Question about Vince McMahon and Bruno Sammartino

edmundfitzgerald

I think McMahon or his dad was in charge of the WWWF back in the 70's.

What was strange was that we never saw Sammartino wrestle during their one hour weekly telecast.

We would see the tag team champions wrestle, but we never saw Sammartino while Bruno was champ. I think we
started seeing Sammartino later on in his career though on the weekly telecast, but not too sure.

Any ideas why we never saw Sammartino wrestle during the one hour weekly telecasts ?

WTCG

The same could be said about Hulk Hogan in his heyday in the 80's and early 90's. He would be all over the weekly one hour long WWF Superstars shows doing everything except actually wrestle an opponent. I don't know about Sammartino but it could be because of contractual reasons, i.e. "too big to wrestle jobbers on the syndicated program".

Dboneesq

Not sure this specifically answers your question, but it's a good read.

Tabe

<< <i>I think McMahon or his dad was in charge of the WWWF back in the 70's.

What was strange was that we never saw Sammartino wrestle during their one hour weekly telecast.

We would see the tag team champions wrestle, but we never saw Sammartino while Bruno was champ. I think we
started seeing Sammartino later on in his career though on the weekly telecast, but not too sure.

Any ideas why we never saw Sammartino wrestle during the one hour weekly telecasts ? >>


Back in the era prior to the 1990s, the world champion pretty much never wrestled on TV. The goal was to generate interest in the house shows and drive people to buy tickets for those. To see the world champion in action, you had to buy a ticket. This was true of all of the champions - Sammartino and Backlund in the WWF, Flair in the NWA, and so on. Some champions wrestled more on TV than others - Flair being a prime example - but it was still pretty rare.

Playing into that, at least in Sammartino's case, is that he was a pretty limited guy in the ring. Putting him on TV every week would expose him in a way that McMahon (and it was Vince Sr that was in charge up until 1982) didn't want.

Tabe

greencrow

Happy birthday Vince!