Stan Hansen Talks Breaking Sammartino’s Neck, Almost Getting Killed For It

On the latest edition of “Legends with JBL,” Layfield had Stan Hansen on his outstanding WWE Network original program. Several topics were discussed concerning the WWE Hall of Famer’s career and the conversation eventually took a turn to addressing the fact that Stan Hansen once broke Bruno Sammartino’s neck at Madison Square Garden.

Hansen was very green before he was thrust into the spotlight. He was working the hard territory circuit around Texas and Oklahoma until one day out of the blue he was called up by Vince McMahon Sr. to perform at Madison Square Garden against Bruno Sammartino. Bruno says, “One week I’m wrestling in Knox City, Texas and the next week I’m working Madison Square Garden, the greatest venue of all time.”

Hansen explains that he slammed Bruno on his back and broke his neck, and if looks could kill then he would have been dead because McMahon Sr. was furious.

When JBL begins to question Stan about whether or not the other top faces of the company like Big Cat Ernie Ladd, Ivan Koloff, or Superstar Billy Graham ever held animosity toward him, Hansen says that if it existed he didn’t see it.

It would stand to reason why they might have been upset, because they couldn’t count on such large gates in any market that Bruno was bringing in now that he was out of action.

Hansen says that he wanted to call Bruno, but he didn’t know how to get ahold of him. After a couple of weeks, he got Bruno’s number and called him. Sammartino was still in the hospital at the time and Hansen told Bruno how sorry he was, but Sammartino said not to worry about it.

Stan says Sammartino was and still is a class act as he continues to tell the story that Bruno explained to him that he’d be back and better than ever. The two went on to work together on several more occasions, including an event at Shea Stadium. JBL says that even though Bruno wasn’t well enough to work a full match yet, the show still drew 32,000 fans.

Stan says that people were furious at him for injuring their hero. He said there was a lot of heat on him and they legitimately wanted to hurt him, maybe even kill him. He tells a story about they were working a show and a man walked up with a gun in the crook of his arm, preparing to draw it on him. Thankfully, Hansen was able to run away before the man turned the gun and fired.