The Full Blooded Italians

The Full Blooded Italians

Little Guido and Tony Mamaluke celebrate a victory in Philadelphia's ECW Arena.
Stable
Members See below
Name(s) The Full Blooded Italians
The F.B.I.
Former
member(s)		 Salvatore Bellomo
Tommy Rich
Davey Piezono
Mabel
J.T. Smith
Big Guido
Ulf Herman
One Man Gang
Chuck Palumbo
Johnny Stamboli
Vito
Trinity
Nunzio
Tracy Smothers
Debut 1996
Promotions ECW
WWE
NWE
JAPW
TNA
HoH

The Full Blooded Italians (or F.B.I.) are a professional wrestling stable and tag team that wrestled for Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in the late 1990s and for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) during the mid-2000s.

History

Extreme Championship Wrestling

The original Full Blooded Italians began in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in 1996 as a comedy stable that placed African American wrestler J.T. Smith with Italian wrestler "Big" Val Puccio, eventually adding two wrestlers from the Southern United States, Tracy Smothers and Tommy Rich, and one more Italian, Little Guido.[1] Guido has been involved in every ECW and/or WWE incarnation of the F.B.I.[2] The running gag of the group was that most of the wrestlers were obviously not of Italian descent, but they often claimed to be and acted in stereotypical Italian American ways, including none-too-subtle Mafia references, constant hand gestures, and praising famous Italian figures such as Frank Sinatra and Rocky Balboa. During their ECW run, the crowd would regularly chant "Where's my pizza?" at the group. The group would routinely come out to a techno remix of "Stayin' Alive" and challenge their opponents to dance-offs.

The group imploded when Smothers and Rich departed the company, leaving Sal E. Graziano to manage Little Guido on his own. The group became less of a comedy act and more of a serious tandem until Tony Mamaluke was added to the duo in early 2000. Together, managed by Graziano, the group feuded with Mikey Whipwreck and Yoshihiro Tajiri, a team led by The Sinister Minister, over the ECW World Tag Team Championship. The group vied for number one contendership of the title in the company's dying months.

World Wrestling Entertainment

SmackDown!

After a beating at the hands of Rikishi, Little Guido, known as Nunzio at the time, threatened to bring in his "family" to gain revenge. The next week, Chuck Palumbo and Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli joined with Nunzio to reform the Full Blooded Italians and attacked Rikishi. They initially gained little success, but later had brief feuds with a number of notable wrestlers and tag teams, including Los Guerreros (Eddie and Chavo), Chris Benoit, Rhyno, and the Acolytes Protection Agency (Faarooq and Bradshaw). The F.B.I. was also used by Mr. McMahon to attack The Undertaker and by Jamie Noble (Nunzio's storyline cousin) to attack Rey Mysterio. When the group turned into fan favorites, they grew in popularity but just as they were getting over, Palumbo was sent to the WWE's Raw brand[3] which left only Nunzio and Stamboli in the group. In November 2004, Palumbo and Stamboli were released.

Vito appeared on the August 6, 2005 episode of Velocity by aiding Nunzio with a blackjack to help him win the Cruiserweight Championship from Paul London. Soon after, a profile of Vito in SmackDown! Magazine "officially" referred to the new twosome as "The F.B.I." and Vito and Nunzio continued to appear in the tag team division of SmackDown! until Nunzio left Vito when he discovered he was a cross-dresser.

ECW

The Full Blooded Italians: Little Guido (left), Trinity (middle) and Tony Mamaluke (right) in 2005.

The F.B.I. reunited briefly at the first-ever One Night Stand pay-per-view event in 2005 and again in 2006 when Little Guido, Tracy Smothers, Tony Mamaluke, Big Guido and J.T. Smith appeared together. In 2006, World Wrestling Entertainment launched the ECW brand and Nunzio (once again using the name Little Guido) left the SmackDown! brand and reformed the F.B.I. with Tony Mamaluke, Big Guido, and new member Trinity. After ECW's television debut, Big Guido left the company. Tony Mamaluke was later released from his WWE contract on January 18, 2007.[4]

Independent circuit

Big Vito (left) and Little Guido, two members of the Full Blooded Italians (F.B.I.) at the Hardcore Roadtrip's Born 2B Wired show in London, ON

After their release from WWE, Stamboli and Palumbo formed a tag team version of the F.B.I. in the Italy-based Nu-Wrestling Evolution,[5] using the gimmick to make themselves top fan favorites in the company until they left the promotion in 2006. On November 15, 2008, Little Guido and Tracy Smothers formed a version of the F.B.I. in Jersey All Pro Wrestling and defeated The Latin American Xchange in their first match to win the Tag Team Championship. Their success did not last long, as the F.B.I. lost the titles to D-N-A (Dixie and Azrieal) on December 13.

On August 4, 2010, it was confirmed that the F.B.I. would be taking part in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's ECW reunion show, Hardcore Justice, on August 8.[6] At the event Little Guido, Tony Mamaluke (billed as Tony Luke) and Tracy Smothers, accompanied by Sal E. Graziano, defeated Kid Kash, Simon Diamond and Johnny Swinger in a six man tag team match.[7] On the following edition of TNA Impact!, the ECW alumni, known collectively as EV 2.0 and represented by F.B.I. members Guido and Luke, were assaulted by A.J. Styles, Kazarian, Robert Roode, James Storm, Douglas Williams and Matt Morgan of Ric Flair's Fourtune stable, who thought they didn't deserve to be in TNA.[8][9] The following week TNA president Dixie Carter gave Guido, Luke and the rest of EV 2.0 TNA contracts in order for them to settle their score with Fourtune.[10] On the August 26 edition of Impact! Guido and Luke were squashed by Roode and Storm in a tag team match.[11] The match ended F.B.I.'s association with TNA.

The Full Blooded Italians were announced for the first-ever match of the new Extreme Reunion organization; which is conceived as a continuation of the original Extreme Championship Wrestling. Their opponents were announced as The Blue World Order (Stevie Richards and the Blue Meanie).[12] They reunited again on October 6, 2012, being defeated by Danny Doring and Roadkill in the House of Hardcore's first show.[13]

Incarnations

In wrestling

Championships and accomplishments

See also

References

  1. ↑ "SLAM! Sports - Wrestling - Nunzio". Slam.canoe.ca. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  2. 1 2 "Superstar > ECW > Nunzio > Bio". WWE. Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  3. ↑ "Wrestler Profiles". WWF Champs. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  4. ↑ "Tony Mamaluke released". Slam.canoe.ca. Retrieved 2011-12-19.
  5. ↑ "Evidence of FBI in NWE". Nwe-wrestling.com. Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  6. ↑ Nemer, Roy (2010-08-04). "New names announced for HardCORE Justice PPV". WrestleView. Retrieved 2010-08-04.
  7. ↑ Caldwell, James (2010-08-08). "Caldwell's TNA Hardcore Justice PPV results 8/8: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of ECW-themed PPV headlined by RVD vs. Sabu". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved 2010-08-08.
  8. ↑ Tomich, Kevin (2010-08-09). "TNA News: Spoilers - detailed Impact TV taping report for "Whole F'n Show" featuring new angle, MOTY candidate?, three title matches". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved 2010-08-12.
  9. ↑ Bishop, Matt (2010-08-12). "TNA's 'The Whole F'n Show': Beer Money, Machine Guns put on match of year candidate; Fortune makes statement". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2010-08-13.
  10. ↑ Wilkenfeld, Daniel (2010-08-19). "Wilkenfeld's TNA Impact report 8/19: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of Spike TV broadcast". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved 2010-08-19.
  11. ↑ Wilkenfeld, Daniel (2010-08-26). "Wilkenfeld's TNA Impact report 8/26: Ongoing "virtual time" coverage of Spike TV broadcast (updated)". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved 2010-08-27.
  12. ↑ "First Match Announced for Extreme Reunion: The Final Battle FBI vs BWO". extremereunion.net.
  13. ↑ Johnson, Mike (2012-10-06). "Complete House of Hardcore live coverage: Dreamer, Edge, Bucks, London, Kendrick, Carlito, and many more". Pro Wrestling Insider. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
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