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In May 1963, the WWE Championship changed hands for the very first time. Bruno Sammartino pinned Buddy Rogers to start the first of two historic title reigns. Sammartino’s first run as WWE Champion would last 2,803 days (over 7 years). However, the title run began in controversy.
Just weeks before the title change, Rogers suffered a career threatening heart attack. Rogers insists that he was not medically cleared to go ahead with the match, and promoters forced him to go through with it. Sammartino thought that Rogers was using his condition to call off the match, as Rogers did not want to lose the championship.
Whatever the truth is, Sammartino squashed Rogers within 48 seconds to get the win and begin his own legacy.
(Note: Rogers would continue to wrestle after this match, but mainly in tag team matches. He kept his retirement from matches quiet by becoming a manager. He later died in 1992).
<div class='spoiler_toggle'>Buddy Rogers’ take on the original screw-job</div><div class="spoiler" style="display:none;">
I had already signed for my match with Sammartino... then six weeks before, I went into Georgetown University hospital with a heart attack. I was in that hospital up to 5 days before I wrestled. But I made sure I kept my word and I went through with the match. Any fifteen year old kid coulda beat me that night... believe me, I had pains in my chest just walking to the ring...
…
…Prior to that, over a period of two years, I defeated Sammartino eleven straight times. So, as far as I was concerned, Bruno never stood a chance with me.
After my heart attack, I told myself to forget [wrestling]. I knew it was all done, I just knew I couldn't produce like I once did.
The toughest job in my life was climbing in that ring [after] coming out of intensive care, and knowing that I could never wrestle again after that.
But I kept my word...I went in that ring...
…
Retiring... you can’t explain it, it really takes you down. You spend your whole life in this particular field, then all of a sudden it’s no more. You don't get another penny out of that field, you don't have anything to do with that field. Imagine doing something all those years and loving it - all of a sudden, you never do it again.
It was the hardest thing in my life to go out of wrestling. I didn't get as great as I did in wrestling by not loving it...it was my whole life. I can't explain it...
</div>
<div class='spoiler_toggle'>Bruno Sammartino’s take on the first screw-job</div><div class="spoiler" style="display:none;">
Buddy Rogers and I never liked each other. But I respected him...
…
[It’s been] said that when I wrestled Rogers for the title, the reason was Rogers had had a heart attack and had to be helped to the ring and that's how he lost the belt.
There is not one ounce of truth in that.
Buddy Rogers made these claims in a couple appearances that he made after losing the belt.
Let me tell you a little story that happened here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I used to come home from Toronto, Canada twice a month every Sunday because we would be at the Maple Leaf Garden shows every other Sunday. They had a show at the Civic Arena, but those were the days of the Buddy Rogers era, and Vince McMahon Sr. was trying to get me to come back because he saw my success in Canada.
I told him that the only way I would come back is if he put me in the ring with Buddy Rogers for the title.
I was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in that territory, and Vince McMahon, Sr. was near bankruptcy because that was how poorly this place was doing. Pittsburgh has a new arena, which was the Civic Arena that held 19,000 people, and Buddy Rogers came in with a big cigar strutting around, and by the time it was 8:00pm he went to look at the audience, and the place was empty...
Buddy Rogers was a funny guy, and he thought he wasn't going to wrestle under these conditions, and back then we didn't have contracts like today, but more or less we strictly got paid on the gate.
When Buddy Rogers saw the attendance he wanted to get out of there, and he told the doctor he felt a funny pain on his chest, and then when the doctor heard that he called Paul Sullivan who was the head of the state athletic commission, and the doctor who was at every show said to Paul Sullivan, 'I am checking Buddy Rogers blood pressure and I am listening to his chest and everything sounds ok, but he claims that he has a pain in his chest. I don't know if I should allow him to go in the ring...'
When Pat Sullivan heard that he immediately stopped Buddy Rogers from going to the ring, but he also informed all the state athletic commissions that he was revoking his license until they found out if in fact there was a problem. When Vince McMahon, Sr. and Totts Mondt heard about this of course they got him to come to Washington, DC, and they put him in a famous hospital over there.
Buddy Rogers was examined and re-examined, and they couldn't find a thing wrong with him, and then after that his license was reinstated. Two weeks before the Madison Square Garden show I wrestled him on TV in Washington, DC that was live TV that went to New York.
Buddy Rogers was wrestling every day - and he was NOT in a hospital.
In New York, you go through an extensive physical to get your license and every night before you wrestled you had a physical in the dressing room. I had seen wrestlers stopped from going to the ring because something wasn't right...
…
Did I really say to him, 'We can do this the easy way or the hard way'? Just about. (Laughs) Yeah, that's how it happened...
Afterwards, there were obviously bad feelings. Very bad feelings. We never spoke again.
Rogers was one of the great wrestlers of his era. That match meant so much to me because that put me at the top. You couldn’t achieve a higher goal than winning the title. That made me the number one guy - I was going to be the headliner after that, you know? So, that was the big break, if you will.
Many, many years later, there was a convention one time in New York where they invited some wrestlers from yesteryear where we signed autographs and so forth.
I didn't know it at the time, I don't even think Buddy knew it at the time either, but we were both booked there...
Georgiann Makropoulos - she used to write a lot of wrestling stuff and had been the president of Roger's fan club and then some time later became the president of my fan club - went to him and she then went to me and she said, 'Please, it's been all these years. Can we bury the hatchet more or less and we'll take a picture and I'll stand between the two of you...'
So, I told her, 'Well, I don't want to keep holding grudges. If he's willing, then fine.'
It was funny, because Georgiann went and got him, got me and she stood in the middle. We took a picture, but we never spoke a word to each other..." (Laughs)
</div>
(Sources: solie.org, mikemooneyham.com, blindfilmmaker.com, wrestlinginc.com, wikipedia, Wrestling's Glory Days)
Just weeks before the title change, Rogers suffered a career threatening heart attack. Rogers insists that he was not medically cleared to go ahead with the match, and promoters forced him to go through with it. Sammartino thought that Rogers was using his condition to call off the match, as Rogers did not want to lose the championship.
Whatever the truth is, Sammartino squashed Rogers within 48 seconds to get the win and begin his own legacy.
(Note: Rogers would continue to wrestle after this match, but mainly in tag team matches. He kept his retirement from matches quiet by becoming a manager. He later died in 1992).
<div class='spoiler_toggle'>Buddy Rogers’ take on the original screw-job</div><div class="spoiler" style="display:none;">
I had already signed for my match with Sammartino... then six weeks before, I went into Georgetown University hospital with a heart attack. I was in that hospital up to 5 days before I wrestled. But I made sure I kept my word and I went through with the match. Any fifteen year old kid coulda beat me that night... believe me, I had pains in my chest just walking to the ring...
…
…Prior to that, over a period of two years, I defeated Sammartino eleven straight times. So, as far as I was concerned, Bruno never stood a chance with me.
After my heart attack, I told myself to forget [wrestling]. I knew it was all done, I just knew I couldn't produce like I once did.
The toughest job in my life was climbing in that ring [after] coming out of intensive care, and knowing that I could never wrestle again after that.
But I kept my word...I went in that ring...
…
Retiring... you can’t explain it, it really takes you down. You spend your whole life in this particular field, then all of a sudden it’s no more. You don't get another penny out of that field, you don't have anything to do with that field. Imagine doing something all those years and loving it - all of a sudden, you never do it again.
It was the hardest thing in my life to go out of wrestling. I didn't get as great as I did in wrestling by not loving it...it was my whole life. I can't explain it...
</div>
<div class='spoiler_toggle'>Bruno Sammartino’s take on the first screw-job</div><div class="spoiler" style="display:none;">
Buddy Rogers and I never liked each other. But I respected him...
…
[It’s been] said that when I wrestled Rogers for the title, the reason was Rogers had had a heart attack and had to be helped to the ring and that's how he lost the belt.
There is not one ounce of truth in that.
Buddy Rogers made these claims in a couple appearances that he made after losing the belt.
Let me tell you a little story that happened here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I used to come home from Toronto, Canada twice a month every Sunday because we would be at the Maple Leaf Garden shows every other Sunday. They had a show at the Civic Arena, but those were the days of the Buddy Rogers era, and Vince McMahon Sr. was trying to get me to come back because he saw my success in Canada.
I told him that the only way I would come back is if he put me in the ring with Buddy Rogers for the title.
I was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in that territory, and Vince McMahon, Sr. was near bankruptcy because that was how poorly this place was doing. Pittsburgh has a new arena, which was the Civic Arena that held 19,000 people, and Buddy Rogers came in with a big cigar strutting around, and by the time it was 8:00pm he went to look at the audience, and the place was empty...
Buddy Rogers was a funny guy, and he thought he wasn't going to wrestle under these conditions, and back then we didn't have contracts like today, but more or less we strictly got paid on the gate.
When Buddy Rogers saw the attendance he wanted to get out of there, and he told the doctor he felt a funny pain on his chest, and then when the doctor heard that he called Paul Sullivan who was the head of the state athletic commission, and the doctor who was at every show said to Paul Sullivan, 'I am checking Buddy Rogers blood pressure and I am listening to his chest and everything sounds ok, but he claims that he has a pain in his chest. I don't know if I should allow him to go in the ring...'
When Pat Sullivan heard that he immediately stopped Buddy Rogers from going to the ring, but he also informed all the state athletic commissions that he was revoking his license until they found out if in fact there was a problem. When Vince McMahon, Sr. and Totts Mondt heard about this of course they got him to come to Washington, DC, and they put him in a famous hospital over there.
Buddy Rogers was examined and re-examined, and they couldn't find a thing wrong with him, and then after that his license was reinstated. Two weeks before the Madison Square Garden show I wrestled him on TV in Washington, DC that was live TV that went to New York.
Buddy Rogers was wrestling every day - and he was NOT in a hospital.
In New York, you go through an extensive physical to get your license and every night before you wrestled you had a physical in the dressing room. I had seen wrestlers stopped from going to the ring because something wasn't right...
…
Did I really say to him, 'We can do this the easy way or the hard way'? Just about. (Laughs) Yeah, that's how it happened...
Afterwards, there were obviously bad feelings. Very bad feelings. We never spoke again.
Rogers was one of the great wrestlers of his era. That match meant so much to me because that put me at the top. You couldn’t achieve a higher goal than winning the title. That made me the number one guy - I was going to be the headliner after that, you know? So, that was the big break, if you will.
Many, many years later, there was a convention one time in New York where they invited some wrestlers from yesteryear where we signed autographs and so forth.
I didn't know it at the time, I don't even think Buddy knew it at the time either, but we were both booked there...
Georgiann Makropoulos - she used to write a lot of wrestling stuff and had been the president of Roger's fan club and then some time later became the president of my fan club - went to him and she then went to me and she said, 'Please, it's been all these years. Can we bury the hatchet more or less and we'll take a picture and I'll stand between the two of you...'
So, I told her, 'Well, I don't want to keep holding grudges. If he's willing, then fine.'
It was funny, because Georgiann went and got him, got me and she stood in the middle. We took a picture, but we never spoke a word to each other..." (Laughs)
</div>
(Sources: solie.org, mikemooneyham.com, blindfilmmaker.com, wrestlinginc.com, wikipedia, Wrestling's Glory Days)