Remembering Baron Scicluna

Pro Wrestling lost one of its greats recently with the death of Baron Mikel Scicluna.  Scicluna died of liver cancer in Pittsburgh Pa. where he resided with his wife.

Scicluna started wrestling in the 1950's as Mike Valentino, he was generally a mid to low level heel wrestler.

In 1965 when he entered the WWWF his name was changed to Baron Scicluna and he became a big star for the next seven years. Scicluna was born in Malta and that location became part of his gimmick. Scicluna would come to the ring in a big red cape and you would think its Dracula in the ring.

Scicluna challenged Bruno Sammartino for the title on a number of occasions in the mid to late 60's.

He was also a tag team champion on two occasions first with Smasher Sloan in 1966 & again in 1972 with King Curtis as his partner.

Baron Scicluna had a successful tour of the orient in 1967 & wrestled in Australia as well.

Scicluna wrestled a lot on Pittsburgh's Studio Wrestling in the 60's & 70's and was almost always on the Civic Arena cards as well.
One thing you could always count on was a foreign object in his matches.

Scicluna was involved in the tag match in 1971 where George Steele injured Bruno Sammartino's shoulder and Bruno lost the title to Ivan Koloff the week later.

After Koloff lost the title to Pedro Morales, Baron Scicluna challenged for the title but lost.

Not many people realized this but Scicluna actually left the WWWF after losing the tag title around 1973 and competed in the Central States region.

In 1976 on the WWWF Syndicated Tv Show Baron Scicluna was wrestling Gorilla Monsoon, Monsoon sends Scicluna over the top rope and who jumps into the ring but none other than Muhammad Ali.  It took Monsoon only a minute or two to dispose of Muhammad Ali.

By 1977 the Baron was starting to get up in age but he still had drawing power so the WWWF continued to use him but he competed in the first or second match. 

In the late 70's Scicluna appeared in more tag matches that put over his opponents, he never wrestled a bad match.  In 1978 he wrestled Haystacks Calhoun who was way out of shape, the Baron controlled 90% of the match but his job was to make Calhoun look good so in the end the Baron lost the match.

From 1979 to 1984 when Baron Scicluna retired from the sport he wrestled just about every month at either Msg or The Spectrum.

For his whole career Scicluna was the Heel or Bad Guy in the ring, in one of his last matches he was cheered by the fans as he defeated Iron Mike Sharpe.

Baron Scicluna participated in the 1987 Old Timers Battle Royal and was interviewed and said Hulk Hogan was a great wrestler.

Scicluna was inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996 by his friend Gorilla Monsoon.

If they have cigars in heaven Baron Scicluna will be right at home.