10 Most Vicious WWE Grudge Matches Ever
3. Bruno Sammartino vs. Larry Zybysko - Showdown At Shea III
Bruno Sammartino vs. Larry Zybysko - Showdown At Shea III Larry Zybysko and his mentor Bruno Sammartino were portrayed by the WWWF as close friends, like brothers. That changed in late 1979, when Zybysko began to openly question his status in the industry under Sammartino, and query whether the honour of having a living legend as his mentor hadnt in fact placed a glass ceiling over his head. Zybysko didnt want to be in Brunos shadow he wanted to prove that he was on Sammartinos level.
Bruno refused the challenge: he had no desire to come out of retirement at all, least of all to wrestle Zybysko. Back in those days, kayfabe was king: wrestling was treated in storyline as a shoot fight, as MMA is today. Sammartino maintaned that in order to wrestle Zybysko, he'd have to want to hurt him. He had no wish to beat up a man he considered a part of his family. Zybysko's response was simply that he would retire if Bruno didn't agree to wrestle him: his career was meaningless unless he could prove himself.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Sammartino finally agreed to make a small scale return to wrestling. However, he still couldn't bring himself to fight. He would defend himself, but he absolutely would not counterattack. That first match took place on January 22nd 1978 in Allentown, Philadelphia, taped for the newly renamed WWFs Championship Wrestling show. As the match wore on, Zybysko became more and more frustrated: Sammartino just wouldn't wrestle him. It was like he was being humoured, like this wasn't a real match. It was as if Bruno was looking down at him.
Finally, Zybysko snapped and began drilling Sammartino with punches and kicks, before leaving the ring to grab a nearby wooden folding chair, smashing it over his friends head and causing him to bleed heavily.
The crowd went insane, and stayed that way for the remainder of the feud, which went on for nearly three years. During the course of the feud, Zbyszko was attacked in the street and after matches on a regular basis. Cars he was travelling in were mobbed. Once, a taxi was turned onto its roof with him inside. On another terrifying occasion, he was actually stabbed in the behind in a riot after a match in New York.
The long-running angle came to a bitter head in a steel cage at the third annual supercard event at Shea Stadium, called 'Showdown At Shea', in front of 36,295 baying, frothing Sammartino fans... all of whom wanted Zybysko dead. It was old school heel work, a hellacious grudge of Biblical proportions, and it was beautiful.