Exactly 76 years ago, on May 19, 1946, a man was born who would forever go down in the history of not only sports, but also broadly understood entertainment, or actually André René Roussimoff – he was the son of a Polish woman and a Bulgarian.
He was born in the French Coulommiers and grew up in and around Grenoble. Already at school it became clear that the boy is not the most ordinary. When he was 12, he was already over 190 centimeters and weighed nearly one hundred kilograms. Soon after, it was no longer fit on the school bus and was taken to school by its neighbor, the Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett. Exactly the same Beckett who later won the Nobel Prize. But Andre quickly abandoned it, because he decided that it would not be useful to him anyway. Why? Because he would spend the rest of his life working in the fields. And there he was doing brilliantly and doing work alone that three adult men could do.
“I’ll be the owner of a car like this one day,” he said about the Rolls-Royt who often passed the fields. “Stop dreaming and start plundering,” replied the father. After a few years, when he arrived in the black limousine at the house, neither his mother nor father recognized him. He was already someone else. Both in appearance and status.
240 kilograms and steel broken at the nape of the neck
When he was 14, he went to Paris, where he wanted to use his great physical abilities. At the gym, he met a few wrestlers who saw his potential right away. He also quickly jumped into the ring to replace his injured friend and immediately made a sensation. He met promoter Frank Valois and his career took an incredible momentum. Andre quickly became a star, incl. on the Japanese wrestling scene. There he heard a sentence that changed his life forever. – Your gigantic height is not a coincidence, you suffer from gigantism and probably will not live to the age of 40 – he heard from doctors. Andre The Giant was 224 centimeters tall at the time and weighed about 240 kilograms. However, it did not bother him in numerous appearances in Canada, the USA or even in Africa.
He had incredible strength. One of Giant’s legendary photos is that of four adult women on his shoulders. And the witnesses also talked about transferred cars and other superhuman efforts.
The Americans saw a gold vein in it
Just three years after starting his wrestling career, he came to the USA, where Sr. he saw the enormous potential of the giant. He knew perfectly well that he could become a real gold mine for the organization. And it really was. In 1974, he was even entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the highest-paid professional wrestler in his history. Roussimoff was then getting $ 400,000 a year.
For nearly 15 years, Andre The Giant was created undefeated and fought unforgettable duels, including with Hulk Hogan, the biggest star of American wrestling at the time.
And it was the moment of the clash between the two stars that went down in the history of sports entertainment forever. On March 29, 1987, in the presence of over 93,000 rampant fans at the now defunct Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan, Hulk Hogan fought the giant at WrestleMania III and at one point performed a slam that would forever become a symbol. Hulk Hogan grabbed a giant weighing over 240 kg and threw it against the ring, after a while he made his finishing action and defeated Andre The Giant. Even in a career as rich and prolific as that of the popular Hulkster, it was precisely this moment, this match that redefined his history, and the shot of the lifted giant is still often remembered today.
Although their fight drew a record number of people to the stadium, their rematch two months later drew over 33 million viewers on American NBC TVs, making it the most watched wrestling match in history. The popularity of the giant also translated into other proposals and in the 1980s he starred in several films produced in Hollywood.
In a boxing match, he threw the boxer from the ring
Of course, it is known that pro-wrestling is directed and has its predetermined script, but the great power of Andre The Giant was also tested in a duel that was not directed. In 1976, Andre took on a fight with boxer Chuck Wepner. The fight was broadcast live on television just before the fight called “the war of the worlds”, that is, the fight against the Japanese wrestler – Antonio Inoki.
Interestingly, a year earlier, Chuck Wepner withstood 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali in the ring, but lost the duel 19 seconds before the end. In the fight against Andre, he was also not very lucky. He lost in the third round when he was thrown out of the ring by the top lane. The fight took place on not entirely standard boxing rules, because the boxer was wearing gloves and The not, although he could not inflict typical boxing blows, and he focused only on other techniques. Today it is believed that this showdown was intended to inspire the filmmakers of Rocky 3. Specifically, it’s about the showdown between Thunderlips (played by Hulk Hogan) and Rocky Balboa (played by Sylvester Stallone).
If Andre had spent a few years outside the ring and started training as the best players do, the world records for powerlifting in both squats and deadlifts would fall. I have no doubts. He was a miracle of nature. I saw him pick up a 250-pound guy like he would pick up a coat. Everyone saw what he did to Wepner, said Ken Pater, a former American weightlifter.
“The greatest drunk in the world”
It would be hard to know who has ever drank the most alcohol in history, but one thing is for sure: Andre The Giant would definitely be in the lead. It was not by accident that his best friends and other wrestling stars gave him the nickname “the greatest drunk in the world”. In turn, Mike Graham once admitted that one evening, Giant drank 156 cans, or over 55 liters (about 14.6 gallons or 1,872 ounces of beer!). Incredible as it sounds, the story was confirmed by Dustin Rhoads as well. But the story in one of the Japanese restaurants ended much worse for him, where he was to take up the challenge of drinking over 100 beers. He drank exactly 119 of them in six hours, and he drank one beer every three minutes on average. After that, however … he fell asleep. Nobody was able to carry him to his room either, so he stayed at the hotel bar until he woke up.
His drunken exploits were also known in the United States. They were even described in a book about the making of the film “Bride for a Prince”. Drunken Roussimoff was then supposed to fall over on a random person, which is why rumor says that the New York police were following the star on purpose and intervened when something bad could happen.
“There are many crazy stories about Andre that sound like lies today, but most of them really happened. Once Andre asked me to bring him six bottles of wine. He drank it and then went to the ring, said Gerald Brisco, a former wrestling star, quoted by the Tampa Bay Times. – I once bought a case of Pouilly-Fuissé wine, which is 12 bottles of very strong white French wine. We had an eight-hour bus journey ahead of us. About three hours later, Andre The Giant shook my seat and says, “Boss, I need a toilet.” In three hours on the bus, he drank 12 bottles of wine! – Hulk Hogan told in an interview with CBC.
In a high-profile interview with David Letterman many years ago, he admitted that he gave up alcohol to lose weight to about 215 kilograms. But giving up alcohol meant he was drinking 3-5 bottles a day anyway.
Unexpected death
Although doctors did not give him a chance to live more than 40 years, it seemed that the star would be able to trick destiny. Unfortunately, Andre The Giant died unexpectedly on January 27, 1993 at the age of 46. The story of his death is so sad that Roussimoff died in a hotel in Paris where he came for his father’s funeral. The cause of the trash was to be circulatory failure and a heart attack.
Unfortunately, the doctors’ predictions were correct, because the last years of his career caused him unimaginable pain. Andre The Giant underwent surgeries to relieve pressure on his spine. And beneath his black suit, he had an orthosis to help keep him upright. He also had more and more problems with his knees every year, but he still showed up in the ring despite the great pain.
The great star of Andre The Giant is best evidenced by the fact that a few months later his home federation introduced him as the first person to the Hall of Fame. In turn, in 2014 WWE decided to honor the Giant by the annual organization Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal – a wrestling multiplayer fight, the stake of which is a special trophy commemorating the legend of the giant.
Source: Sport
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
