Lou Albano first rose to national prominence in the late-fifties as part of a tag team known as The Scicilians.  Along with partner Tony Altimore, Albano created a fair amount of controversy doing the stereotypical Italian gangster gimmick. The Scicilians, despite their somewhat limited ring ability, were able to win a few titles while raising their stock in the world of tag team wrestling. On June 30, 1961 The Scicilians won the prestigous Midwest Tag Team title in Chicago, which helped them immensely in building their reputation in the eyes of the fans. Their other major championship, the United States Tag Team title, was captured in Atlantic City, NJ. on July 10, 1967 and eventually lost to Bruno Sammartino and Spiros Arion.

Albano did not truly break out as a star until he ended his partnership with Altimore, and forged a completely new identity as a manager.  With WWWF Heavyweight champion Bruno Sammartino the target of his efforts, Albano managed a revolving door of the meanest, toughest, biggest athletes he could find in order to take the gold strap from the hugely popular WWWF champ.  Crusher Verdu, Fred Blassie, Prof. Toru Tanaka, Ivan Koloff and many others were led to battle against Sammartino by Capt. Lou. In fact, it was one of Albano's men, the powerful "Russian Bear" Ivan Koloff, who finally did the impossible and ended Sammartino's 7 year-long first WWWF title reign.  Later, Albano would also wage the same type of never-ending war with WWF kingpin Bob Backlund.

Other than Koloff, Lou was never able to guide another man to the World title. However, he did manage many other men to championships, including Inter-Continental titleholders Don Muraco, Pat Patterson and Greg Valentine among others.  However, it was in the tag team ranks that Albano was most successful, guiding nearly 15 different teams to WWF gold, including the Wild Samoans, The Valiant Brothers, Saito and Fuji, The British Bulldogs, and many other. And what would the "Rock `n Wrestling Connection", the angle that essentially launched the WWF to national prominence, have been like had Lou Albano not been involved? Or for that matter, WrestleMania I, which largely revolved around the boisterous manager? 

Cyndi Lauper and The Grand Wizard just wouldn't have been as effective without him. Albano continued to be one of the most recognized celebrities of the 1980's, and helped attract a whole new audience for pro wrestling. In fact, throughout most of the eighties, Albano was a wrestling celebrity on the scale of Hulk Hogan and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. In 1996, the World Wrestling Federation inducted Albano into its Hall of Fame. Naturally, no shrine to our "sport" would be complete without "The Captain", so it is with great honor that The Ring Chronicle inducts wrestling's Manager of Champions, the entertaining and bombastic Capt. Lou Albano into the TRC Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.