Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Bruno Sammartino

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Italian wrestler Bruno Sammartino.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Bruno Sammartino

Bruno Leopoldo Francesco Sammartino was an Italian-born American professional wrestler, best known for his work with the World Wide Wrestling Federation. There, he held the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship for more than 11 years across two reigns, the first of which is the longest single reign in the promotion's history at 2,803 days. He is overall a two-time world champion in professional wrestling.

Professional wrestlers are human beings like anybody else.
I sweat an awful lot.
I always used to get goosebumps in Madison Square Garden, because as soon as I started making my entrance, people would be chanting my name. 'BRU-NO! BRU-NO!' — © Bruno Sammartino
I always used to get goosebumps in Madison Square Garden, because as soon as I started making my entrance, people would be chanting my name. 'BRU-NO! BRU-NO!'
In every city, I had my favorite place. In Baltimore, it was Sabatino's.
When you're in sports, you have such a limited time and then, it's all over with, finished.
They said Babe Ruth built Yankee Stadium and Bruno Sammartino built the Garden. It always was my favorite place.
In the old days wrestling had a certain showmanship. All those people paid their dues. They knew how to wrestle.
If I had only Inoki to meet, I could wrestle until I was 60 years old.
Everything that I am, everything that I've done, everything that I hope to be is because of my mom.
I'm an old-school guy.
They call me 'The Maniac' as far as training goes. I'm a fanatic. I run 10 miles every day and I train three hours every other day with barbells. Nobody trains that hard. And that's not bragging.
I've had 10 major operations. Four back surgeries. A hip replacement. A broken neck... But I consider myself lucky. I keep thinking after all these surgeries, my luck is going to run out.
In talking to Paul Levesque, I made it clear, I've had issues with WWE and wrestling in general, because there were other organizations. I didn't like the direction they had taken. It was bothersome to me.
We didn't have shoes until we came over to America. — © Bruno Sammartino
We didn't have shoes until we came over to America.
To be honored with the WWE Hall of Fame, I cannot put into words how big it is 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 pounds of Haystacks Calhoun.
Besides wrestling, in my younger years, I also competed in Olympic lifting and power lifting.
There's nothing like wrestling in front of people you know.
The greatest gift a man can have is to have an operatic voice.
I complained about the gimmicks. All the nonsense and garbage. After a while I just said I would not wrestle with the guys wearing masks, or guys that had some get-up on. It was demeaning. I refuse to go onto the mat against a Christmas tree.
Buddy Rogers and I never liked each other to be honest, however I take nothing away from him.
With Paul Levesque and the conversations we have had I've found him to be a straight shooter and everything he said with me he kept his word 100%.
I could never imagine myself living anywhere but Pittsburgh.
I'm totally dedicated to training no one trains harder than I do.
Wrestling isn't looked upon like the other sports of football, baseball, basketball and hockey.
Inoki is nothing but a third rater in my estimation.
I like a match that shows strength, stamina, scientific technique.
The last thing I want to do in Europe is drive.
I weighed 84 pounds when I was 14. I was an easy target for the other kids.
I was never a fan of Hogan because I was never impressed with his quality of performance in the ring.
They say it's all fake, but there's nothing fake when a guy picks you up and slams you down or throws you out of the ring onto a concrete floor. They say, 'Yeah, but you know how to land.' Well, you try landing on a concrete floor.
Anytime that people feel that you accomplished enough to enter into a Hall of Fame, of course this is a tremendous, tremendous thrill for me.
We hid from the Nazis in the mountains. Sometimes there was nothing to eat but snow.
I never had a gimmick. All I had was a pair of boots and a pair of tights.
Wrestling is how I made my living and supported my family, but it's over. I don't want anything to do with it anymore.
I'm so grateful to America and my hometown of Pittsburgh. I love my city. I'm proud of being from here.
I would be a fool to tell you that there was no fixing. You ask if wrestling is for real? Well, I think my own body answers that question.
There were a lot of tough guys who were tremendous wrestlers. — © Bruno Sammartino
There were a lot of tough guys who were tremendous wrestlers.
I watched other boys play baseball and other games, but I was too sickly to join in the fun.
I lost a brother and a sister, and I came down with rheumatic fever.
I wasn't a 97-pound weakling. I was an 80-pound weakling.
I am humbled that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be inducting me into the WWE Hall of Fame. The kindness and support that Arnold has shown me over the years is truly overwhelming.
My jaw has been wired and rewired. It's incredible to think people would fake that.
I'm an opera lover.
The sacrifice musicians make, the results they achieve are fantastic. These are the big people as far as I am concerned. So if they are temperamental, I don't hold it against them after all they had to go through to get to the top.
I didn't care for Steve Austin because of his mouth. He was a very, very vulgar individual and anybody who is like that I can never be a fan of. So, any of his positives were overshadowed by the negatives.
I'm not bragging, but my reputation among my peers was Bruno was a horse I never got tired.
I was never going to do anything that would have brought shame to my family. I owed too much, and I wanted them to be proud to say that they were Bruno Sammartino's mother and father.
In 1959 I had broken the bench press record by lifting 565 pounds, and I could lift 715 pounds from a squat. — © Bruno Sammartino
In 1959 I had broken the bench press record by lifting 565 pounds, and I could lift 715 pounds from a squat.
When I broke my neck, I was told that I came within a millimeter of dying or being paralyzed from the neck down. When it happened, I was numb on one side. In spite of how serious they were telling me it was, I never took it seriously. I kept saying it's going to be OK, I trained too hard to get hurt. Which is silly.
I only survived because of my mother's love and care.
A lotta stuff has been written about me that I never said. Stories that were lies. One guy wrote that young as I was during World War II, I actually got a rifle and fought off the Germans. Which is ridiculous, insane. I was just six.
We lived in the mountains for 14 months without much food. People were dying from starvation.
I think guys like Cena work very hard.
I was born in Pizzoferrato, a little village of 1000, in the Abruzzi region of Italy.
You look at success and thank God and the fans for the success. It's why I always feel indebted to the fans.
I never wrestled for the money or the fame. I just wanted to be able to take care of my family. I wanted to be able to educate my children. I wanted them to have it better than I did.
Haystacks Calhoun has never been lifted because he has never been in the ring with Bruno Sammartino.
If anybody can really beat me, fine. But that's the only way I'll go down.
I busted my nose 11 times. My fingers are all busted. My ribs. Both my arms. I can't straighten them out.
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