Gino Brito
| Gino Brito | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Louis Gino Acocella |
| Born |
May 18, 1941[1] Montreal, Quebec, Canada[1] |
| Residence | Canada[1] |
| Children | Gino Brito Jr. |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) |
Gino Brito Louis Cerdan |
| Billed height | 5 ft 10.5 in (1.79 m)[1] |
| Billed weight | 240 lb (110 kg)[1] |
| Trained by | George Cannon[1] |
Louis Gino Acocella[1] (born May 18, 1941), better known by his ring name Gino Brito, is a Canadian professional wrestler. He was a popular wrestler in Montreal, and was one of the promoters in the city in the 1980s. As Louis Cerdan, he was a WWWF Tag Team Champion, teaming with fellow Canadian-Italian wrestler Tony Parisi.
Professional wrestling career
Active wrestler
Brito was the son of wrestler Jack Britton, who was organized a central booking office for midget wrestlers in the 1950s.[1] Brito had a job for the promotion shuttling the wrestlers from city to city.[1] Before becoming a professional wrestler at the age of seventeen, Brito was an amateur wrestler.[1] At age seventeen, he was trained by George Cannon.[1] He began working with Detroit promoters Bert Ruby and Harry Light over a year later.[1]
He first teamed with Tony Parisi in Tennessee, where the duo won the tag titles in Nick Gulas's promotion within two weeks.[1] The two also won the WWWF Tag Team Championship in 1975 from Blackjack Mulligan and Blackjack Lanza.[1] They later lost the title to The Executioners.[1] Brito continued to wrestle through the mid-80s.
Promoting
He also promoted shows under the International Wrestling banner in Montreal beginning in the 1980s, when he earned a television deal for his promotion.[1] The promotion lost several key players in the mid-1980s, such as The Rougeaus, Rick Martel, and Dino Bravo.[1] It held events that sometimes had up to 10,000 fans in attendance.[2] The company, however, went bankrupt in 1987, nine months after the aforementioned wrestlers left.[1] The promotion was the last Quebec-based promotion to have a weekly television show.[3]
After International Wrestling closed, Pat Patterson convinces Brito to be the WWWF promoter in Montreal, a job Brito held for four years.[1] Brito also appeared in the WWF old-timers battle royal in November 1987 (the first eliminated in a match won by Lou Thesz that featured several former world champions).
In 2003, Brito began promoting again with a promotion called Canadian Professional Wrestling (CPW) in Hull, Quebec.[4][5] He joined with promoter Paul Leduc and his Montreal-based promotion.[4] The promotion draws crowds of approximately 600 people every couple of months.[4] More than 1,000 people attended the first anniversary event, in which Abdullah the Butcher and Pierre Carl Ouellet also participated.[5] In October 2004, at the age of 63, Brito wrestled a match for the promotion, a loss in a six-man tag team match.[6] In January 2005, the first of six events began airing on Canadian pay-per-view, which featured wrestlers from Brito's CPW, as well as footage from his International Wrestling promotion.[2]
Personal life
Brito's father, Jack Brito, and uncle were both professional wrestlers.[1] Brito's son, Gino Brito, Jr., also worked in the business for a short time.[1]
He is of Italian descent, which is reflected in his ringname Gino Brito.[1] To form the name, Brito shortened his father's name Britton.[1] He was good friends with other Italian wrestlers, such as Tony Parisi, Bruno Sammartino, and Dominic DeNucci.[1]
After finishing his career in the wrestling business, Brito began working at Subaru car business—buying and auctioning—with his brother-in-law.[1]
In wrestling
- Finishing moves
Championships and accomplishments
- Grand Prix Wrestling (Montreal)
- Grand Prix Tag Team Championship (1 time)[7] - with Dino Bravo
- Lutte Internationale
- Canadian International Tag Team Championship (4 times) - with Rick McGraw (1) and Tony Parisi (3)[9]
- World Wide Wrestling Federation (World Wrestling Federation)
- WWWF World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Tony Parisi[10]
- WWF International Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[11]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Oliver, Greg. "Canadian Hall of Fame: Gino Brito". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved 2008-05-02.
- 1 2 Lacroix, Corey David (November 12, 2004). "CPW secures PPV deal". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved 2008-09-14.
- ↑ Leroux, Yves (January 16, 2005). "Gino Brito honoured at inaugural MWO show". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved 2008-09-14.
- 1 2 3 Oliver, Greg (July 16, 2003). "Brito's CPW trying to grow". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved 2008-09-14.
- 1 2 Lacroix, Corey David (November 5, 2003). "CPW celebrates in style". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved 2008-09-14.
- ↑ Lacroix, Corey David (October 22, 2004). "Gino Brito returns to the ring". SLAM! Wrestling. Retrieved 2008-09-14.
- 1 2 "Gino Brito profile". Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved 2008-09-14.
- ↑ "North American Heavyweight Title (Maritimes)". Wrestling Titles. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
- ↑ "International Wrestling International Tag Team Title (Montreal)". Wrestling Titles. Retrieved 2008-09-14.
- ↑ "History of the World Tag Team Championship". World Wrestling Entertainment. Retrieved 2008-09-14.
- ↑ "International Heavyweight Title/WWWF International Heavyweight Title History". Solie's Title Histories. Retrieved 2008-09-14.