The Iron Sheik And Bruno Sammartino Once Brawled With Six Men

Are you ready for some football? Bruno Sammartino was back in his later days with WWE. The Italian Superman once battled an orangutan in his pre-wrestling days, but in his post-wrestling days, the rumor was that he fought off six football players with another legend of the squared circle. In an interview conducted over 10 years ago, the late Hall Of Famer clarified that he actually fought one football player and five of his compadres.

"He was a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers and then he went on to the Canadian league after the Steelers cut him," Sammartino said. The player in question was Dave "Rooster" Fleming and he had something he wanted to prove to the two-time WWE Champion. Sammartino was a commentator for the company at the time when he was backstage and heard his name called. He walked over in his natural babyface demeanor.

"At this time, I'm like 51, 52 years old when this went on. I said, 'Hey, hi guys. What are you doing here?' I said, 'If security sees you, you might get in trouble. You're not supposed to be back here,'" Sammartino said. Fleming made certain it was indeed the "Living Legend" before offering his hand in what Sammartino thought to be a friendly handshake. It wasn't as Fleming started to squeeze.

I said 'Well, what are you think you're doing?' And he said to me, 'You're nothing but a washed-up old man.' And I responded, 'Well, not too washed up to take care of you.'" The fight was on.

Fleming was the first to initiate the fisticuffs. "He took a swing at me, I blocked it, and I nailed him and he went down and the others joined and so I'm fighting all of them," Sammartino said, but made note that it could only be for so long considering a man at his age was fending off six other men. Thankfully, he was about to get help from one of wrestling's most famous heels in The Iron Sheik.

"The Sheik happened to be taking a shower after his match and he heard all of the commotions and when he came out of the shower room he saw just me fighting all these guys," Sammartino recalled.

 "He came right out and joined next to me and no bragging, but then the two of us kind of cleaned house over there." And from the way it sounded, Sheik was naked as the day he was born as he helped "The Living Legend" fight off Fleming and his five other cronies. "That's a true story and he was the only guy who came to help me."

Considering that Sammartino was arguably the biggest babyface in pro wrestling during his prime and Sheik was an absolute heel, it certainly was an unlikely alliance made for behind the curtain. Sheik and Sammartino couldn't have been far off from being on opposing sides of the ring, however, because, around that time,  Sammartino battled Nikolai Volkoff on an episode of Wrestling Challenge with Sheik in the Russian's corner.