Early career Bulfone, though born in
Italy, grew up in
Venezuela and began wrestling in
Caracas at age 18 in 1953. After he turned 20, he wrestled without the mask under his real name.
Tennessee In 1962, Bulfone moved to the United States to wrestle, originally under the name Mario La Pantera. After holding the title belts for one month, they
dropped them to
Tojo Yamamoto and Ivan Malenkov but regained them later in December 1963 when Malenkov left the territory and was a no-show at the title defense. He also had two reigns in 1967 as
IWA World Heavyweight Champion after defeating
Killer Kowalski and Ripper Collins. He used the Atomic Drop as a finisher, and did an angle where he used it on a 400-pound (180 kg) wrestler. In 2008 Mario appeared on Australian TV for
International Wrestling Australia (IWA) on their series Main Event Wrestling on the
Aurora Community Channel. He featured in 6 shows in an angle with resident heel champion
Mark Mercedes. Milano also appears in
Roy Slaven's South Coast News series, set in the NSW South Coast town of Ulladulla, as the proprietor of the Bluebird Cafe and the captain/coach of the local A-Grade
cricket team. Milano made a live appearance on Saturday 14 May 2011 for Melbourne-based promotion Professional Championship Wrestling.
WWWF In 1970 Milano wrestled for the World Wide Wrestling Federation in the Northeast (New York) territory where he was a babyface. Feuding with Eric the Red and
Professor Toru Tanaka. He only stayed with the company for a year.
Japan Bulfone wrestled for
All Japan Pro Wrestling on tours in 1975 to 1985 after
World Championship Wrestling shut down. ==Death==