#CAPTAIN LOU ALBANO MANAGER SERIES#
Once Sammartino recaptured his belt from Koloff, nobody from Albano’s stable of talent was able to redeem that loss and get the belt back.Īlbano would later manage a series of Intercontinental champions, including the very first Intercontinental Champion Pat Patterson. This was a very special moment in the managerial career of Albano, because it would be the only time he’d ever manage the heavyweight champion of the world. They definitely were amazed at what happened.” “Bruno Sammartino was a legend, and it was very surprising,” Koloff said. Koloff was possibly more shocked about the title change than his manager, but agrees with Captain Lou that nobody believed it any less than the fans. He was really a 13-year world champion,” Albano said in an earlier interview. But I’ve got to give credit he’s one of the greatest of all time. “Bruno was a great, great champion and a great athlete - they had some great battles back and forth. But Albano was able to overcome that pressure and the company must have felt comfortable enough to give the Albano/Koloff team the ball and let them run with it, because in 1971, Koloff, under the tutelage of Albano, defeated Sammartino to become the new WWWF champion, making him the first of four singles wrestlers that Albano managed to championship gold, ending Sammartino’s seven-year reign. Perhaps Albano’s biggest claim to fame though was his run as a manager in the In fact, Albano’s first task as a manager was guiding the career of the hated Russian Ivan Koloff, in a program against Sammartino, which certainly put a lot of pressure on Albano, since he was involved in the company’s top feud. The Sicilians went on to win the Midwest Tag Team titles and later, would win the WWWF United States Tag Team titles from Arnold Skaaland and Spiros Arion in 1967. “In Mafia, you put your hand up, and after a while, it got to be, ‘What are you doing? Are you nuts?’ So we took the gloves off, and no more Mafia - we didn’t want to have any trouble.” “ never actually came to us, but we just, by word of mouth, started hearing that it’s a bad sign to put on the black, velvet glove,” Albano said. It’s the wrestler’s responsibility to get a gimmick over and this particular gimmick did get over and it got over to the point that Albano and Altamore continually had to look over their shoulders, out of paranoia, fearing that they may have upset the Mafia. The words are repeated time and time again that a gimmick will never get over on its own. Maybe I was a great talker, but Tony was the brains of the outfit.” “We got together, and I tell you, Tony was a great guy. “We were a young team years ago in the early ’50s,” Albano said in an earlier interview. The Sicilians - Tony Altamore and Lou Albano.
They had an Italian mobster gimmick and Albano has very fond memories of all the good times spent with his friend Tony and wouldn’t trade it for anything. Perhaps Albano’s most successful run as a wrestler was when he was a member of a team known as The Sicilians with Tony Altamore. He had his first official match in 1953, in Montreal, Quebec, where he defeated Bob Lazaro. At the time, he was working at a bar, as a bouncer, where he met two wrestlers, which influenced him to take wrestling seriously as a career.
#CAPTAIN LOU ALBANO MANAGER PROFESSIONAL#
Albano started taking an interest in professional wrestling while on tour with the Army. Soon after, he left school to join the Army. Over the course of that career, Albano has managed 34 men to championship gold (15 teams and four individuals), which is an accomplishment that few others can claim, and it may even put him in a class all by himself.Īlbano is originally from Mount Vernon, NY, but after high school, he attended the University of Tennessee on a football scholarship. Photo by Mike Lano, in passing, Albano’s memory still lives and breathes and his voice still echoes in the backs of everybody’s mind that he’s had the pleasure of entertaining during his 42-year career. Captain Lou Albano at his peak as a manager, backstage at Madison Square Garden, in the 1970s.
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