Tony Parisi (wrestler)
Tony Parisi (wrestler)
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Tony Parisi (wrestler)

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Tony Parisi (wrestler)

Antonio Pugliese (January 22, 1941 – August 19, 2000), better known by his ring name, Tony Parisi, was an Italian-Canadian professional wrestler. He won tag team championships in several professional wrestling promotions, including the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF). With Louis Cerdan, he held the WWWF World Tag Team Championship from 1975 to 1976. As a singles wrestler, he also won the WWF International Heavyweight Championship. After retiring from wrestling, Pugliese continued to work in the industry and also operated a hotel and restaurant. He died in 2000 from an aneurysm.

Pugliese made his professional wrestling debut in Detroit, Michigan in 1961. He soon began competing in Canada, where he was a popular babyface (fan favorite) wrestler. In one of his first matches, he faced Gino Brito, who later became his long-time tag team partner. Pugliese and Brito moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1962 to wrestle in a promotion operated by Nick Gulas; they won the promotion's tag team title within two weeks of their arrival. Throughout his career, Pugliese formed many tag teams in various promotions with other wrestlers of Italian descent, including Dominic DeNucci, Tony Marino, and Bruno Sammartino.

Although Pugliese often wrestled in Ontario throughout his career, he also competed as far away as Australia and Japan.

Pugliese also wrestled as a heel (villain) at times. He competed as "Tenor" Parisi; in this gimmick, he wore a white tuxedo and sang opera to anger the crowd.

In 1966, Pugliese began wrestling for the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), where he was billed as the cousin of Bruno Sammartino. In this role, he was targeted by several heel wrestlers, who wanted to start feuds with the Sammartino family. On February 21, 1966, Pugliese teamed with Johnny Valentine to win the WWWF United States Tag Team Championship from Dan Miller and Dr. Bill Miller. They held the title belts for seven months before dropping them to the team of Baron Mikel Scicluna and Smasher Sloan on September 22. In this match, Valentine turned on Pugliese by awarding the championship to their opponents when Pugliese was injured.

Pugliese teamed with Miguel Pérez to challenge Scicluna and Sloan for the title on December 8, but Pérez sustained an injury during the match and was replaced by Spiros Arion. Pugliese and Arion won the match and the title; they held the belts for six months until June 1967. The team split up when Pugliese left the country briefly and Arnold Skaaland was named as co-holder of the championship in his place.

He returned to WWWF in 1968 where he teamed with fellow Italian Dominic DeNucci. Also he worked in Pittsburgh for Studio Wrestling. In 1969 scored victories over heels Toru Tanaka, Luke Graham, George Steele and Baron Mikel Scicluna. During that year he teamed with Victor Riviera and Haystacks Calhoun. By the end of 1969 Pugliese left WWWF.

In December 1967, Pugliese teamed with Pedro Morales in the California-based Worldwide Wrestling Associates (WWA). They won the WWA World Tag Team Championship by defeating Buddy Austin and Freddie Blassie. While defending the title, Pugliese also returned to the WWWF and began competing for the World Championship Wrestling in Australia. He teamed with Mario Milano to win the IWA World Tag Team Championship in April 1968. The team lost the belts to Skull Murphy and Killer Karl Kox in May, but Pugliese joined up with Dominic DeNucci to regain the title later that month. Although they dropped the title to Killer Kowalski and Bill Miller in June, Pugliese found a new partner in Don Leo Jonathan to regain the title on February 21, 1969. Two weeks later, The Spoiler and Pugliese's former partner Mario Milano (who had turned on Pugliese in the middle of a tag match with Spoiler and Kox to join their manager, Gary Hart) won the belts, but Pugliese and Jonathan regained them in a rematch later that month. Returning to the United States, Pugliese formed another tag team in Big Time Wrestling, a Texas-based division of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). He teamed with Wahoo McDaniel to win the NWA Texas Tag Team Championship. Records from the time period in this promotion are unclear about the dates and title lineage, but there is a record of Pugliese and McDaniel holding the belts in 1969. The following year, Pugliese held the IWA World Tag Team Championship for the final time, as he teamed with Mark Lewin to win the belts from Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson on May 15, 1970. They defended the title for just over a month before losing it to Kurt and Karl Von Steiger.

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