5
So according to Sammartino, nobody has been a draw in wrestling since..what, 1980?
The man's clearly out of touch of reality regarding the wrestling business. He seems like one of these old bitter old timers who just won't admit and/or realize the business has changed and he clamors on to "the good old days"
Hogan, Austin and Rock didn't draw? That's ludicrious. I don't know how to respond to such a stupid statement.
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Post by Bubble Lead on Nov 20, 2009 17:31:12 GMT -5
Honestly, Bruno is just like any other pro wrestler who made it big.
He has an ego, he thinks he was one of the best ever [he was], he was such a big deal for so long and started becoming a mark for himself and believing in his own crap.
Its nothing new. When you read a Hogan interview its almost the same thing. He has his points, some good ones, and some good reasons for saying the things he says and believing what he believes but he is also out of touch with reality.
Plus all these old wrestlers always try to apply todays guys to the world they know, a world that doesn't exist anymore. Hogan does the same thing.
I see Brunos point about the cauliflower ears and all that, but kayfabe is dead. Theres no reason to keep it up to that level if everyone knows its fake. Its also not like plenty of todays wrestlers dont have tons of injuries or are totally run down from toll the business takes on your body either.
To answer the original question, I say a little from column a and a little from column b.
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Post by destrucity on Nov 20, 2009 17:32:49 GMT -5
The only thing I agree with is his anger at Hogan for claiming that he was the reason for the big crowd at Shea in 1980. That crowd really was there for Bruno vs. Larry Zbyzsko.
However, since Larry claimed credit in his book for some of the success Starrcade '97 then I can't blame Hogan for taking some credit away from Larry's big day.
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Post by Macho Dude Handy Damage on Nov 20, 2009 19:27:10 GMT -5
The only thing I agree with is his anger at Hogan for claiming that he was the reason for the big crowd at Shea in 1980. That crowd really was there for Bruno vs. Larry Zbyzsko. However, since Larry claimed credit in his book for some of the success Starrcade '97 then I can't blame Hogan for taking some credit away from Larry's big day. YOU'RE KIDDING?! Larry didn't REALLY say that? Starrcade '97 was ALL about Sting vs. Hogan.
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Post by Sir Woodrow on Nov 20, 2009 19:41:37 GMT -5
The only thing I agree with is his anger at Hogan for claiming that he was the reason for the big crowd at Shea in 1980. That crowd really was there for Bruno vs. Larry Zbyzsko. However, since Larry claimed credit in his book for some of the success Starrcade '97 then I can't blame Hogan for taking some credit away from Larry's big day. YOU'RE KIDDING?! Larry didn't REALLY say that? Starrcade '97 was ALL about Sting vs. Hogan. I don't know Zsbysko Vs Bischoff is what I wanted Starrcade 97 for ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png)
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Post by Diamond Dallas Dom on Nov 20, 2009 23:11:12 GMT -5
Wow, this was a really engaging interview. I'm a huge Bruno fan and it was really interesting reading him and the interviewer go back and forth about the business. I thought the interviewer gave some very interesting insight and was very upfront about the questions.
As I was reading all these posts, the phrase that was going around the most when referring to Bruno was a "bitter old man", which I just don't see or get. Now if people are referring to how he's bitter about how the business is today I can see that, but if people are insinuating that he's bitter because he's no longer in the spotlight, than I think that's very far from the truth.
Wrestling was a totally different animal before Vince Jr. took over, and Bruno didn't like the type of person Vince was or the route he was going to take wrestling. I thought a really key part of the interview was when Bruno said what all the other wrestlers were saying about Vince Jr. when he was still a commentator "Can you imagine if HE took over?" "He's not normal." It explains a lot about Vince and how his pride and ego get in the way of making smart, savvy business decisions when it's something that wasn't made by him (ex: WCW/nWo invasion angles, ECW getting it's own show)
I completely respect Bruno for not giving in to Vince unless it's on Bruno's terms, and it shows the kind of character the guy has.
That being said I'd love to see him go to the HOF and I'd be one of the first in line to buy the three-disc DVD compilation...and I wouldn't think of Bruno any less for doing that.
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Chainsaw
T
A very BAD man.
It is what it is
Posts: 90,480
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Post by Chainsaw on Nov 21, 2009 2:09:24 GMT -5
Say what you will about his belief about Hogan and Vince and the state of the business, but I'm impressed he knows what DVD's are and who Mike Tyson is. He still seems like he's got a mind for the business, at least in regards to his standing in it.
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