Terry Funk says Bruno Sammartino was the "Joe DiMaggio of professional wrestling."
Terry Funk worked with Bruno Sammartino in the 1970s at WWE (called WWWF at the time) and wrestled against him a couple times in his career. The match in the video at the top of this page is a cage match from Halloween Havoc 1989 where Funk competed and Sammartino was a special guest referee. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Funk expressed how he felt after knowing Sammartino for decades.
“I would call Bruno the Joe DiMaggio of professional wrestling. He was phenomenal. He fought and fought, not for the promoter, but for his fellow athletes in the professional wrestling world,” said Funk. “No one will ever surpass Bruno. He was good to his people, to the wrestling fans, and to the wrestlers themselves. He loved them all. If somebody was in trouble, he damn sure had a hand to pull them out of a pocket of mud," later added.
Sammartino passed away on April 18th and there was an outpouring of respect from every corner of professional wrestling. The man set records which seem impossible to break and was known by many to be the good person Funk described.
The full interview with Funk can be found at SI.com.
