The Manatee Performing Arts Center (MPAC) will host a very special matinee showing of a rags-to-riches story featuring a young man, whose family fled the Nazi invasion of their home in Italy, and who would one day become the most famous professional wrestler in the world. Bruno Sammartino makes its Florida debut at MPAC on Thursday, February, 9 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $8 and can be purchased on the MPAC’s ticketing center online.

Sammartino, who passed away in 2018, was the son of Italian immigrant parents. During World War II his family fled the Nazi invasion of their home in Italy after fearing for their lives at the hands of Adolf Hitler’s SS troops. At the age of 13, the malnourished Italian boy reached the U.S., unable to speak English and became an easy target of schoolyard bullies. Sammartino battled adversity to eventually become one of the greatest legends in wrestling history.