Bruno Sammartino © vs Ivan Koloff
WWWF World Heavyweight Title Match
01/18/1971
Of all the big promotions, WWF/E has always been the one that has most often booked wrestling as if it was a fairy tale. There will be some conflict, hardship and tense moments, but inevitably, good will triumph over evil. Occasionally, however, you need evil to get the upper hand to make the victory in the long run all the sweeter for it.
For almost eight years, the WWWF had dined out on Bruno Sammartino being the main guy in the federation, drawing huge crowds to Madison Square Garden and over venues with him as champion. In the title’s history up to this point, Buddy Rogers was the only other man to hold the title, and that was for a paltry twenty two days. The belt was synonymous with Bruno, and he had held it around his waist for two thousand, eight hundred and three days when he stepped into the Garden once more to take on ‘The Russian Bear’ Ivan Koloff.
The unquestioned role of Sammartino as ‘the man’ was under threat at the time. Pedro Morales, having joined the company in 1970, was seen as a guy who could drive the Federation on to new heights, as well as appealing more to the Hispanic audience. With Morales only having a relatively short run in the company up until now, Vince McMahon Sr. made the decision to put the WWWF World Heavyweight Title on him. In a time period where face vs face contests rarely happened, McMahon saw the need to shift the title belt away from Sammartino first, rather than splitting the audience by forcing him into a contest with Morales.
Koloff was a credible champion, even if only a transitionary one in the end. With a Russian gimmick that produced molten levels of heat amongst the fans, and a no-nonsense style of offense that used strikes, gouges and chokes to perfection, Koloff offered a suitable challenge to the reigning champion. Whether a fan stepping into the Garden that evening expected to see Sammartino’s reign come to a screeching halt is another thing entirely.
With the WWWF at the time occasionally peddling a brand of wrestling that might be charitably described as ‘plodding’, what interests me first is the amount of pace Koloff and Sammartino bring to an evenly contested match. The men trade holds and slams, with often moves leading to reversals as each man jockeyed for control. Initially targeting the arm, seemingly trying to wrench it out of its socket whilst Koloff is downed, Sammartino would also spend time on the leg, driving the Russian’s knees into the canvas to increase the effectiveness of a leglock. Koloff himself spent the majority of his time on offense blasting Sammartino with strikes mixed in with the occasional illegal move for good measure.
The match wasn’t officially taped by the WWWF – or this official tape was lost to the sands of time – so a seven minute cut on Youtube is about as good as you are going to get when it comes to this contest for the time being. Thus, transitions are cut out, and a sense of the audience response gets lost in the poor audio quality. A real shame.
You can imagine the crowd getting behind Sammartino though as he rocks Koloff with a slam and a sleeper to get revenge for an illegal choke. Just as it seems that the champion has the match under control, the referee would move into the way of an Irish whip that was designed to send Koloff into the corner. Koloff is able to shake off the impact, slam Sammartino and drop the knee off the top turnbuckle for the shocking three count victory. Expectations were that the ref bump would directly play into the finish, but the cut online make the finish look surprisingly clean. Sammartino could argue that the impact of the Irish whip was lost, allowing Koloff to fight back. Whichever way it was viewed in the days after the switch, Koloff was the new WWWF World Heavyweight Champion
Koloff wouldn’t be the last heel transition champion in the WWWF. Stan Stasiak would be used to move the belt from Morales back to Sammartino, whilst the most famous one was arguably The Iron Sheik defeating Bob Backlund, before losing the belt to Hulk Hogan less than a month later. In Koloff’s position, it doesn’t matter how long you spend at the top of the mountain, it is whether you got there in the first place; a fitting tribute to a well-deserved wrestler.
