Andre the Giant

by Michael Krugman

  Studd cuts away at André’s hair as Patera stomps on his back, Heenan kicking at SD as he attempts to climb into the ring.

  “I can’t believe it,” says Bruno, “that nothing is happening to stop this, this is ridiculous. They won’t stop, look at this [shot of big clumps of hair and a green peanut M&M on the canvas], both of them. Oh, my . . .”

  “A nightmare,” Vince agrees, “a complete nightmare. This is one of the most despicable displays of conduct in the history of World Wrestling Federation.”

  Heenan, Studd, and Patera circle the ring, displaying handfuls of hair as cups and assorted debris pelt them.

  HOWARD FINKEL “For John Studd and Ken Patera to go ahead and do what they did to André’s hair, that was sacrilege. Studd would bring the hair around and show everybody. If eBay was around back then, it would’ve been worth a gold mine.”

  December 1984: Mid-Hudson Civic Center, Poughkeepsie, NY

  PIPER’S PIT W/STUDD, PATERA, AND HEENAN

  “The greatest array of wrestlers in the world today,” says Roddy Piper, introducing his guests. “[They] made history by taking André the so-called Giant and making a complete blithering idiot of him. I’d like to ask one question, you first Mr. Heenan, was it premeditated?”

  “Oh, yes,” says the Brain. “It was planned from the very beginning. You probably wonder, why? Well, it’s simple. We wanted to demoralize this Giant, so-called Giant. We wanted to take his dignity from him and we wanted to embarrass André the Giant. And I think we did a heckuva job.

  “Did he look silly! I ain’t never seen nobody look sillier in their entire life.”

  “That’s because he’s already a big goof anyway, everybody realizes that,” interjects Patera. “It was premeditated, and the thing was, we didn’t realize how easy it was gonna be to knock the man unconscious and do what we did to him, and that was clip his hair and humiliate him.”

  “It also proved that there really is only one giant in professional wrestling,” declares Piper, “and that’s John Studd. Get up, show ’em the real giant!”

  Studd rises from his seat, holding up the bag of André’s hair. “This is something all you people will remember forever and ever and ever— André the Giant is in this bag! And you know what, Mr. Piper?”

  “What?”

  Studd opens up the bag. “Pick a lock.”

  “Pick a lock?”

  “By having us on your program, you may pick a lock of hair,” Heenan explains.

  Piper is positively gleeful at receiving such a prize. “Ha! This is André’s hair? It’s got fleas in it, man. It’s dirty and nasty, but I want one. [Pulling out a clump.] Oh! Ha ha! It’s mine! André, it’s been a pleasure!”

  January 21, 1985: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

  ANDRÉ VS. KEN PATERA (W/BOBBY HEENAN)

  “Privately, André vowed to me that it was just a matter of time and he would pay these gentlemen back,” says commentator “Mean” Gene Okerlund.

  “Well, he has to, Gene,” notes his broadcast partner, Gorilla Monsoon, “because he was humiliated on that particular day.”

  “Stripped of a great deal of dignity, it’s going to be very difficult to come back.”

  “Well, if anyone can, this individual can. . . .”

  “I concur,” Okerlund concurs.

  “...because this is not your run-of-the-mill nine-to-fiver, this guy’s gonna make these two individuals pay.”

  “Is he ever.”

  Patera gets into the ring. André gives him a knee to the midsection, a big right, and then chops him into the corner; a headbutt sends Patera to the mat. He rolls out and into Heenan’s arms.

  “André’s telling the referee to get in the corner and get out of the way and let me do my thing here,” Gene explains.

  Patera gets back in; André stands before him, seemingly unstoppable. Patera readies a punch; André gestures. “Come on, then.”

  Patera climbs back out to the apron. He gets back in, goes to another corner. André turns to him, rubbing his hands together, ready and waiting. Patera makes his move and lunges toward the Giant, but André open-hands him below the belt. Patera doubles over; André swings a big boot to the butt, sending Patera running to the ropes and out to the floor. Heenan consoles Patera, one arm around his wrestler, the other hand on the apron. André places his big blue boot on the Brain’s hand. Patera tries to pull the huge foot off and gets his own hand stepped on with André’s other foot. He reaches over and bashes their heads together, the heels each reeling backward as the 22,000 fans in a sold-out MSG crowd roar.

  Patera gets back in and raises a fist; André just grins his huge toothsome smile. Patera makes his move, but André grabs him and wraps his two huge hands around Patera’s throat.

  “Like a rag doll,” Monsoon says, “he’s shaking him, choking him.”

  “Like a child!” adds Mean Gene.

  André goes back onto the ropes and smashes his fist into Patera’s sternum. He stumbles forward and goes face-first onto the canvas. André grabs him up and chokes him with his singlet strap, shaking him violently back and forth. Reeling, Patera manages to roll out of the ring. André just misses grabbing him by the hair. Patera gets back in, holding a hand up as if to say, Don’t come any closer. André shakes his head, rubbing his shortened hair and making scissor gestures with his fingers to remind Patera of why he’s about to be destroyed. Patera just looks sad. André approaches; Patera gets his fists up in defensive position and lands two rights to the Giant’s jaw to little or no effect. André chops him down. André gets a bearhug on, squeezing Patera between himself and the turnbuckle. Headbutt, reverse knife-edge chop, Patera goes down. He rolls back up, but André grabs him and sends him into the ropes. André goes for a backdrop, but Patera comes back, boot extended. He begins punching André, landing four strong shots, stunning André.

  Sensing his opportunity, Patera goes to lift André for a bodyslam, but André breaks it up with a knee to the midsection. A big boot sends Patera down once more. André lifts Patera up and hits an atomic drop; Patera bounces up and over the top rope. A handful of hair brings Patera back up onto the apron and over the top into the ring. André sends Patera into the ropes and right back into a boot. Patera rolls to the apron, but another handful of hair lifts him up, back against the ropes. A shot to Patera’s sternum drops him; he falls into the ring ass first between the bottom ropes. André takes a seat on his neck and shoulders. Patera ends up on his back. André stands directly on top of him, the crowd going mental. Patera rolls out as André steps off.

  The ref tells André to be careful, but André rubs his shorn head, explaining why he’s breaking the rules. André finally follows Patera to the floor—punch, chop, and throws him into the steel railing. Pleased with his work, André, ever mindful of the regulations, rolls back into the ring.

  Patera is down on the floor; André is debating with the ref. Heenan slips on his brass knuckles and climbs to the top turnbuckle. He leaps up, rather ungracefully, and lands the knucks into the back of André’s head, sending him down and taking the ref with him. Heenan kicks and punches André’s enormous back as the Giant tries to regain his footing. André gets up, and Heenan starts punching him, the knucks doing their job, shaking up André and sending him down to the mat. Heenan gestures to Patera, who climbs up to the top. He goes for the splash, but André gets a boot up in time, right to Patera’s chin. Heenan tries to help Patera, but André grabs their heads and pushes them into the corner, his back pressing down against them both. After a couple of big butt shots, he whips Patera across the ring into the opposite corner.

  André slaps Heenan repeatedly, then whips him toward Patera, who gets down in time to avoid being hit by the Brain. Heenan, however, winds up in the corner, draped over the top turnbuckle. André takes Patera and tosses him toward the corner, knocking Heenan backward to the floor. A headbutt puts Patera down, and he bails out. The ref holds up André’s hand as Heenan and Patera stumble and crawl up the aisle
. The cops escort Patera to the back as the crowd goes crazy.

  January 22, 1985: Mid-Hudson Civic Center, Poughkeepsie, NY

  PIPER’S PIT W/ANDRÉ

  Roddy Piper welcomes André to his show. His associate, “Cowboy” Bob Orton, stands behind him, arms folded.

  “Hello.” Piper rises to greet his guest. André takes the waiting chair and throws it off the set. He stands close to Roddy, intimidating him with a slight smile.

  “Mr. Giant, sir. Mr. Giant, I would just like to explain to you that I have been a fan of yours for a long time, and I think that you’re a terrific person.”

  He moves his own chair behind him, and introduces Orton. “This is my bodyguard, Ace, and he’s been a fan of yours, and I think that is a terrible, terrible thing what John Studd and Ken Patera did to you, by taking you and cutting your hair in the ring. I’m a hundred percent on your side, sir!”

  “First of all,” says André, “next time you get me on the Piper’s Pit, get a chair in my size. I don’t like those small chairs. Another thing, about John Studd and Ken Patera, I will say one thing. I’m gonna get even, my way.”

  Orton claps and nods his head, but André glares at him, sensing the phoniness of the applause.

  “I agree that you’re gonna get even your way, sir,” Piper says. “And I’m a hundred percent behind you like I said, and what those guys did to you was terrible—”

  André points a finger in Piper’s face, interrupting. “I don’t want you to say ‘sir.’ I want you to say ‘Mr. Giant.’”

  “Mr. Giant,” Roddy continues, extending his hand, “it’s been a pleasure having you here, sir . . . Mr. Giant. It’s been a pleasure.”

  André just scowls and walks off, saluting the crowd but ignoring Piper’s hand.

  Piper and Orton pause, then take a look to be sure the Giant is gone. “What an idiot,” Roddy laughs. “Are you kidding me? What a jerk!”

  “I thought he looked bad with long hair,” drawls Ace.

  “He looks ridiculous! Let me tell you something, I’ve seen John Studd right beside me, and John Studd is bigger than André the Giant!”

  The crowd roars its disagreement, but Piper continues. “Are you kidding me? Let me tell you something, it’s obvious, quite obvious, the bigger they are, the tinier the brain!”

  Roddy puts a foot on the table and an arm around Orton’s shoulder. “That ain’t the problem in our case. This is Ace, my bodyguard. I loves my bodyguard. Ha, ha. André, you’re such a goof.”

  March 5, 1985: Mid-Hudson Civic Center, Poughkeepsie, NY

  JOHN STUDD (W/BOBBY HEENAN) VS. JIM YOUNG

  Heenan takes the mic after Finkel introduces Studd, who is waving a plastic baggie filled with André’s shorn locks. “Holding in his hand, $15,000 and the bag of hair of the head of the dummy, André the so-called Giant.”

  Howard Finkel informs challenger Jim Young that if he can slam Studd, the $15,000 prize is his. Young immediately tries to scoop up Studd, but to no avail. A dropkick shakes Studd up, but Young is still unable to lift the big man on his second attempt. A forearm across the back and a clothesline puts the kibosh on Young’s offense. Studd covers—taking a handful of hair—and gets a one-count. Studd lifts Young and drops him across the ropes, then goes for another cover, this time getting two. Studd lifts Young up and slams him just as André arrives, removing his sports coat during his walk up the aisle.

  Studd hammers him into the corner the moment he gets into the ring. André chops and headbutts and punches, while Studd continues to throw forearms. A chop to the throat puts Studd down, and he immediately rolls out to the floor.

  André wants more, but Heenan keeps Studd from reentering the ring. “They were going at it like animals,” says Vince McMahon on commentary. “Two giant-sized animals!”

  Finkel announces Studd as the winner by disqualification at 1:15. The crowd chants “André! André! André!”

  BIG JOHN STUDD: “Giant? I’m the real giant and a giant killer besides. I don’t need Ken Patera nor anyone else to help me put André down on his face again. And if that ox of a Frenchman thinks I hurt his pride before, wait until I get a second chance to do it again.”

  In 1985, with World Wrestling Federation now dominating the industry, McMahon unveiled plans for a major event, dubbed WrestleMania. Slated for March 31 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, the show would officially confirm the company’s status as a national promotion by being broadcast across the country on closed-circuit TV. WrestleMania would be headlined by World Wrestling Federation Champion—and burgeoning pop culture icon—Hulk Hogan, teaming up with The A-Team’s Mr. T in a match versus top heel Roddy Piper (and his bodyguard, Cowboy Bob Orton) and Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff.

  To add broad appeal to the show, McMahon brought in a star-studded roster of celebrities, such as flamboyant piano player Liberace, New York Yankees manager Billy Martin, Radio City Music Hall’s Rockettes, and “the Greatest” himself, Muhammad Ali. Most significantly, McMahon cross-promoted with the newly created MTV by involving pop star Cyndi Lauper in the Women’s Championship program, a relationship that became known as “The Rock ’n’ Wrestling Connection.”

  Of course, no World Wrestling Federation supercard would be complete without an André the Giant match. He was pitted against his archrival Studd in the biggest Bodyslam Challenge of all, with $15,000 on the line for the winner.

  FINKEL: “Hulk Hogan was the goose that laid the golden egg, make no mistake about it. But André was an attraction unto himself. That’s why he got the name ‘the Eighth Wonder of the World.’ André was unique, and nobody ever challenged that. The perfect man for André at WrestleMania was John Studd. There was no doubt about it. You had two big behemoths, and back then, big was better and better meant box office.”

  On March 15, André promoted his upcoming match at WrestleMania with a visit to Tuesday Night Titans, the World Wrestling Federation’s hilarious takeoff of the classic late-night talk-show format. The program was hosted by Vince McMahon, who sat behind a desk not unlike that of Johnny Carson or David Letterman. And like Carson, Vince was joined by an amiably sycophantic sidekick in Lord Alfred Hayes.

  “Welcome back to TNT,” says McMahon, shaking André’s huge hand. “My goodness, I think you’re larger now than when you were previously on TNT. Are you gaining weight, André?”

  “A little bit.”

  “A little bit?”

  “Almost five hundred now.” The Giant grins.

  “Almost five hundred pounds?”

  Lord Alfred Hayes is appropriately stunned. “Phew! Gosh!”

  “A long way from since you first met me first time,” André says, turning to his old friend.

  “When you were seventeen,” Hayes remembers. “Oh gosh, a long way.”

  “You fellas go a long way back,” explains McMahon, “to when André was seventeen.”

  “When I first start, yes.”

  “And Alfred was old even then,” jokes Vince.

  “Ha ha, thanks a lot.” Lord Alfred laughs.

  “At that time,” André notes, “I was only two hundred and seventy pounds.”

  “Two hundred and seventy pounds, André.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You had a devastating dropkick too,” recalls Hayes.

  “Is that right?” asks McMahon. “Do you find now, with your weight, the mobility is still there? Do you find that it’s an asset when you’re meeting, let’s face it, you’re meeting, well as a matter of fact, you’re meeting a giant in his own right, on March 31, a man who’s very close to the four-hundred-pound mark now, he’s huge, Big John Studd?”

  “Right, then you get another guy, you get Ken Patera, who can push five hundred pounds over his head,” says André, noting, “but he never did it with me.”

  “No, I’m sure a barbell, balanced as it is, is totally different than the way your weight is distributed.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” rebuts the Giant. “I pick up four
hundred pounds before.”

  “I have no doubt about that,” agrees McMahon. “What we’d like to do is

  Headlock on Studd, WrestleMania.

  take you back, take you to a match, this matchup, very, very important because it pits André the Giant against Ken Patera. Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan, and this is in Madison Square Garden, and this is a match that André the Giant positively had to win.”

  The match—billed as “The Battle of the Behemoths”—is screened. “That was the very first match you’d had since Heenan, Patera, and Studd attempted to rape your dignity,” says McMahon upon its conclusion. “You were determined more than ever to right the wrong, but you didn’t quite do it all the way. On March 31, there’s an awful lot at stake at Madison Square Garden, as fans watch literally all over the world via satellite or on closed-circuit television all over this country. A tremendous amount at stake, because this is the final chapter that you can write, be it André finally for the first time, bowing in defeat to Big John Studd, who’s bulked up to almost four hundred pounds, looks better than he’s ever looked in his life. Fifteen thousand dollars on the line as well, as they have placed fifteen thousand dollars in jeopardy should you slam Big John Studd.

  “I wonder, there have been a number of things brought, a number of questions asked by Bobby Heenan and others, is André the Giant willing to put up anything? They’re willing to put up fifteen thousand dollars—”

  “I will to tell you,” André interrupts. “I put my hair up already. They cut my hair.”

  “No, I understand that—”

  “They got my hair,” the Giant says. “But I’m going to tell you one thing, I don’t come into the ring to be a loser. I’ll come into Madison Square Garden—not just Madison Square Garden, but there will be all over the world for this match—but believe me, I don’t come in there to get beat. I come there to win.”