Andre the Giant

by Michael Krugman

  Kicking back.

  5

  In 1982, Tim White began working for World Wrestling Federation, manning the merchandising booth that traveled with the show. The Providence, Rhode Island, native was planning a career in law enforcement, and took the job as a way of passing time before entering the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia. Little did White know that he would enjoy a long career in the wrestling business, both behind the scenes and in the ring as a referee.

  Most significantly, he would become one of André’s nearest and dearest friends, though their first meeting was not an auspicious one.

  TIM WHITE: “Back then it was old-school, the wrestling. The wrestlers’ locker room was the wrestlers’ locker room. I mean, nobody except wrestlers went in there. I didn’t know all these rules when I went in.

  “Chief Jay Strongbow was the lead agent running the show. He had asked me earlier in the hallway to bring him something from the merchandise booth. So I went up and put it in a little bag, then I went back down and said, ‘Where’s the Chief?’

  “They said, ‘He’s in the locker room.’ So I walked right into the locker room. I walked through that door like I belonged, and André was sitting there playing cards. I got about three steps, he looked over at me and goes, ‘OUT.’ I went, ‘But I’m here to give—’

  “‘Go home.’ He went to stand up, and I just turned around and ran for my life. When I got outside, my heart was pounding. Finally the Chief came out and goes, ‘You can never walk into a locker room like that. You knock on the door, ask for me, I’ll come outside.’ And I learned. But the first time André and I ever looked at each other, he gave me the wrestler’s rush out of that locker room. I was scared to death.

  “That was my first encounter with André. After that I stayed far away from him and any of the guys, ’cause I felt like, I don’t belong near the wrestlers, my job is to do the merchandise. Well, Arnie—God bless him, I loved him like a second dad— every night he’d come up to me and Mike Breen, who was a great friend, we worked together doing this stuff, and say, ‘Where are you guys staying tonight?’

  “See, Arnie wanted to make sure, right down to the little guys out front selling the programs, you’re on the road, you are part of our team. And we’d say, ‘We don’t know,’ and he’d give us a place.

  “The boys had built a book—when we’re in Scranton, here’s where we stayed, they give us a rate, like that. So we started staying at the hotels that they did. And of course there’d always be a lounge in the hotel or else believe me, none of us would be staying there. Because at the end of your day, you wanna sit down and relax.

  “Arnie would see Mike and I come in and he’d put us over with André. He’d go, ‘Hey, there’s those kids.’ And André goes, ‘Who are they?’ and he’d say, ‘Oh, they’re good kids, they’re good kids.’ After a few times of seeing us around, finally André said, ‘Come on over here, boys, have a drink with us,’ and that started it. That started it. We started talking, and then our natural chemistry came out.

  “As we got to know each other, I just saw what a real nice human being he was. Because of his being a giant and a big, huge star—at that time, André and Muhammad Ali were the most recognizable athlete celebrities in the world—the people never got to know him. You can’t hug the whole world.

  “But he really was the greatest guy. The people in his closest circle he loved to death. He made himself the brunt of his own jokes, he just wanted you to be happy. Imagine that? He wanted you to be happy.”

  White bonded with André and Skaaland and, before long, was invited to travel with them. Later, when Skaaland began spending less and less time on the road, White took over his role as André’s regular traveling companion.

  TIM WHITE “Arnie used to be the driver. He was the one that used to drive, and they’d run together and travel together. I became the third wheel, and when Arnie started to get off the road, it was kind of a handoff. He picked me, just like André picked Hogan to carry on. Arnie felt, being André’s best friend, that I would be a guy that would care about him and take care of him.”

  HOWARD FINKEL “André, Arnie, and Timmy were like the three amigos. They were inseparable when they were all on the road. They just had a blast wherever they went. They could drink, they could eat, they could be merry.”

  TED DIBIASE “I had a tremendous time with the guy. Traveling with André, you couldn’t buy anything. Nothing. We’d go somewhere to eat, he’d pick up the tab. We traveled a lot with Tim White. We had one of those great big conversion vans and Tim would drive, with me and André sitting in the back watching movies and drinking beer.”

  SHANE McMAHON “The André van was a cool thing. André didn’t fit anywhere. We tried to find big cars, but it was hard for him to be comfortable. Finally my dad got him the André van, which was a custom coach with a pop top for extra headroom, a big captain’s swivel chair to make it easy for him to sit comfortably. He’d get in, and the van would tip.”

  TIM WHITE “We found a place in Long Island that did custom vans. We pulled all the seats out, put a TV and a phone and a big captain’s chair in the back. It had everything. It was state-of-the-art back then. That’s what we used locally. The two of us were just amazed every time we picked up the phone and were able to call France while we were driving down the highway.

  “Now, when we had to go to the Midwest or California, part of my job was to call camper rental places to find something that André could fit in and ride comfortably. Several times we had an RV. When I got an RV, André would give me a list of the guys he wanted to ride with us, like Gorilla and Pedro. Oh my God, it was hilarious what went on.

  “These guys, they were the legends of the business. I’m driving down the highway with Pedro and Gorilla and Arnie and André, everyone laughing, telling stories, playing cards. I loved it. The travel, the guys, the wrestling. I don’t know how I got so lucky.”

  Mile after mile of excessive drinking and long-distance driving has its charms, but it also has its dangers. As it traveled along America’s highways and byways, André’s traveling saloon would occasionally run afoul of local authorities.

  TIM WHITE “We got pulled over for speeding a couple of times, quite a few times, because we were always in a hurry to get to the next place before they closed.

  “Once in St. Louis I had to do the field sobriety thing outside the car. I only had maybe one or two beers in the locker room, so I was good with it. Now this police officer wasn’t really on the ball. When he didn’t see anyone in the passenger seat, he assumed I’m the only one in the van.

  “He says, ‘Okay, license, registration.’ I said, ‘You’re pulling me over for the speed, I suppose?’ He goes, ‘Yeah. You been drinking?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I had a beer or two,’ and he asked me to step out of the van.

  “So he’s got me touching my nose and standing on one foot and doing all this shit. He goes, ‘You’re okay but I’m gonna run your license now.’ I get back in the van, and all of a sudden, André’s hand comes out of the back with a beer. The officer jumps back, like, ‘What the—’ He looks in the van and goes, ‘Oh, my God, that’s André the Giant!’

  “André says, ‘Congratulations on passing the test, Timber,’ and hands me a beer. ‘Go ahead, drink it,’ the cop says. ‘I don’t care, that’s André the Giant in there!’ We laughed our asses off all the way back down the highway.”

  Of course, one couldn’t live entirely on the road. André made his home in a sprawling 200-acre ranch in Ellerbee, North Carolina. A lifelong aficionado of Western films, the Giant populated his homestead—dubbed “the AJF Ranch” after himself, his friend, former traveling companion, and estate manager Frenchy Bernard, and Frenchy’s wife, Jackie—with a variety of livestock, including horses and longhorn cattle.

  TIM WHITE “Somebody told André that he’d get all sorts of tax breaks if he raised livestock. ‘This place would be perfect for you,’ they told him. ‘It’s huge and it’s out of the way so you can have your ow
n retreat.’ He went down there, made the deal.

  “The ranch was beautiful. It had a tree growing right through the middle of it, skylights, big decks, a huge gazebo in the yard.

  “He had some of the most hellacious parties. Typical André, they lasted a day or two. Never ended. I remember André telling me that they found Albano passed out in the woodshed one time.”

  Squashing Big John Studd,

  WrestleMania.

  6

  When Vince McMahon took charge of World Wrestling Federation in 1983, he changed the very nature of the business. Though wrestlers traditionally traveled from one outfit to the next, each one covering a particular region, McMahon’s newly nationalized promotion required Superstars to work only for him. André had been a hugely valuable commodity for the various territories, and McMahon knew that in order to build his brand, he’d have to maintain control over the Giant’s career. In 1984, he signed André to a contract that excluded him from working anywhere other than with the company, though he did allow him to continue wrestling with New Japan.

  VINCE McMAHON “We were in competition with all those other promoters, so I couldn’t have André, who was one of our greatest assets, go work with them. I don’t think André appreciated that too much. It’s ironic—André never bitched about a payoff. After those old promotion days were over and he was strictly working in our organization, he made more money than he’d ever made. But that wasn’t it with André. He wasn’t about the money. The fact that he was earning three times more than he ever did before didn’t really mean that much to him.

  “When he was in the territorial system, he wanted to be paid top dollar, whatever top dollar was. And in some of those small markets, it wasn’t a lot of money. Then, when I wouldn’t let him go and he was only working here, he made three times as much or maybe even more. But that didn’t mean that much to André. He wanted to be there with the top earners, but the money didn’t mean anything to him.

  “He was missing those days, he was missing those promoters that he had good times with. The other promoters were all pissed off at me, naturally. These were my dad’s friends, these were André’s friends, and I’d made them enemies. And now I wouldn’t let André go and perform for them.”

  “André was the first internationally recognized athlete in our business, so therefore he was a tremendous asset to me. Of course Hogan came on the heels of that and we were expanding, getting more and more exposure. But André was definitely instrumental in our initial success.”

  JERRY LAWLER “Vince Jr. bought out his dad and the following year he started showing World Wrestling Federation shows on the USA TV network. That cable exposure meant that many local promotions had to compete with a national power, and they didn’t have the money or talent to do it. . . . Vince started signing all the top stars and buying out other promotions. . . . Soon he didn’t have to buy the territories, he could just roll over them.

  “A lot of people had said that Vince’s dad would never have done what Junior did. He was more of a traditionalist and a mild, easygoing kind of guy. He probably wouldn’t have let him buy all the territories, mostly because of the alliance that he’d been part of. That was the business as he knew it, and he wouldn’t have wanted to be the guy to change that.

  “[Vince’s] expansion plans caused the other territories to fall by the wayside. What Vince did was sign up nearly all the good wrestlers. It was easy to do because all the guys wanted to get on cable. They knew they’d be seen all over the country rather than just on regional TV. . . . So from the AWA in Minneapolis, for example, he hired Bobby Heenan, he hired Hulk Hogan, he hired Jesse Ventura, he hired Gene Okerlund, all the top guys. Then he went right back into Minneapolis with those guys and all of his wrestlers too and promoted shows. Fans would see all the guys they were used to seeing, plus all these other stars. . . . This happened all over the country.”

  TED DIBIASE “I spent the better part of the first twelve years of my career in Mid-South. It was a long, tough territory, the trips were ridiculous, but Bill Watts was a tremendous promoter and very savvy. By the time Bill realized what Vince was doing it was too late for him to make a move.”

  André was without doubt the preeminent big man in professional wrestling, but he was not the only one. Promoters everywhere had matched André with other behemoths, including Don Leo Jonathan and Ernie Ladd.

  McMahon followed suit in this respect, knowing that pitting André in a titanic program with another big man would generate enormous attention and, of course, huge box office returns. Other than André, the biggest big man under contract was one John William Minton—known far and wide as Big John Studd.

  Billed as six-foot-ten, 364 pounds, Studd was trained by another legendary big man—and André rival—Killer Kowalski. The renowned heel gave his pupil his first big break by teaming as the Executioners. Their faces hidden under black masks, the duo won WWWF World Tag Team gold in May 1976. Known simply as Executioner #1 and Executioner #2, Kowalski and Minton dominated the WWWF tag team division for much of the year, though their reign ended in ignominious defeat when Executioner #3—the infamous Nikolai Volkoff—interfered in a title match against Chief Jay Strongbow & Billy White Wolf. The Executioners were stripped of their championship, and the two wrestlers moved on to continue their respective singles careers.

  From there, Minton hit the road hard, working under an assortment of monikers like Chuck O’Connor, Captain USA, and The Masked Superstar II. In 1977, he adopted the handle that he would soon make famous. Wrestling as John Studd, he defeated Bruiser Brody to win the NWA American Heavyweight Championship, a title he held for only two months. Studd found a steady base of operations with Jim Crockett’s Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, where he won tag team gold with both Ric Flair and later, his future partner Ken Patera.

  Of course, in those territory days wrestlers weren’t bound by promotion, and Studd often ventured north to work for Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling, as well as for Verne Gagne’s AWA. His AWA career included a number of successful programs, against Dino Bravo and Mad Dog Vachon, as well as several unsuccessful title shots against promoter/champion Verne Gagne. In 1981, Studd won NWA gold once more, defeating Angelo Mosca for the Canadian Heavyweight title. Feuds with Ric Flair and Blackjack Mulligan followed, as well as a NWA Georgia Tag Team Championship with Super Destroyer in 1982.

  Later that same year, Studd was brought to Eddie Graham’s Championship Wrestling from Florida by J. J. Dillon, where he was put into programs with Barry Windham, Cowboy Ron Bass, and of course, the promotion’s biggest star, Dusty Rhodes. Before the year was out, Studd teamed with Jim Garvin to win the first-ever Global Tag Team Championship tournament. The title reign was short-lived, dropping the championships to Windham and Bass just two weeks later.

  Studd landed on his feet soon thereafter, signing with the dominant World Wrestling Federation. With “Classy” Freddie Blassie as his manager, Studd was quickly put into the title chase against World Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Champion Bob Backlund. Though he failed to capture the gold, Studd earned a reputation as a big man to be reckoned with. Blassie pushed the point by holding weekly bodyslam challenges, with thousands going to the wrestler who could lift and drop Studd to the mat.

  On February 15, 1983 at Allentown, Pennsylvania’s Agricultural Hall— the site of the company’s monthly Championship Wrestling tapings—André answered the challenge.

  February 15, 1983: Agricultural Hall, Allentown, PA

  Blassie and Studd’s Bodyslam Challenge is now at $10,000. Debris is being flung immediately upon their arrival. The challenger is announced initially as Chief Jay Strongbow, but the Chief comes out from the back and signals a change in plans. The curtains part and a smiling André emerges, to Studd’s shock and dismay.

  Studd tries to weasel out, but the crowd demands the Challenge take place. André stands grinning in the middle of the ring, waiting for Studd to take his shot. “Come on,” he gestures, pointing at the canvas in fro
nt of him. “Right here.”

  Blassie walks up behind Studd. As André scoops up Studd, Blassie wraps his arms around his wrestler’s waist. André tries to lift Studd twice before getting wise and shoving Studd into the ropes. Blassie turns to scurry away, but André shoves his shoulders, causing the Classy One to tumble to the canvas, bills flying out of his hand. Backed into the corner, he begs off and shoves some cash at André, who tosses it away. Studd attacks with a double ax-handle to André’s neck, then hammers with forearms to his shoulders. A series of boots double the Giant over in the corner, but André fights back with wild chops. Studd drops and rolls out under the ropes.

  VINCE McMAHON: “Studd was six-ten and about 350, a good-sized man. But not even close to André. Studd was a nice guy, but he was scared to death of André. He always thought of himself as this big giant—which he was—but André was a legitimate giant. In any event, André sensed that John didn’t have any balls, and that was that. If you’ve got no nuts, you really shouldn’t be in the business, especially if you’re a big guy.”

  TIM WHITE “He didn’t respect Big John too much. He had problems with John, he had problems with Dino Bravo, he had problems with a few other guys. But when I got into that with him, ‘Don’t worry, boss,’ would be his answer to me.

  “I liked Big John. I always saw him trying to be André’s friend, and it was kinda pathetic because you could see he wasn’t buying into it.”

  SHANE McMAHON: “André didn’t like anybody else that was remotely big. He wanted to be the only giant, because that was his thing.”

  Beginning in March, André and Studd battled on a regular basis, including a number of six-, eight-, and ten-man Best-Three-Out-of-Five Falls matches, alongside such top stars as Bob Backlund, Rocky Johnson, Jimmy Snuka, Tony Garea, and Chief Jay Strongbow vs. major heels like Don Muraco, the Wild Samoans, Mr. Fuji, and Sgt. Slaughter. Steel Cage matches and further Bodyslam Challenges became a staple of their feud, with bloody bouts in Boston Garden, New Jersey’s Meadowlands, the Los Angeles Sports Arena, and the Philadelphia Spectrum.