WWE Hall of Famer Bruno Sammartino dies aged 82

**pwaldo** · 04-19-2018, 07:16 PM

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...years-old.html

Legendary World Wrestling Federation wrestler, Bruno Sammartino, died Wednesday morning at 82-years-old in a hospital near his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Sammartino was one of the WWF's longest-reigning champions. His family friend and former wrestling announcer Christopher Cruise said Sammartino had been hospitalized for two months before he passed.

He was wrestling's biggest box office draw in the 1960s and 1970s and held the World Wide Wrestling Federation championship for more than 11 years over two title runs.

He was born in Italy and his family immigrated when he was a child to Pittsburgh, where he learned how to become a pro wrestler.

The WWF, now known as WWE, said Sammartino sold out Madison Square Garden, known as the mecca of professional wrestling, 187 times over his career.

Sammartino and WWE had a bitter falling out in the late 1980s that lasted until the company's greatest star accepted his induction into the Hall of Fame in 2013. He was inducted by Arnold Schwarzenegger.