Italians prepare heavyweight welcome for mat superstar

PITTSBURGH (AP) _ He was fierce in the ring against Killer Kowalski and Gorilla Monsoon, but retired pro wrestler Bruno Sammartino is a softie when it comes to the old country. <br><br>Sammartino, 65,

Thursday, November 30th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

PITTSBURGH (AP) _ He was fierce in the ring against Killer Kowalski and Gorilla Monsoon, but retired pro wrestler Bruno Sammartino is a softie when it comes to the old country.

Sammartino, 65, whose televised heavyweight matches often sold out Madison Square Garden, leaves for Italy next week to be honored in his hometown, Pizzoferrato, which is northeast of Rome in the country's central mountains.

The town sports complex has been named the Bruno Sammartino Coliseum, and the mayor will unveil a bust of Sammartino on Dec. 8 outside the house the wrestler's parents built and sold upon immigrating to the United States in 1950.

``I can remember that my dad was heartbroken when we had to move. To my parents, that house was everything. They had to save and work and work and work,'' Sammartino said Thursday. ``It's sad that they've passed away _ they really would have loved all this, especially the bust.''

The Sammartinos fled the house during World War II and hid from the Nazis in nearby mountains for a year. Sammartino said his mother, Emilia, sneaked back to the house at night to get corn, wheat and potatoes from the basement as German officers were upstairs.

The wrestler has not been back to Pizzoferrato for 20 years and predicts he will get misty-eyed in the old neighborhood.

Sammartino, whose picture is a fixture in many Pittsburgh restaurants, said he is ``flabbergasted and elated'' by the recent attention. He recently joined a Japanese wrestling hall of fame and will return from Italy to meet producers in New York for a documentary about his life.

``I find it all hard to understand. I haven't wrestled in 20 years,'' Sammartino said.

Born in Abruzzi in 1935 as Bruno Laopardo Franceso Sammartino, he made several wrestling tours of South Africa and Japan and once lost an exhibition match to a sumo superstar.

``Of course I lost,'' Sammartino said. ``The way the rules are, if they just bump you out of the ring, you lose, and those guys weigh 400 pounds,'' 120 more than Sammartino's wrestling weight.

``It would have been different if it was freestyle,'' Sammartino said. ``You get them down on the ground, and they're just like a turtle.''

He had the World Wrestling Federation title for 11 years in two separate reigns in the 1960s and 1970s, dominated tag team wrestling and was beloved in the Northeast when pro wrestling was highly rated on network TV.

In 1976, an opponent broke his neck in the ring, and pain from that injury and dozens of others linger on.

Like now, wrestling was more entertainment than sport in Sammartino's heyday.

But he wants nothing to do with today's glitzy professional matches, saying, ``I find it all offensive _ all the vulgarity and profanity. I don't watch it, and I'm not associated with wrestling in any way.''