[1980-04-12-WWF-Philadelphia, PA] Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[El McKell]

I got more entertainment from one of the commentators telling us that 'all holds are barred' than the actual match.

After watching this i was shocked to realise it was only 10 minutes long, felt like much more.

[SAMS]

1980-04-12
WWF
Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko
Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Card
★★★★

This is more like it. We resume the best feud of the year and I’d say this was easily the best of their series since the inaugural TV match between these two.
Any chance we were going to get an exchange of wrestling holds to start this one off was blown out the water right away as Larry jumped Bruno as he was entering the ring. Larry had the ascendancy, laying in the boot until Bruno caught him downstairs with a stray leg and Larry was down. Now that Bruno was able to gather himself it was on and he went after Larry with a vengeance. This was all kicks and punches but it was all extremely visceral. To even call them kicks would actually be doing a disservice. With Larry prone on the ground Bruno was lining up some serious punts to his head.
They went back and forth a bit but all the while it was Bruno steaming forwards, the force of nature that Larry was attempting to fend off. At one point Bruno tumbled to the floor and I loved how after that, the entire time he was beating on Larry, he would pause to sell the lower back, constantly holding up, visibly favouring it, which allowed Larry the time to sell each punch individually and allowed the match that time to breathe.
We had some sick turnbuckle bumps from both guys, Larry got wrecked into the railing and then he had had enough and he grabbed a chair. I wondered whether we would see it, and yes we did, lunging to take Bruno’s head off he whiffed with the swing, got the ricochet off the ropes and it came flying back into his face. Bruno grabbed the chair and just launched it at Larry’s head and he was out. The referee completely disregarded the flagrant use of the chair by Bruno and seeing Larry is out for the count declares Bruno the winner.
This was heated from the off, had lots of action, never had a dull moment, and even the quirky ending I liked, because Larry got obliterated with a chair, twice! I liked their previous Spectrum match and the one at MSG, but I was fearing that this feud was stalling somewhat if they had continued further in the same vein. However both previous matches clearly had escalation towards Bruno losing his gasket at the end, leading to this kind of match, so in context they made perfect sense. I’m just glad they were able to execute something like this so well.