#3.) Bruno Sammartino
Bruno Sammartino is one of the pillars around which WWE was built. The second champion in the lineage of the WWE title, Sammartino would beat Buddy Rogers and hold the title for a whopping 2803 days, or four months shy of eight years. While the title defenses were infrequent at the time, Sammartino had the reputation of selling out Madison Square Garden over 100 times.
He was an icon of the business and being an Italian-American, managed to draw a lot of the fans from that demographic – one of the largest in New York City at the time. He did have another long run with the title, but it was not as monumental as his first one. When Ivan Koloff beat Sammartino to end his nearly 8-year long title reign, fans at MSG were left in utter shock and silence.
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