7 Ups And 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (April 23)

3. A Fitting Tribute To A Living Legend

bruno sammartino raw
WWE.com

When Bruno Sammartino passed away last week, WWE had one priority, one thing they absolutely could not screw up on Raw: paying homage to the Living Legend.

Without Bruno, there would be no WWE today. The longest-reigning world champion in company history was everything to the then-WWWF during its early days, so you hoped that Raw captured that appropriately – and they did.

In addition to the usual 10-bell salute, the video package included several talking heads, including Vince McMahon Sr., Vince Jr, Triple H, John Cena, Bill Apter, Paul Heyman and Ted DiBiase, lavishing praise on Bruno. Throughout Raw, we saw tweets from celebrities, sports figures and other wrestlers offering condolences. There even was a documentary that aired on the WWE Network after Raw ended.

It was the kind of farewell that Sammartino deserved. The 82-year-old icon was larger than life, but this tribute did a great job of encapsulating what he meant to the industry.

Advertisement
In this post: 
WWE Raw
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.