Quotes from Bruno Sammartino

I was never a fan of Hogan because I was never impressed with his quality of performance in the ring.

If I had only Inoki to meet, I could wrestle until I was 60 years old.

I complained about the gimmicks. All the nonsense and garbage. After a while I just said I would not wrestle with the guys wearing masks, or guys that had some get-up on. It was demeaning. I refuse to go onto the mat against a Christmas tree.

In the old days wrestling had a certain showmanship. All those people paid their dues. They knew how to wrestle.

Throughout the '60s and '70s, I saw many operas in New York and Philadelphia. When people found out about that, they were always shocked, because I was a professional wrestler. Why are athletes any different than any other profession? People have many other interests.

I really don't understand because I love opera, because I respect the Michelangelos and da Vincis, that it should be shocking because I am a wrestler. Because I am a wrestler does it mean that I am some kind of a robot who only knows to go into the squared circle and pound on somebody?

There were promises made to me as far as if I became a professional wrestler, that I was going to be given every opportunity to be a headliner... and that's the only reason why I accepted.

Professional wrestlers are human beings like anybody else.

There were a lot of tough guys who were tremendous wrestlers.

I'm not bragging, but my reputation among my peers was Bruno was a horse I never got tired.

I don't want this to come out the wrong way, but in the '60s and '70s, I don't know anybody who was known around the world like I was.

They said Babe Ruth built Yankee Stadium and Bruno Sammartino built the Garden. It always was my favorite place.

They call me 'The Maniac' as far as training goes. I'm a fanatic. I run 10 miles every day and I train three hours every other day with barbells. Nobody trains that hard. And that's not bragging.

I'm totally dedicated to training no one trains harder than I do.

I knew a little bit about training and what it took to transform your body into something impressive looking.

We lived off the land in Italy.

Anytime that people feel that you accomplished enough to enter into a Hall of Fame, of course this is a tremendous, tremendous thrill for me.

We hid from the Nazis in the mountains. Sometimes there was nothing to eat but snow.

Besides wrestling, in my younger years, I also competed in Olympic lifting and power lifting.

People are always asking me where they can get some of my matches on tapes and DVDs. The people always tell me they see me on Youtube or whatever.

In Argentina, in Brazil, I remember going to Australia, all the trips I did in Japan, you know how they'd advertise me? 'From Madison Square Garden, Bruno Sammartino.'

I am not a guy who can write speeches and when I speak I speak from the heart, I just say what I feel and what I believe in.

When I broke my neck, I was told that I came within a millimeter of dying or being paralyzed from the neck down. When it happened, I was numb on one side. In spite of how serious they were telling me it was, I never took it seriously. I kept saying it's going to be OK, I trained too hard to get hurt. Which is silly.

Honestly, when I left the business, in time, some people might remember you and some might say they knew the name. But, people move on and there are new interests and all kinds of different things go on all the time. So, it surprised me how people have not forgotten.