Who is captain lou albano

Albano had made his mark on the business years earlier, joining the pro ranks in after attending the University of Tennessee on a football scholarship and serving a stint in the U.

He wanted to be a boxer, but legendary trainer and manager Lou Duva, a distant cousin of Albano, sent him to wrestling matchmaker Willie Gilzenberg, who was promoting in New Jersey, and Albano was advised to get into wrestling because he was deemed too short for the sweet science.

Along with Tony Altomare, another Army veteran of Italian decent, the two rose to prominence as a tag team called The Sicilians, replete with tuxedo jackets, fedoras, velvet gloves, big cigars and machine guns. It was cutting edge back then. Albano, who made his Madison Square Garden debut in , teamed with Altomare to win the prestigious Midwest tag-team title in Chicago in June Koloff would be the only world heavyweight champion Albano ever managed.

He guided 15 different duos to tag-team gold. Fuji and Mr. Being around wrestling for 17 years had given him the knowledge to become a great manager. He was a New Yorker who understood the psychology and politics of the business as well as the market.

Ironically it was Sammartino, a fellow Italian, who influenced Albano to get into the managing side of the business. His bad-guy antics earned him the reputation of being one of the most hated men in wrestling circles, but outside the ring was a different story. He was a religious man who always carried rosary beads in his pocket. Many might have been surprised to learn that Albano was an impressive physical specimen in his younger days. He was a star football player in high school and earned a scholarship to the University of Tennessee, but was expelled for disciplinary reasons.

He was just a wild, fight-picking kind of guy. But he was a great football player. He was very muscular and very much into working out. When he lost significant weight over the past couple of years, he was still solid, said Varriale. He was always very physically strong. I guess that athlete in him stayed. Lauper credited her on-screen father with taking her up the music charts. Super Show! Captain Lou was a true showman whose often rambling and sometimes incoherent interviews, with that distinctive loud, growling voice, always drew an audience.

Many of his off-color jokes and off-the-cuff expressions made little sense, but the manner in which they were delivered was entertaining and endearing. That was Lou. He took the angle to Vince. Lou was very important to the boom. Lou was a unique character and a unique person. He was always interested in the cutting edge. He was very interested in pop culture and what was going on with the youth.

Albano, unlike some of the other managers in that market at the time who preferred to work exclusively on TV and the major venues, loved going to the smaller spot shows in the various towns.

He was a hustler and was willing to do a lot of different things. Lou would go in there and blade and get bounced around. A short, burly man with scraggly hair and clothes looking like they had come out of a rummage sale, his appearance belied where he had come from. To hear the stories of the wild Lou back then was crazy. His house was immaculate. He may have seemed an odd fit, but his pedigree would prove otherwise.

Albano was born in Rome and was baptized at The Vatican. His father was a general practitioner who delivered 6, babies during a long and successful medical career. His mother was a registered nurse and a concert pianist who played at Carnegie Hall and passed down her musical skills. With a quick wit and a grating personality, Albano delivered memorable promos that made him wrestling's most villainous manager. In , Albano achieved his objective when "Russian Bear" Ivan Koloff ended Sammartino's seven-year reign as champion.

Koloff's reign marked the only time that Albano would manage a World Heavyweight champion. For the remainder of the seventies Albano's cadre of loyal henchmen were unable to resecure the championship.

Under his tutelage, Mr. By the end of his career, Albano managed over 50 different wrestlers that won two dozen championships. Albano was the catalyst that launched professional wrestling into the stratosphere with mainstream America. During a public appearance at Madison Square Garden , the treacherous manager made sexist comments that outraged the singer and non-wrestling fans.

Furthermore, on WWF television, Albano made the audacious claims that he was Lauper's manager and that he was the architect of her success. Following Lauper's victory at the event, Albano apologized to Lauper and instantly became a fan favorite and the voice of Rock 'n' Wrestling.

The crossover storyline, coupled with the Hulkamania phenomenon and the first WrestleMania , triggered a period of unprecedented success for not only the WWF, but for the professional wrestling industry as a whole. Moreover, Albano helped cement wrestling's place within pop culture. Capitalizing on his new found celebrity, Albano began appearing in a vast array of television and film projects.

He was immortalized in the song "Captain Lou" on their Lou and the Q album. Having been a tag team star himself, though, it was in managing duos where Albano excelled. In the span of 20 years, he managed 15 different teams to the World Tag Team Championship, earning the nickname "The Guiding Light" and a record that may never be broken.

After 15 years of being one of the most hated men in sports-entertainment, however, Albano had a change of heart. In his time away from WWE, Albano capitalized on his newfound celebrity. After nearly a decade away from the ring, however, Captain Lou returned for one final hurrah.

Inducted by legendary New York media personality Joe Franklin, Albano was finally truly recognized as one of sports-entertainment's elite. He was often imitated but never duplicated, and he certainly will never be forgotten either.