In fairness to the younger Sammartino, he made a noble effort, working as many promotions and territories as he could at the start of his career before joining WWE in 1984. And with his father managing him, David initially was poised for a push. The problem was that WWE later proved to have no interest in him unless his father was at ringside, resulting in David’s momentum starting and stopping repeatedly during his tenure. The other issue is that while David wasn’t a bad wrestler, he was light years away from his father, or any of the top workers in WWE at the time. As a result, he was gone only a year after he started in WWE, oddly enough taping out in his last match to a Bearhug, his father’s signature move, again Ron Shaw, in a moment some thought was off script.

David would journey to the AWA afterward, and even returned to WWE a few years later for another short stint. Regardless of whether it was the AWA and UWF, where he was treated somewhat as a decent name, or in WWE, where he was a preliminary guy, David never was able to escape the shadow of his father. In some ways, he may not have wanted to, as the younger Sammartino is said to have proposed teaming with his father during the 80s; Bruno’s reluctance to do so was believed to be the catalyst of their strained relationship later in life. In any event, after two matches with WCW in 1996, David distanced himself from wrestling, save for those aforementioned one off matches, and decided to pursue a career as a personal trainer, which he continues to this day. It seems to have been for the best, as no matter what David Sammartino did in wrestling, it was destined to never be enough, in the eyes of the fans, to measure up to his more famous father.