Giant killers
Size does matter: A svelte Andre was a real ladies' man in Paris.
In nearly every radio interview Hulk Hogan conducts nowadays, when reminiscing about his WrestleMania 3 bout with the late Andre the Giant, the ever-humble Hulkster loves to crow about being the first man ever to body-slam “that 700-pound smelly Giant.” Ah, you’ve gotta love Hogan (unless you’re a diehard TNA fan, that is): If you’ve read his two fictional bios, you know he never lets the facts get in the way of a good story.
In fact, over the course of Andre’s career, the Giant was slammed by numerous men, including Harley Race, Ron Garvin, El Canek, Stan Hansen, Kamala and Antonio Inoki. Prior to their WrestleMania main event, Hogan had previously slammed the Giant few times during his first run in the Former Fed in 1980, including the high-profile bout at Shea Stadium. (The bout from Shea can be seen on the Hogan Ultimate Anthology DVD release, while the most recent–and possibly last– Hulk DVD from WWE, the Unreleased Collector’s Series, features the rare Hulk vs. Giant encounter from Madison Square Garden on September 1980. Both are available by clicking the Amazon links below.)
Actually, I believe the only men who didn’t slam Andre were George Gulas, Tojo Yamamoto, Mr. Guy Coffee, Little Beaver, Mike Jackson, Devil Blue, the Mulkey boys, George South and Eddie Mansfield. (Jim Wilson was promised an Andre slam, but it fell through when he refused to sleep with a homosexual promoter. David Von Erich, who was in line to be the next NWA World champion, was also guaranteed a slam on Andre but died weeks before their scheduled match.)
On to the video evidence:
I always found it laughable that Hogan pre-WM3 never really acknowledged his past feud with Andre back when he first came in with Freddie Blassie as a heel. I met Hogan back then when my High School Class used WWWF (yes WWWF, the World WIDE Wrestling Federation) as our fund raiser, and being one of the class reps, I used to help out with the show–everything from helping set up the ring, to getting the boys sodas (Freddie Blassie reamed me a new one when I came in to give Ivan Putski his Ginger Ales, catching him and Baron Mikel Scicluna, and a couple of Faces playing cribbage for cash against each other in the locker room–funny stuff). Hogan, as a Heel at the time, really was a jerk—I honestly think he was a natural asshole, and that even though Hulk-a-mania exploded after the MSG/Sheik deal, he was destined to be a heel eventually. Unfortunately Vince made him a megastar as a face, and he had to change Feds to go heel again, because the way he acted back in the early 80′s, he was by FAR the biggest jerk of the MANY guys (and ladies) I met in my 4 years of High School, when my Senior class did 6 WWWF cards that I worked all over the place on. (Taking Ted DiBiase to a back gym to shoot hoops and get him warmed up before his match was a bigtime highlight—he was a super nice guy—I brought him over to a batch of girls who were my friends, and he signed for each and every one of them—class act)
Most of what youve related jibes with my experiences over a 38 Yr period as a fan, beginning in the early 70s when I began to attend Mid Atlantic rasslin in Columbia SC. Ric Flairs carreer was just beginning and I saw him and the Late Johhny Valentine fued with Wahoo McDaniels. A few yrs later I moved to Atlanta and jumped on the GCW bandwagon in its ascendancy into national prominence via WTBS the Superstation. In those days ATlanta was the mecca for rasslin and the GCW show was the most watched show on cable in its time slot-6pm on Sat nite..
My job took me on the road a lot, nearly 100 miles a week pushin a car but throughtout my southeastern sales territory some customers were enviuos that I lived in Atlanta and had acess to the matches..hell, prior to arriving back home on Fri afternoon, Id pickup ringside seats at the old Sportatorium,,yeah that cheezy arena close by the Atlanta Dairy and a block off I 20, as it was on the way home.. Later that same night big Al my bud nI would see the wrestling at the old arena which is now part of the Ga State Univ campus…imagine that ringside seats for 5 bucks apiece in the 70′s..
Somewhere in time, you know you chat w folks in the audience..I learned that Ole Anderson,a wrestler, was actually the booker..and a fiarly nice guy.. Events thru the yrs confirmed that he was more than just one of the wrestlers..Ric Flair’s recent book..became the real roadmap of that era with all the behind the scenes politics which led GCW into the Turner era along with the NWA wolrd belt going into the Crockett promotion based in Charlotte.
The heels were really nice guys and the fan favorites the jerks…and so it goes..all for the show right?
I’m not 100% on this, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that Harley Race also slammed him at one point. Any truth to this?