[1980-08-09-WWF-Showdown at Shea] Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko (Cage)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[paul sosnowski]

Thirty Seven Years Ago Today------

 

Commentary is provided by Michael Cole and Mick Foley from WWE 24/7. I'm going to focus on the match and try to ignore them. They mention that the only way to escape is through the door, not over the top. There is a banner hanging over the rafters at Shea Stadium that says "WE WANT BLOOD, BRUNO". Bruno is accompanied by Arnold Skaaland.

 

Larry charges at Bruno as he enters the cage, but Bruno meets him with a kick. He stomps on Larry and throws him into the cage, picks him up and throws him into the opposite side. Bruno is on fire, stomping Larry in the corner and stepping on his throat, before throwing him into the cage again. He kicks him, hits a big knee, and throws him into the cage a fourth time. Zbyszko gets near the door and asks for it to be opened, but Bruno grabs him and starts choking him on the ropes. He rakes Larry's face across the cage, but no blood yet. He runs at Larry and stomps him again, Zbyszko finally gets the advantage with a low blow. Bruno is down against the ropes, Larry kicks at him and drops a knee. Larry goes for the door, Bruno jumps at him and grabs his tights to keep him in the cage. Larry gets up first and throws Bruno into the cage, kicking and stomping at him now. He throws Bruno into the cage again and starts climbing the ropes to escape, but they said it was escape thru the door only... Bruno grabs the tights and pulls him down again.

 

Zbyszko knocks Bruno down with three punches to the head, he challenges his mentor to get up, Zbyszko punches him again. Bruno spins Larry around and kicks him in the butt. Bruno starts choking Larry and picks him up by the throat. He throws Larry into the cage, (still no blood) and starts choking him in the corner, Zbyszko rakes the eyes and starts climbing the cage again, Bruno grabs him off the top rope and slams him down to the mat. Twice more he throws him into the cage, Bruno throws some knees at Zbyszko, trapping him in the corner. Bruno whips Larry across the ring into the turnbuckle, Zbyszko follows up with a kick to the midsection and sledgehammers some blows into Bruno's back. He stomps Bruno's head and kicks him in the gut some more. He pounds on Bruno's back and rams him hard into the turnbuckle. He rams Bruno's shoulder three more times into the corner, and there is blood trickling down his right arm. Zbyszko keeps punching the arm and you can see bruises forming. Larry stomps Bruno's chest and goes for the door, Bruno grabs the tights and pulls him in again. He stomps Bruno and punches the arm, goes for the door again, Bruno comes after him and runs him along the apron into the turnbuckle. Bruno rams Zbyszko's head again and throws him into the ringpost. ZBYSZKO IS BLEEDING!!! Bruno pummels Zbyszko and rams his head into the post again. Zbyszko is like a ragdoll now as Bruno throws him into the cage four times. Bruno's arm is bleeding heavily as he calls for the door and exits the cage at 14:10.

 

But wait....Zbyszko makes his way out of the cage and goes face-to-face with Bruno, Bruno punches him twice in the head opening up the cut. Zbyszko grabs his mentor's arm and raises it in a show of sportsmanship, before skulking away. It was a decent spectacle, lots of punching and kicking..... Three Stars ***

[xlynwoodx]

This was all about Bruno getting revenge, I never got the sense he was going to lose.  Bruno beats Zbyszko up for a while, then gets hit down low.  He comes back pretty quickly and beats on Zbyszko some more.  Zbyszko gets the upper hand again, and manages to injure and bloody Bruno's arm.  Zbyszko tries to walk out of the cage twice but Bruno just grabs him with his good arm and flings him back in.  Bruno beats him up a little more, then just walks out.  Zbyszko chases Bruno out and Bruno wallops him twice more on the forehead.  Zbyszko raises Bruno's arm and walks off.  The crowd is loving it.  It was fine.  I was displeased to hear Michael Cole on commentary but...I didn't hate him.

[SAMS]

1980-08-09
WWF - Showdown at Shea
Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko
Steel Cage Match
Shea Stadium, Flushing, New York, USA
Card
★★★

Finally we reach the blowoff. The climax to a feud that has been ongoing since January. The moment Bruno steps into the cage, kicks Larry through the ropes and then sends him head first into the steel truly is a cathartic moment. The problem is, where do you go from there? There was a chance that this could have just been a Larry beatdown for the entirety, which would have gotten old fast. Luckily, after Bruno kicks Larry’s ass for several minutes a low blow turns the tide.
Bruno eats some cage as well and there’s a little more back and forth while a turnbuckle covering inadvertently comes loose. Zbyszko saw his moment and Bruno went arm first into the exposed buckle and Larry had his path to victory. Bruno was down for a looong time while Larry stomped on him intermittently before going back to the well and drilling him into the buckle a few more times. At this point Bruno’s arm looked a mess and he was cradling it intently, however he was able to turn things around and then Larry went face first into the buckle. A few more postings and Larry was busted open. Bruno rubbed salt in the wound with a few more kicks and Larry was a beaten man. Bruno called for the cage door to be opened and he had time to turn around, look Larry in the eye, give him some choice words before veering round to victory.
I’ll start with the finish, which I thought was fantastic. It’s hard to fashion a satisfactory ending to a feud, especially one as heated and personal as this one, but the look on Larry’s face as Bruno steps through the door was sumptuous. Just a perfect facial expression to get across his patheticness in that moment, defeated but still retaining the bitterness that started this whole thing. Bruno, to his credit, played his role well also. The consistent selling of the arm, even as Arnold Skalaand tried to raise it in victory, put over the savagery of the match.
My problems stem from how the action could feel very static at points. The big spots - Larry flying into the cage, Bruno going into the buckle, Bruno pulling Larry off the top and sending him crashing to the mat - played off very well. It was the intermediate moments that were lacking. After Bruno went into the buckle the first time, he was selling the arm, but he was lying face down on the mat for an age without moving. Perhaps he was trying to blade the arm and was trying to be subtle about it, but it wasn’t compelling. Larry was roaming around the ring and laying in some stomps and there was no movement from Bruno until he was ready to continue the match. The same could be said for most of Larry’s offense actually. I thought how he was delivering it was very good, but other than clasping that injured arm, Bruno wasn’t budging. I wouldn’t say he was no-selling, but rather he wasn’t reacting to them at all, which I felt took the sting out of Larry’s attacks and blunted the match in that facet.

[tcg91]

I had to watch this twice, because the only available version had Michael Cole & Mick Foley on commentary and it was so bad that I decided to revisit this without sound on. It was a good blowoff after all, but definitely not the best match of the series. The blood increased the drama, the crowd was into it (but their support was disturbed by Cole's idiotic comments) and the finish was simple, yet very effective. However, it all looked too simplistic and the match lacked a more suitable structure: after months of really nice storytelling, all they did was simply brawling in the cage for 12/13 minutes and Bruno's victory never seemed in jeopardy. In a nutshell, a good match, but a huge disappointment.
***