The following match is scheduled for one fall. The match is held in Los Angeles, California and is a Sweet 16 matchup. All seeds represent overall tournament seeding.
#4 Hulk Hogan vs. #20 Bruno Sammartino
The discussion period will last for two days, followed by two days for voting. You may vote for whomever you feel deserves to win this match. Please post your reasons below if you wish.
Man; wouldn't this be a site to behold? Bruno Sammartino was the WWWF at one point in time. The longest reigning champion in the company's history. The man just didn't lose. Furthermore, he was one hell of a hand in the ring as well. Excellent stamina and an excellent body of work. He was absolutely the biggest name in wrestling before the likes of Hogan and Flair came along.
Hogan took what people like Sammartino, Backlund, and etc built and took it to a whole new level. Which was world wide and to PPV. From the mid 80s to early 90s Hulkamania was the strongest force in Professional Wrestling and then in the mid to late 90s he reinvented himself and became the biggest heel in the business. Whether you like Hogan or not, nobody can deny his impact on the BUSINESS of Professional Wrestling.
This would be one hell of a match and I believe kayfabe wise, Sammartino would take it, however, Hogan's legacy is a little more well known and revered and for damn good reason. This is a tough one. I'll wait to read other opinions before I cast my vote.
A LITTLE more well known?Originally Posted by SSJPhenom
Ask 20 random strangers if they know who Hulk Hogan is, then ask them if they know who Bruno Sammartino is. I'm guessing 20 people will say they know Hulk Hogan, maybe 4 or 5 will know who Sammartino is.
Maybe Hulk Hogan benefits from being the more chronologically recent mega star in professional wresting. Maybe professional wrestling wasn't worth knowing much about until Hulk Hogan came along. Either way, let's not undersell Hulk's/oversell Sammartino's notoriety.
In my defense I was going for sarcasm with that comment. I can see how it wouldn't translate though.
Yeah, Bruno Sammartino is Hulk Hogan on a significantly smaller scale. He's a very popular champion for his time, but he's a regional king. Hulk Hogan is probably the most internationally recognisable face in professional wrestling history, second only to the Rock at this point. He won more, stayed at the top for longer, had wider exposure and did it on a significantly more difficult scale (regional and international competition, more rigorous schedule etc...). Not to mention his being the #1 villain in a company that overtook the WWF as the #1 promotion in the country...until it died a death by a thousand cuts naturally. You don't have to like Hogan on a personal or professional level for whatever reason, but there's a reason he's always amongst the top seeds and Sammartino scrapes into contention.
Lots of misinformation being thrown around about Bruno here. During Bruno's first title run then WWWF was not considered a territory. It was an autonomous league just like the NWA and AWA. The WWWF title was being billed as a legitimate world title. And Bruno didn't just defend his title in the Northeast. He defended it in Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Europe, and Australia. Vince Sr. had rejoined the NWA by Bruno's second title reign, but by that point the WWWF was the largest and most profitable territory in the world. Bruno spent 8 years headlining the most profitable league in the industry, and then another 4 headlining the most profitable territory in the industry. And in the 2 years between his world title reigns he wrestled all over the US and Canada. Bruno was known internationally just as well as any other name from that time period, aside from maybe Lou Thesz. Brisco, Rhodes, the Funks, Race, Bockwinkel, Flair. Bruno was there. As for his wrestling schedule, Bruno wrestled 6 matches a week. Sometimes more. The only person on the planet that would have wrestled more often than him was the NWA champion.
I get the arguments for Hogan, but lets be real here. The marketing strategies that Hogan benefited from in the 80's and 90's didn't exist in the 60's and 70's. And WWWF wasn't the mass marketing machine that it became in Hogan's day either. Hogan took the WWE brand name and helped elevate it to the point where the name "WWF" drew money on its own. But the platform that eventually become the WWF; Bruno built that. Bruno and Hogan were both equally as important to the growth and development of the WWE at different points time.
As far as local box appeal goes, Bruno was the bigger draw. Sure, you could bring up Wrestlemania, but super shows like that one only happened once a year, and Hogan had full cards behind him that were filled with other big industry stars and must see matches. Not just his. A once a year super card held in the 60's and 70's made up of the industry's top names at the time probably would have drawn a ton of money too. And if giant stadiums capable of holding 70,000 people had been around at the time, territorial wrestlers, especially popular ones like Bruno, would have filled them. Constantly. Look at all the continuous sellouts that Bruno had in large arenas like Madison Square Garden, the Boston Gardens, the Spectrum, and the Civic Center. Places that he worked once a month. Hogan didn't have that kind of schedule. When people paid money to see a card with Bruno, they went to see Bruno. Even if you weren't a fan of the Hulkster in the 80's, there was Piper, Savage, Slaughter, Steamboat, Orndorff, Andre, Race, and Warrior to help fill the gaps and draw people in. Hogan was the most popular performer of that bunch, but the WWWF didn't have anyone close to Bruno's level of popularity working the same schedule that he kept in the Northeast at the time.
I'm not going to fault anyone that wants to vote for Hogan. I'd personally place both in my all time top 5. But don't dismiss Bruno as being some "some territorial star that barely wrestled." That's a disingenuous and silly argument.
Sammartino was a king, but Hogan was an emperor. Sammartino was big in the states, but was he #1 in the States? I don't really know about that. Let's say he was. Still, Hogan was and is a global phenomemon. You could argue that they were part of different eras. Would Sammartino be successful in Hogan's platform? Would he be as successful as Hogan was in Hogan's platform? Who knows.
However, the reason we are here today and discuss wrestling on this site and we have the ability to have this tournament, is because of Hulk Hogan. If I were to make a comparison, I'd say that Ric Flair was the Sammartino of the 80s. At least as far as drawing goes. That's how far I think Sammartino would go in the 80s. He's no Hogan.
The WWWF may have been autonomous, but it wasn't on fucking television in 200 countries or whatever WWF was in Hogan's day. What made Hogan a star was Hogan. You can't pin it on marketing because otherwise NWA would have made their own stars, but they didn't. Sammartino was a top regional talent who I have no doubt wrestled in lots of places but he did not make wrestling as an entire entity more popular. Without Hogan, wrestling would have struggled to survive into the 90s, as evidenced by the fact that literally every single promotion that isn't the one Hogan took to the big leagues has either folded or utterly insignificant. I'm glad Bruno has had more recognition, but it is absolutely laughable to suggest he is in anyway a bigger deal than Hogan.
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