A 75th-birthday bash for wrestling icon Capt. Lou Albano turned into a real-life “Wrestlemania” event when “The Sandman” allegedly got drunk and went berserk – and “The Zombie” and “Pitbull” struggled to restrain him as a SWAT team was called in.
“It was unbelievable – I’ve never seen anything like it,” one stunned party guest told The Post today, after wrestler Jim “The Sandman” Fullington found himself at the center of a bottle-hurling, glass-smashing melee with the owner of La Lanterna restaurant in Yonkers.
“If you didn’t know better, you’d think the whole thing had been staged.”
Five Yonkers cops, a SWAT unit and an ambulance had to be called to stop the brawl, which partygoers said started after Fullington exchanged words with eatery owner T.J. Tarone – who responded by shattering a beer bottle in the face of the 6-foot-6, 300-pound wrestler.
The bloodied and battered Fullington – an Extreme Championship Wrestling pro and longtime friend of the legendary Albano – left the party in an ambulance, and woke up in a Westchester jail cell today, charged with assault, according to Yonkers cops.
The bizarre scene unfolded late Sunday, after a daylong gathering of about 150 of Albano’s nearest and dearest, including Fullington and the other wrestlers.
Around 5 p.m., Fullington – who’d earlier given a touching toast to his pal – became loud and boisterous, witnesses said.
He was in the bar “smacking around the lights like they were a speedbag,” one source said.
“The next thing you knew, it was chaos,” a witness said.
Fullington went after Tarone, as fellow wrestlers Tim “The Zombie” Roberts and Gary “Pitbull” Wolfe took him outside and tried to calm him.
Then “the owner guy pulls out a beer bottle and – from about 3 feet away – just hauls off and whips it at this wrestler guy,” one witness said.
Albano’s agent and niece, Kami Albano, who had planned the soiree, confirmed that account.
“Sandman was bleeding all over the place,” she said.
An enraged Fullington broke free from his buddies and chased Tarone back through the restaurant into the kitchen.
There, witnesses said, “The Sandman” picked up dish-racks full of glassware and started throwing them through the air.
By then, cops had been called – and came into the kitchen with guns drawn.
A Yonkers police spokeswoman said Fullington “resisted arrest,” and that two cops were later treated for glass wounds and “exposure to blood.”
Tarone was at the beach today and through friends, declined comment.