For 58 Years They Dreamed
In 48 Seconds Their Dreams Were Realized
#PWHS #Article #WorldChamp #Italian #Northeast #NY #NewYork #Sammartino
We all know the Bruno Sammartino story, so I'm not looking to retell that, not that it is a story unworthy of repetition, I just think John Volino did a much better job than I could with his article "From Immigrant to Champion" available at this link. I want to look at another permanent place in history that Sammartino achieved when he defeated the World Wide Wrestling Federation (now WWE) World Heavyweight Champion, Buddy Rogers on May 17, 1963 inside of the world famous Madison Square Garden. It is an accolade I have never heard mentioned before nor had I thought about before today.
Flicking through editions of the Harrisburg Evening News from 1934 for an Italian wrestler I was doing a bit of research on I noticed an article which mentioned how the large Italian communities on the East Coast truly believed newcomer Alphonse Bisignano could be their man to finally take the World Heavyweight Championship for all of Italia. I read it, moved on to the next edition and proceeded started to read the relevant article. When I got to the end I suddenly realized I hadn't done more than simply look at the words because I was actually running through a list of title holders in my head looking for one either billed from Italy with or without actual heritage or an actual Italian who had won it prior to Bruno Sammartino.
With my memory failing me I stopped researching and started looking through my files to find out who I was forgetting. For some reason I just though it had to be my brain that was wrong and even as I write this I still have that feeling, but I can not find anyone associated with Italy who predates him in the whole of the Northeastern area of America. Now my mind was contemplating what that meant if anything other than Bruno Sammartino was the first ever widely recognized World Heavyweight Champion billed as (and legitimately) being Italian.
The largest, densest communities of Italians were in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, but clusters could be found all over the northeast. Which was a region that until the 1960s expansion of the WWWF the land was split up between the American Wrestling Association run by Paul Bowser across all of New England (Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island). New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were all normally connected in some way, but not necessarily by one promoter and finally Maryland, the District of Columbia and Delaware normally aligned with NY, PA and NJ, but sometimes could do their own thing.
Internationally Born Wrestlers Recognized All Over the Northeast:
Flicking through editions of the Harrisburg Evening News from 1934 for an Italian wrestler I was doing a bit of research on I noticed an article which mentioned how the large Italian communities on the East Coast truly believed newcomer Alphonse Bisignano could be their man to finally take the World Heavyweight Championship for all of Italia. I read it, moved on to the next edition and proceeded started to read the relevant article. When I got to the end I suddenly realized I hadn't done more than simply look at the words because I was actually running through a list of title holders in my head looking for one either billed from Italy with or without actual heritage or an actual Italian who had won it prior to Bruno Sammartino.
With my memory failing me I stopped researching and started looking through my files to find out who I was forgetting. For some reason I just though it had to be my brain that was wrong and even as I write this I still have that feeling, but I can not find anyone associated with Italy who predates him in the whole of the Northeastern area of America. Now my mind was contemplating what that meant if anything other than Bruno Sammartino was the first ever widely recognized World Heavyweight Champion billed as (and legitimately) being Italian.
The largest, densest communities of Italians were in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, but clusters could be found all over the northeast. Which was a region that until the 1960s expansion of the WWWF the land was split up between the American Wrestling Association run by Paul Bowser across all of New England (Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island). New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were all normally connected in some way, but not necessarily by one promoter and finally Maryland, the District of Columbia and Delaware normally aligned with NY, PA and NJ, but sometimes could do their own thing.
Internationally Born Wrestlers Recognized All Over the Northeast:
- At the time he was from Russia, now it's Estonia. He reigned from 1905 to 1908. George Hackenschmidt.
- The Polish Stanislaus Zbyszko [Cyganiewicz] won the title in 1914 and held it until 1915.
- Danno O'Mahoney the Ireland band master of the Irish Whip captured it in 1935 and lost it in 1936.
- All the way from New Zealand, winning in 1959, Pat O'Connor held the title until 1961.
- Finally there was a Hungarian hooker called Lou Thesz. Awarded the title in 1949 and held it to either 1955 or 1956 depending on your perspective.
- The Polish Stanislaus Zbyszko [Cyganiewicz] won the title in 1914 and held it until 1915.
- Danno O'Mahoney the Ireland band master of the Irish Whip captured it in 1935 and lost it in 1936.
- All the way from New Zealand, winning in 1959, Pat O'Connor held the title until 1961.
- Finally there was a Hungarian hooker called Lou Thesz. Awarded the title in 1949 and held it to either 1955 or 1956 depending on your perspective.
In Addition These Foreign Wrestlers Were Recognized In NY, NJ, PA, MD and Likely DC and DE:
- Dick Schikat of Germany won the New York State Athletic Commission version in 1929 and lost it in 1930.
- 1930 was when "the Golden" Greek" Jim Londos defeated Schikat. He held it until 1932.
- The Turkish terror Ali Baba won the same title in 1936 and lost it after two months.
- Canada was represented when" Whipper" Billy Watson held the National Wrestling Alliance version for a few months in 1956. He was from English speaking Ontario.
- 1930 was when "the Golden" Greek" Jim Londos defeated Schikat. He held it until 1932.
- The Turkish terror Ali Baba won the same title in 1936 and lost it after two months.
- Canada was represented when" Whipper" Billy Watson held the National Wrestling Alliance version for a few months in 1956. He was from English speaking Ontario.
Meanwhile New England Had The Following Foreigners Instead:
- French Olympic Graeco-Roman style gold medalist, Henri Deglane wore the AWA crown from 1931-1933.
- They also had their own Canadian from 1936-1937, "the Lion" Yvon Robert. He was from the French speaking Quebec.
- They also had their own Canadian from 1936-1937, "the Lion" Yvon Robert. He was from the French speaking Quebec.
And just in case anyone was wondering, Frank Gotch was the first American born widely recognized titlist. He won it and held it until he retired in...well, lets say I think Terry Funk learned how to retire by studying stories of Gotch. 1912 is normally the accepted year his reign ended though.
It is quite a surprising tidbit to learn that there was no Italian man to hold a world title. As mentioned before NY, NJ, PA and RI were arguably the top settling places and even though the other states in that northeastern region may not have been as densely filled, they still had a far higher ratio against non-Italians or Italian-Americans in comparison to anywhere else in the country. Travelers from the little boot had been crossing the water to the country since before the Civil War. In fact several thousand joined (mainly) the Union army. The by the time World War One came around approximately 5,000,000 Italians had arrived in the states. It's said that during America's active years in the first world war the Italian portion of US citizens made up 12% of the US military forces.
Once the war was over the Italian communities scattered over the nation began to stabilize. In the northeast, the "Little Italies" did not just stop at stabilizing,they actually grew immensely and were flourishing from an economic standpoint by the end of the 1930s. It could be seen in the vast majority of the Italian neighborhoods. Nowhere was it more noticeable than the four main states settled in. Plus for the first time they received betters jobs than manual laboring, even found roles such as town mayors. Yet none of the plethora of Italian wrestlers around during the decade made it past the challenger spot.
Prior to the 1930s it is not too shocking that there was not an Italian kingpin in America. Leo Pardello, protege of Ernest Roeber, was probably the biggest Italian name from the 1890s until about 1908 in American, mainly because there do not appear to have been very many wrestling. This is most likely because most families arriving in America were more worried about finding accommodation, food; basically they were too focused on simply surviving in the new country with people talking in a literal foreign language they could not understand nor speak. Once Gotch had the title no-one was really getting a look in, although the highly regarded Giovanni Raicevich, part of the Italian wrestling family, did get a run with Gotch.
Once WWI it was deemed good, corn-fed American boys were needed at top and a run of Americans followed which put a wrench in the works of any ideals an Italian named Joe Parrelli may have had on becoming the champion. By the time things had settled back down after several promotional wars across America, new and fresh faces had arrived in the country or had been born to immigrant parents. By the time the Great Depression was underway you had a large selection of Italians touring America including the northeast. Names like Renato Gardini, the Garibaldi family, George Calza, Joe DeVito, Mike Romano, Tony Felice, Lilo Nardi, Nazareno Poggi, Alphonse Bisignano and more were all active during the '30s.
Many of them received World Heavyweight Championship shots in the northeast, but they never could get a decisive victory over whomever the champion was. At first it did not make sense to me why a man of the people so to say was not given the belt. Something was bugging me and I couldn't work it out so I started writing this and figured if it was that important something would trigger the subconscious thought that I could not quite put my finger on. Now I have it.
They could of course have been crazy and that is why they never capitalized on the massive following in the Italian communities. I don't think that was the case though. One of the promoters in New York for a portion of the decade was Jack Curley, a very shrewd mind for promoting and was often considered the Czar of pro-wrestling, so I'm thinking he and the other promoters had a plan in mind. First a German got the title, like the Italians, Greeks and Irish, many Germans had settled in communities in the northeast. Germans were still not too well liked and the rumblings of Adolf Hitler's plans in the '30s surely made the sour taste toward them even stronger. I don't believe the Greeks had really upset anyone, but Londos was rather like a Gorgeous George character and fans did love to hate him. There were Greek communities in the northeast too, but larger ones probably existed more toward the Midwest.
That was the scene in the New York and the connected areas up until 1932. The Boston based New England promotion had gone in a different direction. Schikat became the first NYSAC World Heavyweight Champion in 1929 in a match which was arranged by Jack Curley's men taking care of the wrestling; Joe "Toots" Mondt, Rudy Miller and Jack Pfeffer. it was because the NYSAC, the PAC, and other commissions around there all withdrew recognition of the main World Heavyweight Championship. Paul Bowser up in Massachusetts and the MAC never stopped billing Gus Sonnenberg as there champion.
The AWA World Heavyweight Championship was also still recognized in other areas such as California and the Montreal based area up in Canada. Ed Don George defeated Sonnenberg for the title in 1930 who was thought to be a promising talent having represented America in Freestyle wrestling at the 1928 Olympics. After only four months George lost the title Ed "Strangler" Lewis, a former champion and arguably second only to Londos in terms of name value during the first half of the '30s. A month after winning the title in Los Angeles Lewis lost the title in Montreal to the French import, Henri Deglane. Both the athletic commissions in control of Boston and Montreal honored this title change, other areas refused to acknowledge it.
There are many "Myths Within Facts" concerning Lewis's title win on April 13 and the subsequent match with Deglane on May 4. All of which are in regards to alleged power plays and double crosses that may or may not have taken place. It was far too complicated of a situation to go into detail here and I'd recommend getting a copy of Steve Yohe's biography of Ed "Strangler" Lewis available at this link. Regardless of the specifics behind the title changes, on the surface Montreal and Boston allowed the first ever World Heavyweight Championship change via a disqualification. California and the other states did not think a disqualification was a sufficient outcome to warrant the title change and some even doubted that Lewis deserved to be disqualified in the first place.
At the end of 1931 New York had their "Golden" Greek box-office sensation. New England had their French born Olympic medalist, a perfect title holder as the French speaking Montreal area was a big part of the New England business plan. Lewis had managed to gain recognition in Illinois and even received the nod of approval from the National Boxing Association. The National Wrestling Association which was an off-shoot of the NBA, although the NBA often denied this named Jim Londos the man whose waist was the right size for their belt.
Everything seemed pretty calm on all fronts with the three main champions and the people involved in pro-wrestling for the most part were all making money. It would not last long, when does it ever though? Maybe if Londos had not left the Curley group an Italian champion would have happened in the coming years, but with the Greek still holding the NYSAC title and sans-contract, Curley and his crew had to work fast. They needed a way to get the title off of Londos or if not manipulate the public perception of Londos' claim to it in an attempt to lesser to its legitimacy.
Once again I have to recommend Steve Yohe's book for a logical look at what and why exactly everything went down the way it did. The fallout though was the National Wrestling Association recognizing Jim Londos as the champion up until 1935. The NYSAC strips Jim Londos of his laurels for refusing to meet the number one contender Ed "Strangler" Lewis and consequently Lewis beating Jack Sherry in a match during October 1932 to be awarded the vacant title. The AWA were still doing their own deal with Henri Deglane ruling the roost. Meanwhile the California State Athletic Commission had stuck with Lewis after the Deglane match and as mentioned above his win in Illinois and the following in New York only served to strength his titles significance.
While Lewis was a big name though, he was considered to be in the tail end of his career and was only ever meant to be a short term champion. The New York crew had the next young champion already lined up in Jim Browning, another American who took the title roughly four months later. He did good too, starting out with strong houses throughout the spring and summer of 1933. A few days prior to Browning's reign started the New England's AWA had made a change of their own and went back to Ed Don George as their title holder and his path went in a similar fashion to Browning's with fanfare to start with.
By the spring of 1934 everywhere was feeling the pressure to find a way to boost business back to the heights they had experienced in 1930. The Londos deal had done a great deal of damage and combined with the Great Depression it had been really hurting, even though Browning had been a good draw, it was not really comparable to the kind of draw Londos had been. Especially in New York. The AWA had been doing fairly well, but the Lewis-Deglane incident dented their success and Ed Don George's popularity had all but run it's course. Allegiance between areas and promoters had been cut, formed, and moved about frequently and they were all starting to realize that they might be better off working together rather than fighting among themselves.
There is an important little side journey to go on here and while it in no way effects the east coast situation, it does involves an Italian immigrant. "Jumping" Joe Savoldi, not a part of the later Savoldi wrestling family who had the real last name of Fornini, was born in Italy and immigrated to Michigan just after World War I. He became a star football player for Notre Dame in from 1929-1930, but suffered expulsion from the university following a scandal involving a secret marriage and a divorce. Regardless he found success playing for the Chicago Bears before being brought into wrestling by Ed "Strangler" Lewis and his manager Billy Sandow.
With his nickname "Jumping Joe" already in place from his time in football, Savoldi was a star in Chicago. His prior indiscretions were all but forgotten about and he was beloved by the fans there. Possibly he could have been a legendary World Heavyweight Champion if only the night he won the title it had been done properly rather than in a shady fashion. Supposedly on the night of April 7, 1933 Jim Londos was double crossed and the referee awarded the match and Londos' title to Savoldi during a fairly chaotic scene. Unfortunately for Savoldi, his victory was so controversial most people outside of Chicago, Illinois even knew it happened let alone recognized Savoldi as any kind of champion, and those in Illinois were not really buying it.
Several months later the NYSAC champion, Browning, defeated Savoldi and that got rid of his claim to the title as Illinois backed Browning. Nonetheless it is a footnote in history that there was a officially (by the Illinois State Athletic Commission) recognized World Heavyweight Champion not only of Italian heritage, but actually born in Italy before Bruno Sammartino. The only problem with him is his title reign lasted less than a year at a time when a single year as champion was considered short, and he only ever had recognition by a single state in America and even some of the cities within that state refused to acknowledge him as their champion. It is, however the reason I referred to Sammartino as the first "widely recognized" World Heavyweight Champion in America that was born in Italy.
The first step to this was somewhat bizarre really when you think about his history, the National Wrestling Association World Heavyweight Champion, Jim Londos, was booked in a match with Jim Browning and surprisingly he was the winner. Just like many wrestlers who are more familiar to current fans have done, Londos left the promoters whose guiding eye he became a true "superstar" and went out on his own. The promoters suffered, made strides, but could not achieve the same level of success without Londos, nor could they find a replacement of equal drawing power. Therefore in June 1934 everybody patched things up and at Madison Square Garden Jim Londos won back the NYSAC World Heavyweight Championship. This meant he was recognized by California, the New York, Pennsylvania and etc. area, Illinois, and most of the southern states. Ed Don George was still recognized by the AWA in New England.
Okay, so we've just covered in a fairly brief fashion even if it may not feel it the first twenty-nine years of their being a widely recognized World Heavyweight Champion in America. The next twenty-nine years should be much quicker as the east coast died a horrible death for many, many years by the end of the decade. You may remember it was an article from 1934 that sparked my interest in writing this. The article which expressed the outcry from Italian citizens for one of their men, Alphonse Bisignano to be the next World Heavyweight Champion. What they didn't know though, was that their local promoters in the non-New England states of the northeast were thinking much bigger than just appeasing their fans.
Maybe even more shocking than the trust put back into Londos which just proved how big of a name he truly was in the 1930s, came the working agreement with Paul Bowser of New England's AWA and the New York, Pennsylvania and etc. promoters. Before that could become a publicly known relationship Jim Londos had to drop the NYSAC championship to a new rising star straight from Ireland. Why Ireland? It is often said that America was built by the Irish due to the immense amounts of Irish immigrants (and dare I say slaves?) that made their way to America during the Industrial period. With many of their descendants still recognizing themselves as Irish generations down the line and many Irish customs being adopted into the American way of life, they were definitely one of the most influential and largest group of peoples in America when it came to who you wanted to direct your entertainment at.
Together the promoters agreed that the Irish sensation Danno O'Mahoney would be the perfect guy to take the title on June 27, 1935 and carry it from city to city electrifyng fans from coast to coast. Especially with the usage of what was a brand new move, according to those involved in this, the "Irish Whip." Yes, that's the move still used today in wrestling. At the time when Danno was using it, it normally meant the match would be over any second.
Just three months before Londos lost his version of the title to Danno he failed to appear for a title defense in Los Angeles and subsequently was no longer recognized as the champion there. A tournament concluded the month after Danno beat Londos which crowned Vince Lopez. This offshoot re-aligned with the main branch just under a year later in 1936 though. This gap probably made a lot of sense for the promoter as someone with the surname "Lopez" was probably going to draw better than an "O'Mahoney" in California as many of the Irish immigrants stayed up north.
Six days after the new champion was crowned in LA, Danno O'Mahoney defeated Ed Don George on July 30, 1935. A weird little tidbit of information exists because of the Los Angeles schtick; O'Mahoney was recognized in more states than Londos, but Londos was recognized over a larger square mile area of land before losing the recognition of the California State Athletic Commission.
Within a year the promoters quickly realized their plan had failed and O'Mahoney was much like Jim Browning before him. He started off strong then gates dramatically fell. With no faith in O'Mahoney as a nationally recognized title holder the scene was split back up. New York initially had Dick Schikat take the title in March 1936 before it being passed to Ali Baba the following month. His win was as a transitional champion while working out a new deal with Los Angeles and crowning Dave Levin as their champion in August 1936, another American born star. The New England and Quebec areas went with the French-Canadian Yvon Robert in July 1936.
The California and the non-New England state Athletic Commissions remained aligned until 1938 and they all decided that Levin wasn't going to quite cut it, so within a few months the title was won by Dean Detton a solid in-ring performer and former football player for the University of Utah. He failed to raise the houses in his areas even with recognition also being gained from the National Wrestling Association who had pretty much just thrown their hands up in the air during the O'Mahoney reign and the splitting of areas. I can only presume they never went with an Italian during this time because of their lack of national appeal. In the New York area it seems an Italian again could have made a lot of money for the promoters. Especially as Mike Romano passed away in 1936 during a match against Jack Donovan.
That was not to be though and instead a Canadian born to Ukrainian parents was the next person to win a title. Bronko Nagurski had been a standout football player for the University of Minnesota and went on to be a star for the Chicago Bears from 1930-1937. He was an instant sensation on the mats of pro-wrestling too and his win in June 1937 was well received. The problem with Nagurski as champion was that he simply did not like professional wrestling. He looked down upon it and did not think the pseudo-sport was a worthy platform for a real sportsman like himself. Nonetheless Nagurski made a lot of money in wrestling, he just did not want to travel like the other champions.
This ended up with the Maryland State Athletic Commission withdrawing recognition of Nagurski just a couple of months into his reign. In October they put the title on Jim Londos, again the proven draw. just over a year later the CSAC & NYSAC decided Maryland had been right all along and Londos defeated Nagurski in November 1938. Londos was a great draw for all parties involved once again and he ruled the roost until the early 1940s as the champion.
Over in New England Yvon Robert kept the title for nearly eighteen months before being stripped of the strap when he refused to face the young Hungarian upcomer, Lou Thesz. Instead of beating Robert, Thesz had a match with Everette Marshall for the AWA World Heavyweight Championship and beat him to capture the vacant belt. Thesz was just a temporary measure for the Boston, MA based promotions though as Steve Casey an Irishman, suited to that part of the northeast audience beat Thesz in February 1938. He proved to be a good draw, but still Paul Bowser craved to find the oodles of money pouring in that he had once known.
In an attempt to boost the status of his title and the competitive wrestlers trying to obtain it, he hotshotted the title about over the year of 1939. First a fairly unknown name in the annuals of pro-wrestling history, Marvin Westernberg, won the title in March 1939 followed by a name from the past, Gus Sonnenberg, then back to Steve Casey. Ed Don George was raised back to the top of the pile a month later in April 1939. For seven months George held it and then he dropped it back to Casey in November 1939. This time the belt stayed still for all of 6 months before the "French Angel" Maurice Tillet, who was billed as a freak of nature and is often credited with being the inspiration for the appearance of Shrek in the animated movies. Tillet had a two year run as the champion before dropping it back to Casey.
Next it was Casey's turn for a two year run lasting until August 1944 when the "French Angel" won it back for fourteen days. That whole period was catered specifically for the New England area and it's audience and also to cater for the more showmanship based audiences in California, San Francisco and the surrounding towns specifically. And of course being right on the border of French-Canada having a "French Angel" certainly did no harm at all. Possibly the final short-change happened as they knew Casey was going to have to leave the promotion for a while due to him enlisting into the army and it looked great to have the World Heavyweight Champion taking part in active duty.
In the mean time another Hungarian in Sandor Szabo was awarded the interim wartime World Heavyweight Championship after an elimination tournament. Upon leaving the arm in April 1945 Casey picked up the wartime title to unify his title with it, only to lose it two weeks later to Szbao who in turn lost it a week later to the American born Frank Sexton. To cement Sexton as the next big thing he actually lost the title to Casey then regained it back from him by the end of June 1945 and retained it in subsequent matches. This marked the beginning of a solid period of five years of Sexton on top in New England and Maryland who had started to try to promote a World Heavyweight Champion again in the form of Babe Sharkey, another American, in 1944 unified their title with Sexton's in January 1946. Eventually they moved into Ohio too giving Sexton a fairly wide scope of recognition, especially when you remember Northern California were on board too.
In May 1950 when Sexton's reign ended, a Native American took over the strap before losing it in controversial fashion to the biggest star since Jim Londos' peak in the early 1930s, Gorgeous George in the same month. Three months later Eagle won it back and held it for two years before being forced to take time off due to an injury.
While all of this had been going on in New England, the general New York area had been deader than a dodo. Several things had happened at the end of the 1930s which impacted the pro-wrestling scene beyond a quick fix. Maybe most importantly, Jack Curley passed away and all of his influence, his contacts, and his power went with him. Then you also had two or three exposes of the business coming out. They were not just speculative either, they came from people within the business and great detail. Things had gotten so bad that even though wrestling was still promoted their a new champion was not crowned. They just recognized whichever champion happened to want to tour the area at the time, if one did want to tour there that is.
This meant that by the early-1950s there was no World Heavyweight Champion officially recognized in the northeast area of New York. Italians, Americans, and other ethnic groups all still turned out, in lower numbers, but turn out they did to the limited pro-wrestling available to them, but pro-wrestling was as near to dead as it plausibly could be in that neck of the woods.
By the mid-1950s that had changed. Those of you reading this familiar with pro-wrestling history will know that the National Wrestling Alliance had formed in 1948 and Lou Thesz, the aforementioned Hungarian transitional champ had been awarded the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1949. As the NWA was working as a national organization by the mid-'50s they had to have a World Heavyweight Champion who would not only bring appeal on a national level, but the idea of being double crossed was not a far-gone memory yet, so they also wanted someone who could legitimately handle themselves if they should ever have to.
The northeast of America had slowly been built back up by Vince McMahon Sr. and Joe "Toots" Mondt starting with a small operation based out of Washington DC starting in 1953. By 1957 they were established enough to officially join the NWA and although Thesz had been recognized as the champion in that region for a few years, he was now officially the only World Heavyweight Champion being promoted out of there as well as in most other places across the United States.
Before we get to the end of this story there is one more side-road we must go down. On March 22, 1955 Lou Thesz lost via countout in one fall and disqualification in the last to Leo Nomellini. Leo was born in Italian and as with a fair few other guys, he also had been a football star. The problem was that countouts and disqualifications were still not considered acceptable methods to beat a champion and take his title. San Francisco and Northern California took the victory though and started to bill Nomellini as the new champion. Thesz still toured the rest of the country as the champion. Four months later Thesz defeated Nomellini to squash any claim he may have to the championship. Like Savoldi before him, Nomellini was indeed billed as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion for a short period of time, but his recognition never made it out of the state he "won" it in.
In June 1957 Edouard Carpentier also had a bit of a flimsy claim to the title, but this time he was recognized in New York, probably due to him being available to tour there when Thesz was not. Carpentier carried recognition in the northeast into 1958 when toured. By 1959 they were back in line with the NWA though and their champion, Pat O'Connor made a tour of New York. By the time Buddy Rogers got the title in June 1961, McMahon and Mondt had control of Rogers schedule due to him being one of their guys. Naturally this did not set well with other members of the NWA, but it had to be tolerated to a degree due to how much power the northeast had garnered since running, primarily due to it being in a huge media area.
Then in 1963 it was time for the NWA and what was still called the Capitol Wrestling Corporation to part ways. The CWC had grown big enough they no longer needed a paper relationship with the NWA, but they were smart enough to know that they needed to end things on a good note to avoid any repercussion from their departure. Something to do with a federal investigation into the NWA creating a monopoly on professional wrestling may have played a part in this too, see Tim Hornbaker's book Capitol Revolution for more details on the details of that.
It was January 24, 1963 when Buddy Rogers dropped the National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Championship to Lou Thesz. It happened in a one-fall match at Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Everywhere apart from the northeast accepted this title change. This gave McMahon and Mondt the leverage to move from Capitol City to New York City and rename their company the World Wide Wrestling Federation, CWC was still the incorporated name. They dubbed Rogers the first ever WWWF World Heavyweight Champion and what would become a very prestigious title was born.
Rogers was never intended to be the flag bearer for the WWWF though. They just needed him with his legitimacy, star power and the fact he had been touring for a long time by this point to give the rub to their next big thing.
Now, whether they put any real thought into Bruno Sammartino being an Italian immigrant at all or they just thought that it was icing on the cake, I am not sure. Mondt had been around since the 1910s though and spent a lot of time in the northeast especially in that 1930s period when the Italians were really making their mark on New York, Pennsylvania and the surrounding states. He must have remembered the outcries for an Italian champion back then and he was a very, very intelligent man behind the scenes in pro-wrestling having learned from some of the very best minds there were. Both he had Vince Sr. had worked with Jess McMahon, Vince's father, early on in their promotion and Jess had also been a shrewd businessman and promoter (mainly for boxing) in the the northeast for several decades.
So when this young, handsome and extremely thickly set man with the strength of Superman with the bonus quality of seeming to be a genuine man of the people burst onto the scene and took the World Wide Wrestling Federation Championship from Buddy Rogers on May 17, 1963 in just a matter of seconds, you can only imagine the sense of pride they must have felt in their Italian brother. Not only that, but the shock of someone so young, beating Rogers so fast, must have just added to the whole exciting experience on that night.
After fifty-eight long years there was finally a champion the Italian communities could call their own. Not only the Italians though, but like them, other ethnic groups could feel a sense of pride in Bruno, not quite as much as if he was from their homeland, but still enough to make them want to support him. With the last couple of years being ruled by anything but an "average" man in Buddy Rogers, Bruno's whole demeanor and the way he carried himself must have been a breath of fresh air for everyone in the northeast area who worked the grinding day-to-day jobs those of who are not in the 1% had to (and still have to) endure. In less than 60 seconds, Bruno Sammartino gave a whole region hope that the working man could triumph over the flashy money grabbers of the world.
His title reign that then lasted all the way, uninterrupted, until January 18, 1971 was nothing short of incredible. Even when he lost the title to Ivan Koloff the fans were not ready to let go. It is my opinion that they had waited so long for an Italian champion they did not want to see him go, because they did not no how long it would be until they had someone they could call their own again. So, the fact that a giant hush fell over the crowd when Koloff managed to get the victory, the shock and disbelief that the Italian Superman could be beaten was nearly more than the crowd that night could handle.
Champions who came after Bruno drew well, but it was only he who could reach those heights again when he had a second reign. No-one could come even close to his success until the 1980s when the whole national expansion took place and once again there was a national fanbase to please and not just that highly concentrated Italian section of the northeast. To me it explains why the WWWF could have a good guy as their champion for so long unlike other areas. For fifty-eight years the fans waited for an Italian champion, they were sick of cheering endlessly in hope that someone they really respected could win the big one and they were more than happy to see a bunch of rotten 'rasslers line up and try to take the golden goose away from their man and cheer him on to retain that ideal of the "American Dream" being not only obtainable, but sustainable once there.
Unique content strictly for the Professional Wrestling Historical Society.
For 58 Years They Dreamed.
Author: Jimmy Wheeler.
Published: January 12, 2017.
Article: #159.
Editor: Jimmy Wheeler.
For 58 Years They Dreamed.
Author: Jimmy Wheeler.
Published: January 12, 2017.
Article: #159.
Editor: Jimmy Wheeler.
Other articles by Jimmy can be Read Here.