10 Things You Didn't Know About Bruno Sammartino

9. His MSG Record Isn't Strictly True

1280px Madison Square Garden, February 2013
By Rich Mitchell from New York, NY (Madison Square Garden, February 2013) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

WWE's records on Bruno Sammartino claim he worked Madison Square Garden 211 times and he boasts a colossal 188 outright sell outs of the historic New York venue. According to Dave Meltzer's own personal investigation, that's not strictly true.

Georgiann Makropolous, editor of The Wrestling Chatterbox newsletter, is the one Meltzer credits for pushing that 188 number on the basis that Bruno worked once a month at MSG for 18 years. The Observer allege that Sammartino's sell out haul is less and say he worked 160 times in The Garden at best.

Of those 160 matches, Bruno lost only once.

That's the real record here. WWE's figure is nice and plump, inflates Bruno's legend and sells the magic of MSG, but it's not 100% historically accurate once you start digging through available info. Still, nobody should claim that Sammartino didn't play a huge role in furthering the legend of The Garden.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.