It was August, 1980, the place was Shea Stadium. I had been there many times to see the NY Mets and even the NY Jets. On this occasion I was there to see the culmination of the most heated feud in WWE history. It was a packed and loaded card headlined by “The Living Legend” Bruno Sammartino facing off against his former protégé Larry Zbyszko. This event is finally being shown on television. It deserves to be seen and should help the fans to see how a guy can just walk to the ring with no fancy robes, no animals just himself and with his performance in the ring while having people screaming his name. The rest of the card consisted of the following matches.
*The Hangman vs. Rene Goulet.
*Ivan Putski vs. Johnny Rodz
*Angel Marvilla vs. Jose Estrada
*Women's Champion The Fabulous Moolah & Beverly Shade vs. Kandi Malloy & Peggy Lee.
*Dominic DeNucci vs. Baron Mikel Sicluna
*Greg Gagne vs. Rick McGraw
*Pat Patterson vs. Tor Kamata
*WWF Junior Heavyweight Champion Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Chavo Guerrero
*WWF World Martial Arts Champion Antonio Inoki vs. Larry Sharpe.
*Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan.
*WWF Intercontinental Champion Ken Patera vs. Tony Atlas.
*WWF Tag Team Champions The Wild Samoans vs. WWF champion Bob Backlund & Pedro Morale - Best of Three Falls.
This was a tremendous card at the time. But the truth is, everyone came there for one reason and that was to see Bruno destroy the arrogant and ungrateful Zbyszko. I remember my desire to go to that show was huge as it was a big deal. The WWWF had only held shows at Shea Stadium twice before to my knowledge. The two other times were headlined by Bruno Sammartino as well. He wrestled against Pedro Morales for the title and against Stan Hansen to gain revenge for his broken neck and to save the WWWE from financial disaster. That pending disaster was brought on by Vince McMahon Sr. getting into bed with Bob Arum in promoting the Antonio Inoki vs. Muhammad Ali fight that was having a lot of trouble selling tickets.
At the time I went to this show I didn’t know anyone. I had met a few of the guys through sheer accident. Surprisingly enough, the two people I met first were Bill Apter and Larry Zbyszko. I don’t remember any of the matches that night being bad matches but we were all there for a reason. It was clear that all the other matches were just put on to keep us in our seats waiting for the Italian Superman to get to the ring. The weather was good and everything went on as scheduled. The opening matches were nothing more than TV type matches.
This is the type of cards where favors where done such as Greg Gagne being brought in to wrestle Rick McGraw. It was the good old days when promoters worked hand in hand and helped each other out. This show was very high profile and I am sure when Greg got back to Minnesota they were able to promote how he had just wrestled on the huge Shea Stadium event. It is interesting to note that the Gagne vs. McGraw match is the only match not included in the WWE 24/7 presentation of this event. I find it interesting because the WWE owns the rights to the AWA and giving some high profile exposure to Greg Gagne sure couldn’t hurt anything in the WWE 24/7 world. One would have to believe that the reason this match isn’t included is because of “Quickdraw” Rick McGraw he was one of the first wrestlers found dead under suspicious circumstances or at least the first that I knew. I considered him a friend I was at his wedding he was a good guy. If I am incorrect why in the world leave out this match when you could leave out the Angel Marvilla vs. Jose Estrada, who remembers Angel Marvilla anyway? They brought in Antonio Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami from Japan. Did any of these guys sell any tickets, of course not? It was ok to have them on the show but many of the fans weren’t really aware of these guys. Please keep in mind these shows were in the infancy of cable and the internet wasn’t even a thought. The general public wasn’t aware of anyone who wasn’t on WWF TV at the time.
In the Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan match Hulk was the bad guy and led to the ring by Classie Freddie Blassie. It was a young and boisterous Hulk Hogan that fought Andre the Giant on the undercard. I remember an Andre victory but after the match Hogan left Andre laying and bleeding with a loaded armpad.
I was sure hoping that “Mr. USA” Tony Atlas could take the title from Ken Patera that night. But it wasn’t meant to be. It might have been better if he had wrestled Pat Patterson that night and let Atlas walk through Tor Kamata.
In the match featuring my future mentors The Wild Samoans, the Bob Backlund and Pedro Morales team was pretty much a considered a "dream team". The current WWF champion and the former WWF champion were to face off against a team that seemed unbeatable. The Wild Samoans, Afa and Sika, seemed impervious to pain and they were lead by a man that was, by far, the most hated manager in the WWF. The manager was Capt. Lou Albano. People despised him as the most hated manager in wrestling history. In fact, during the match on two separate occasions, fans ran from the stands to attack Albano. This was brought on by Lou injecting himself in the match. The Wild Samoans lost the match in two straight falls. The fans were pretty excited about this and surprised at the same time. It was a short time later that, due to Backlund not being able to defend two titles, they gave up the belts and a tournament was held. The Wild Samoans ended up winning the tournament and continuing to wreak havoc on the WWF.
The time finally came for the steel cage match. Fans had been waiting months for Bruno to get a clear cut, decisive victory against Zbyszko. The match went back and forth with Bruno finally getting the advantage and pummeling Zbyszko to a point where he easily walked out of the cage for the victory. After the match, Zbyszko tried to shake Bruno’s hand and raise his hand in victory. It was clear that the teacher was much better than the student in this case. I asked Larry many times over the years why he did that. He finally said "I did it so that all these years later you would be asking me why I did it." It made no sense to me then and it still doesn’t to this day. This was a brutal and vicious feud that started out by Bruno being left in a pool of his own blood during a televised “workout” between Bruno and Larry. This was a great night and one I will never forget. I am blessed to be able to have the chance to discuss this and many other memories with Bruno Sammartino. I am glad that the fans are finally getting a chance to see this great card and see Bruno although in his mind past his prime still “The Man” and the true people’s champion.
It was awhile back where Stan Lane was being falsely advertised for shows by Matt Holder. I joined Brian Tramel on his Internet Radio Show as co-host. I asked Stan Lane to appear with us to set the record straight. At that time he announced that he was never scheduled to appear on those shows and was retired from wrestling. I did say that if there were any situations where Stan Lane decided to wrestle again I would be the one to break the news so everyone knew that it was legitimate. After discussion with Stan this week, he has decided to re-team with Beautiful Bobby Eaton in his hometown of Greensboro, NC and in Charlotte NC. These are special matches and events in that Nature Boy Ric Flair will be appearing at both events. If you are not aware Ric Flair is the man that broke Stan Lane into the wrestling business. On these two nights The Midnight Express will be managed by “The Big Cheese” Sal Corrente. I may have the distinction of being the only man to referee a match between these two teams and now manage one of the teams in a match as well. If you want details of the events you can go to www.highspots.com they are on Dec 5th and Dec 6th. The event on the sixth will include my friend Jimmy Hart bringing his Nasty Boys back to Charlotte NC. It should be two great nights promoted by Highspots. I am very glad that Stan agreed to do this and everyone in the Carolinas area should turn out to see these legendary teams face off. I can’t promise how many more times Stan will lace up his boots but he will be there for these shows.
The picture for this article was just taken recently it is of former NWA, WCW and WWF enhancement talents Tommy Angel (left) and “Carolina’s Own” David Isley (right). They were both given a chance in Nelson Royals Atlantic Coast Wrestling. I met them both when I got my chance in late nineteen eighty eight to work full time for Nelson Royal. In later days David Isley took over for Joel Deaton as Thunderfoot #1 and teamed with original Thunderfoot #2 Gene Ligon. At some point David and I formed the Rat Patrol and I became “The Big Cheese” as we worked the Carolina Indy circuit. You can currently see these guys all over WWE 24/7 and several matches posted on You Tube.
This has been a piece of my mind
