The tragic story behind WWF Superstar Dino Bravo’s death
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Dino Bravo
Dino Bravo is one the rare Superstars who had left his mark on the world of professional wrestling, without seeing much success in WWE. In his 20-year long career Bravo faced some biggest names in the industry, won several Championships on various wrestling promotions but held just two titles in WWE.
After Bravo announced his retirement in 1992, he became involved in illegal cigarette smuggling activities. He was the nephew of Montreal crime boss Vincenzo Cotroni and it is believed that Bravo was involved with his organisation. His popularity in wrestling world, helped him in this business. A large number of people only wanted to do business with him.
His success in smuggling cigarettes, led to Montreal’s biggest cocaine dealers contacting him. They formed a partnership, but a deal went wrong, and it strained their relationship.
“So what apparently happened is they did some kind of agreement…Dino had a $400,000 shipment in some warehouse somewhere and it stayed there for like, three days…and on the third day when the cocaine guy went to pick it up, the police were there. So they were blaming each other. Dino was saying, ‘You should have picked it up [on] the first day and it never would have happened – you shouldn’t have let it sit there…’ There was a lot of heat on Dino. This was a week before he died,” revealed Dino’s friend Rick Martel.
On March 10, 1993, Dino Bravo’s wife and daughter returned home to find him dead. He was shot in the head 7 times and had 10 more shots on his body. Bravo still had the TV remote in his hand and there were no signs of break-in. Dino Bravo was just 44 when he was killed. The gunmen were never identified.
Dino Bravo’s WWE run
Bravo won his first title in WWE as a Tag Team Champion. In 1978, he was part of a tag team with Dominic DeNucci and they were crowned the Tag Team Champs. In 1985, when WWE took over the Lutte International promotion, Bravo was crowned as the first WWE Canadian Champion.
Interestingly, Bravo was the only wrestler to have held the WWE Canadian title. When he left WWE in 1986, the title was abandoned too. Bravo had left the company after a palnned match with Hulk Hogan was scrapped. The WWE officials believed that Hogan would be booed in Bravo’s adopted hometown of Montreal, and hence scrapped the idea.
Bravo returned to WWE again in 1986 with a new look, and was a part of manager Johnny Valiant’s stable. He continued to make appearances as a singles and a tag team star. Bravo even had a long feud with Hulk Hogan and Tugboat, while he was teamed up with Earthquake.
After losing a singles match at Wrestlemania 7 agaisnt Kerry Von Erich, Bravo rarely appeared on WWE TV and left WWE after a while. He announced his retirement in 1992.
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Sanchit Chandalia
(1378 Articles Published)