people forget this guy is a fan and they found this 8mm film and we are lucky to see this because they never recorded the match. people sweat the guy saying he's terrible but that would be you or me calling the match over the film, who cares if he's calling the match i'm glad i got to see the match. after all these years and no one knew this existed. just pictures on the apter mags.
You do realize that's Jesse "The Body" Ventura commentating post-match, post-WrestleMania 1 (hence why he was saying "before WrestleManias at the start of the clip... so its at least 14 years after this match took place that Ventura provided commentary for it
The fans did end up rioting. They attacked the car Koloff and Albano were in. Then they destroyed a bar by the Garden, in which the owner sent Vince Sr. a bill for the damages.
@@Kfowlkes09 not really, since there were no political implications surrounding Undertaker. This match and a possible riot wasn't about Bruno's streak ending. It was about the Cold War and who this streak ended to.
I was there that night. The audio and crowd noise in this video is dubbed in. That is not what it sounded like. When the match ended, the crowd was in stunned silence. The quiet (even continuing into the next match) was surreal. Nobody could believe what they just saw.
i attended those once a month garden cards on a monday night. The crowd was littered with old folks and degenerates who really believed it was on the up and up. You also had to be 14, i remember bringing my birth certificate to prove my age! The program was also a two three page listing of the nights card. I would bring a pen and record the results of each match!
notice how koloff was not presented the belt and left while bruno stayed behind? they were so fearful of a riot and for koloffs safety that they had him leave the ring ASAP without the belt......
50 years ago, today! While I missed these legends,..."in their glory days" ,....I'm certainly glad to say that I *DID* , at least....get to see/watch them in the early 80's when they were towards the end of their prime. R.I.P. to 2 of the best there ever was!
A REAL PIECE OF HISTORY….I never understand why WWE doesn’t collect all the old MSG footage they can & release a box set of all this stuff….or at least put it on the network. Who cares if the quality isn’t that good, it’s AMAZING stuff & an incredibly HUGE part of WWE WWF & professional wrestling history in general…
A lot of it is because many of the old MSG shows were not filmed. And even when they were, a bunch of the footage was lost in a fire in the early 80s. The stuff that was saved was saved by Kevin Dunn's father, which is why Vince has had ridiculous loyalty to Dunn despite the fact that like no one else in the company likes him supposedly.
@capnfooDRIVEin Not only did Bruno know, he actually requested that he lose. Bruno was tired of the travel and responsibility of being the champ and carrying the wwwf. He wanted to spend more time at home with his family. The fact that he came back a few years later as champ proved Vince Sr needed him to draw more fans.
Let's all take into consideration this match is 42yrs old. With that said, even with the edits it STANDS the test of Time as to what a well worked match IS supposed to look like. 42yrs from now the same will hold true. Two talented workers doing good business.
Ivan did that knee drop very quickly; much faster than would be expected for such a big man. I understand that the Ref told Ivan he should get out of the ring in case fans did get hostile (they were not getting that way I believe). Normally, the belt goes on the new champ. This time, get otta here!
yeah back in the old days it wasn't uncommon for fans to try and attack the heels. IT was actually considered a good thing by the guys if the fans tried that as they felt they weren't doing a good job if they didn't. Ah it was a different time back in the old days. But yeah according to Koloff the reason why the ref felt the crowd was going to try and attack him was 1. Bruno was champ for 8 years and never lost the title before that point and was hugely over in the New York territory 2. the crowd was awfully quiet after Koloff took the belt from Bruno which as I said back in those days it wasn't uncommon for fans to try and attack the heels, one of the reasons why heel managers always carried some item with them like a cane or in Cornett's case a tennis racket to help smack rowdy fans, so when the fans got quiet they thought a riot might happen.
I just met 'The Russian Bear' at a Walmart in Kitty Hawk N.C. He was doing a charity thing. Real nice guy. I got to wear the championship strap and pose with him for a few picks.
This is incredibly historic. I was under the impression that no footgae of this match existed. It is not on any WWE releases of the history of the Championship. In fact, I think on the old Coliseum Video they specifically say it does not exist. I never thought I would see this. Thank you for posting it!!
@@nohbuddy1 No, the commentary was added some years later by Rocky Raymond. But the footage he's commenting over was indeed just a fan's 8mm home movie of the match.
Pretty good match. It was the early 70s so I'm not sure why everyone expected this to be the same caliber as a modern day, 2014-style technical masterpiece. Yeah, let's go compare a PS4 to a Magnavox and expect the same graphics, music, audio, and overall gaming experience. Okay, yeah, that's real smart there....smh.
I read about this match back in the day in one of the popular wrestling magazines of the time. Never thought I would actually see it. One of the best matches ever! Thanks for posting!
wcw was doing these type matches till eric bischoff got involved.. I miss when they used to make it look so real. a guy jumps off the top rope and drives his knee into your head an you get pinned. now guys take sledge hammer shots and kick out with no blood
Sammartino _ Ivan - straight finish to get his opponent over- no run ins- no mgr interference - no cheap gimmick finish - a decisive winner with no controversy - that's the way to do it Bruno!' Good job !!
Let's say you saw Bruno Sammartino win his championship on your fourteenth birthday, in that time, you went through puberty, learned to drive, moved out of your parent's house, got a job, maybe got married, possibly had children, and became old enough to drink. To celebrate your twenty first birthday, you went to a wrestling show with your small child, the main event a title match with your favorite wrestler, Bruno Sammartino, defending his title. This man, who held the championship for a third of your life, loses it clean to a Russian, your sworn American enemy. Heartbreaking.
My dad was 9 years old when the Boston Celtics won the world championship in 1959. He was 17 years old when they finally lost in 67. Streaks like that are unreal
Ivan Koloff was a monster back then...Bruno was almost invincible, having held the title since 1963...people were stunned when this happened (so i've heard--i wasn't born till '81)
This match was in 1971. Wrestlemania 1 was in 1985. How is it that the commentator is saying "wrestlemania" during a match that took place over a decade before it existed?
Bruno and Koloff were thick! Pushing 300lbs each. This was pre 250lb Bruno. One of Brunos faster paced matches with much more variety and moves. Reminds me of Macho Steamboat in the first minute. I do not think this is the entire match though. I wish more of Brunos matches were like this NWA style match. They did a great job putting this together.
In 1971 I was a huge fan of WWF wrestling. I distinctly remember being in bed on that cold winter day iand having just woken up when my father (as I had asked him to do the previous evening) brought me a copy of that day's New York Daily News. At mach speed I turned to the back pages, searching for the short (usually only a few inches of text) article about the prior night's championship fight between Bruno Sammartino and Ivan Koloff. I was absolutely heartbroken when I found the (continued)
I was under the impression that the title change was a screw job, like when Superstar Graham beat Bruno in 1977. No, it was a clean, in the middle of the ring pin fall. Five stars to whomever uploaded this match!!!!!!
@TonySpargo What you said was true, except the part about them wanting to replace Pedro quickly as champ. He continued the wrestling sell-out streak at MSG for almost three years, then Bruno came back and sold it out for another 3 years. The only time in the last 40 years that wrestling lost interest at MSG was during the early '90s, when fans stopped caring about the "cartoon characters" like Hogan and Ultimate Warrior that Vince was ramming down their throats.
@3ringsAIKMAN Koloff held the belt for 4 weeks to the day. He won it at one MSG show and lost it at the very next one. In between he defended the belt only a couple of times (one was against Chief Jay Strongbow in Philadelphia - Koloff won by countout). The reason the two matches were 4 weeks apart was that MSG shows back then were 4 weeks apart, and always on Monday nights.
I was at that match in Shea It was a brusing 90 min fight to a draw. Bruno had Pedro in his "bearhug" hold but Pedro would escape & then Pedro would put Bruno in the Abdominal Strech. each would escape the others hold and pins. BUT the fights in the stands! The Italians & the Puerto Ricans!! It was on! Me being Puerto Rican i couldn't root for Bruno but Bruno was The Man! A draw was the only way this could end. yes wrestling was better then!
The Northeast (WWWF) was based on having a strong babyface champion. Ivan Koloff and Stan Stasiak were pure transitional champs. "Superstar" Billy Graham was a slight departure since he held the title for a year as a heel. Even when the modern era kicked in with Hogan, heels held the belt for at most a few months.
Krazy Hatter SAME THING? ARE YOU MENTALLY CHALLENGED OR SOMETHING??!! Because last time I checked, 8 years and 7 years were two very different amount of times!
In all seriousness though this was amazing. I was born in Brooklyn, 100% Italian, in 1978. My real first memories as a human being revolve around watching wrestling upstairs in my grandma's apartment,and catching a very VERY few of Bruno's matches (or at least replays) in 1981 before he left for Japan (October 4th, 1981, Meadowlands, his last US match at the time vs George Steele! I only remember that date reading about it years later cuz I was exactly 3 years, 5 months old lol...) And wrestling has been in my life, my entire life, since then... my Grandmother LOVED the Italian Living Legend, and my Dad would tell us about Bruno as we got older, on our way to the Ridgewood Grove Arena for local shows hahaha... I wish I was older to have seen this, or to understand its importance, and not just thru my Grandma like havin a stroke cuz the " 'Talian " guy lost lol ...all I know is hearing about this was when my damn near STRICT heel fandom kick started!
Well, actually Pedro held the belt for a year or two and couldn't draw the crowds. He was certainly young enough to have continued as champ. But due to his not being able to fill the arenas Vince SR brought Bruno back due to Bruno's continued drawing power... and kept Bruno for another 4 years and Bruno once again had to say, enough is enough and told McMahon that if he'd retire with the title unless he let him go, so Mc Mahon let him go.
A moment that will be talked about till the last humans last breath no one thought Bruno would lose he was Superman he couldn’t lose he’d be the campion for 8 years it was almost impossible but when Ivan won no one knew what to do the arena fell silent Bruno thought his eardrums burst from how quite it was what a moment
For the people who asked, the commentator on this video is Stan "Rocky" Raymond. My understanding is that he filmed mostly matches from the Boston Garden.
Not only did they not announce that Koloff won nor did they present him with the belt, he just left after the bell rang because back in the territory days, if fans threatened to riot then they made good on that promise. The closest comparison in modern times to Bruno losing the belt after 7 years was the streak ending at WMXXX.
Leonardo Anedda Samartino probably ate too much spaghetti and meatballs prior to the match, I mean you could literally see spaghetti sauce running out of his ears, nose, mouth and out his ass. Noway could it be mistaken for blood, although koloff beat him to a bloody pulp that night...lol ha ha ha ha! Ciao Bella paisan.
@SnoojaDogg It got lots of attention at the time, even in other promotions. Over the years, people have tended to forget his accomplishments. Not to disregard them, but we've become so infatuated with Flair, Rhodes, Hogan, Austin, The Rock, HHH, Cena and the rest that we've forgotten that it was guys like Bruno who made all that possible.
+Agustin Garcia Reason is the WWWF doesn't own this footage. This belongs to a fan who bfought a 8 mm camera not knowing that he was recording one of the most important moments in wrestling history
+Spellcaster86 He didn't, this is a silent 8 mm film, somebody added crowd noises and commentary many years later. He even mentions Wrestlemania at around the 1 minute mark.
It's generic crowd noise that you can add to any video. For instance, when you watch a tv show or movie that takes place in a crowd, most of the time the crowd is silent and only the actors are heard. They later add the crowd noise and in some cases music (like when it's in a bar).
For a few moments I was trying to figure out if that was Capt. Lou Albano commentating. Sounded like him during the end which is where I started watching it from, but then after watching the beginning it doesn't sound like him at all. Only when he gets worked up near the end of the match. LOL
@piyasdv Huh? The last I knew, Koloff was alive and well and living in North Carolina. He became a born-again Christian a number of years ago. He's a lay-minister at a church down there, and makes occasional speaking engagements at churches and does appearances at wrestling fan conventions around the country.
Thats an interesting point and a valid reason for the end of Bruno's reign....However, I had heard that Vince McMahon Sr wanted to draw an hispanic following to the WWF.... If I'm not mistaken, Koloff held the title for a very short time, (not even a month) and he was defeated by Pedro Morales......Morales held the title for a few years, with a growing hispanic following.
Haha this was best match Here is where the ryback won his first wwe championship Bruno must be proud he losed to a legend rybackk He'll win his 5th championship soon Cm punk sucks Ryback is a legend
Danny Martin you guys should understand Bruno lost the tile after 8 years the crowd went silent just like takers night they were crying just like ppl cried when taker lost they were furious just like after wm 30 and they threw chairs in the ring after Bruno lost ppl did the same for taker on social media I honestly believe takers legacy is nothing short or inferior to the legacy of Bruno sammartino
Koloff was actually from Canada. But just like with Slaughter in the 90's beating The Warrior and the Iron Shiek beating Backlund back in late 83 they were just transitional champs.
