[1980-03-01-WWF-Philadelphia, PA] Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Zero]

"Sammartino has lost his mind!" The crowd at the Spectrum was red hot from the start. Roof came off anytime Bruno was on offense. Ends with Bruno snapping and trying to cripple Larry. 

[SAMS]

1980-03-01
WWF
Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko
Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Card
★★★

Despite the raucous atmosphere and the nature of the feud, I would have assumed that this would be brawl city, but at least early on both men tried to work this as a straight up wrestling match, especially Sammartino. Zbyszko was overcome with his frustration as he was being outmanoeuvred and began veering more towards using punches and other strikes, but Sammartino stuck with the wrestling for the most part. I’m assuming the idea was Bruno not stooping to Larry’s level and trying to win the “right” way. 
Either way, in the earlier portions we got abdominal stretches and hammerlocks, which sapped some of the heat from the crowd (or at least from me anyway). When the transition came for Larry’s heat sequence it was a lot more punch/kick action, real meat and potatoes stuff, but the extended comeback from Bruno was what this match was all about. The build was slow but you could feel the tension rising and eventually Bruno just snapped and began unloading on Larry. The referee tried intervening, got clobbered by a wild Sammartino and there’s your match, disqualification.
It took the referee and a number of other wrestlers to come from the back to subdue Bruno who was apoplectic as Larry made his exit.
The finish here was great and Bruno’s selling and timing of his comeback was amazing but the first half where both men were trying to administer your standard wrestling holds felt at odds with the setup of the match. You could make rationalisations for it but I just felt that it was a bit odd.