Studio wrestling ref, cobbler to the stars
He wrestled a bear, he was beaten by a cane-wielding old man at the Civic Arena, he was chased out of wrestling venues for playing the antagonist referee in matches featuring beloved Bruno Sammartino, and from other venues he merely exited on a stretcher, so no one of sound mind could ever say that this life was indifferent toward Bucky Palermo.
He didn’t get cheated, as they say, at least not until last week.
Pittsburgh’s cobbler to the stars, a gregarious Lawrenceville raconteur who for most of a century built or repaired the work shoes of sports titans including Mario Lemiuex, Jaromir Jagr, L.C. Greenwood, Tony Dorsett and Roberto Clemente, and yet was perhaps more widely known as a fixture referee on Channel 11’s cult monument “Studio Wrestling,” Mr. Palermo died Tuesday, a week after striking his head in a fall.
There are times irony can’t even sustain itself, as when it settles into mere coincidence; there are times irony is delicious; and there are times irony is nothing less than sick.
No one has to wonder which version of irony laced the final chapter of the rich and wondrous life of one of Pittsburgh’s most authentic characters.
“He tripped over a pair of shoes; he hit his head on the counter,” his son Tony said Wednesday. “He seemed to be all right. He made another trip later in the day, got some baguettes. Then he started to complain about his head hurting.”
Doctors were helpless against the resultant brain bleed and Mr. Palermo, who most recently lived in Shaler but was a Lawrenceville resident for most of his life, soon lapsed into the coma from which he would not emerge.
“When I got the news I felt so terrible,” Mr. Sammartino said Wednesday. “I’ve known him for 58 years and in all that time he was never anything but a wonderful human being.
“If you would ask me if, at any time during those 58 years, I was ever turned off or upset about anything Bucky Palermo ever said or did, I couldn’t do it. He has a son with Down syndrome, Eugene, and he could not have been a kinder, more wonderful father, nurse, and doctor to him. I can’t imagine how Eugene is going to be taking this.”
Mr. Palermo and Eugene, who was always at his side at wrestling matches, helping in every way he could, were inducted into the Keystone State Wrestling Association Hall of Fame.
“He was the last of the surviving ‘Studio Wrestling’ refs,” said Ken Jugan, known to local wrestlers as Lord Zoltan. “He was one of those guys you thought would never die. He probably wouldn’t have it hadn’t been for something like this.”
Mr. Palermo had turned 86 in March.
“Everybody knew him as Bucky but I only knew him as ‘Pap,’” said Sabrina Riccelli, his granddaughter. “He had a heart of gold and a smile that could light up a room, but he always put everybody ahead of himself. I can’t even put into words how great a guy he was.”
And that was a common problem among his many friends this week, another small irony, in its way. Mr. Palermo always had tons of words, gobs of stories. The bear thing? The bear was scheduled to wrestle George “The Animal” Steele, with Mr. Palermo as referee. When the match began, Steele jumped out of the ring, supposedly due to a contract dispute. The bear, not having been advised of the story line, went straight for Mr. Palermo.
As a precaution, he had consulted with the bear’s people, pre-match.
“So I says to the bear’s owner, ‘What if he grabs me?’” Mr. Palermo said in an interview in 2015. “He says, ‘If he grabs you, you go down; you don’t resist.’ I said, ‘Damn right.’ He says, ‘When you go down, he’ll come over and put his nose on your chest. Just lay there. Don’t move or nothin’. Then I’ll come over and get him off you.’”
And that’s what happened. The next two nights, the same thing. But Mr. Palermo noticed the bear got a little more aggressive each night.
“Bear killed the guy’s wife a year later,” Mr. Palermo said.
In his self-aware moments, Mr. Palmero wanted people to know he’d loved his life.
“I had a good life, a real good life. Good life, good marriage. Married 64 years. Kathleen worked with me on every pair of football shoes that ever came through here — at one point we were working for 125 high schools — and never complained. Just dived right in.”
Kathleen Palermo died in December. Mr. Palermo is survived by a brother, Frank, of Allison Park; five children, Tony, Eugene, Kathleen Kopec, Christine Kuczynski and Marion Dolan; and eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Visitation is from 1 to 8 p.m. Friday at Perman Funeral Home, 923 Saxonburg Blvd. in Shaler. The funeral Mass is at 10 a.m. Saturday at Holy Spirit Parish in Millvale.
The family suggests memorial contributions to the Down Syndrome Association of Pittsburgh, 200 Bursca Ave., Bridgeville 15017 or https://www.dsapgh.org/.