I would hardly say Andre's career was comprised of short bursts. That could be used to describe Big Show, but not someone who made a career out of travelling the territories and beating their best numerous times. Andre dominated his opponents more often than not. Show has only done so in short bursts in between being a alignment flip flopper & jobber. He is very rarely used as a dominant force. That is the difference. I highly doubt Andre would be used in the same way considering he is 10x the talent Show is. If he was around in this time, I am sure he would have a few more losses to his name, but no way he would be misused like you imply.
As far as Cena having his way with Andre before pinning him....LO fucking L. Short bursts can also be used to describe Cena's show of strength against larger foes. He has never "done what he pleased" against the bigger guys. He may have shown great power by lifting them for an AA, but that is usually after he struggles to get them up once or twice. Plus, he isnt exactly known for throwing larger guys around with suplexes, etc. So implying he would toss Andre around or have his way with him is overselling his ability a bit & underselling Andre a lot.
Saying John beat Show =/= a win against Andre. Not the same guy & certainly not booked the same way in their careers. Lesnar is a more dominant comparable force the likes of Andre & Cena has a losing record against him. Including a huge loss where Cena was destroyed because Brock did what he pleased against him. Cena looked like a 90lb child against a grizzly bear in that match. Andre would surely take some damage from Cena, but it will not be enough to stop him.
I hope you're proud of yourself for completely misunderstanding my post and then going about arguing with yourself. I say that because nothing you said actually counters anything I said, it's taking select words and creating your own counter argument.
What I said is that eras DO make a difference in terms of how people are seen. Let me try again. If Big Show existed in 1970 and debuted a day before Andre, he'd be Andre. Not flipping face and heel, not being a guy people go over to get to the top, he'd be Andre. Why? Because he's a giant and nobody had seen that before (again, Andre is debuting the next night so Show is first). What made Andre a draw was that NOBODY else looked like him so people DID come to see him as a sideshow and promoters obliged by simply parading him out there to be a spectacle. He was a spectacle because of how big he was. There is no debating this.
Your comparison to Brock Lesnar then is WAY off base. Andre didn't do anything greater than anybody else other than being very large. Yes, he could move a bit in his younger years, but the draw is someone OF HIS SIZE moving, not that he moved better than others.
So then, and it may not have been this post, you suggested that Cena wouldn't be a draw in Andre's day? Well, let's examine that. We have a strong, muscular, good-looking Italian man with almost superhuman strength and off the charts charisma. Nope, a company like the WWWF would have no use for someone like that.........
As I said before, which you completely ignored because it's detrimental to your case, is that Cena is the modern day BRUNO SAMMARTINO. Andre and Bruno never fought. Not once. So you can run through all these other people Andre fought but it was never Bruno. Now why is that? Well, it's because Andre would have to lose and promoters didn't want to take away from Andre's traveling draw power in that way. He wasn't brought in to beat the top babyface of promotions, he was brought in to TAG with people like that.
So let's bring this around. A guy like John Cena is a top star in ANY era. Being good-looking, charismatic, and possessing ridiculous strength will always offer you a chance to be a star. Thus, Cena in the 70's in Andre's prime is a top star that Andre wouldn't fight. Now, Andre in 20005-2016 is a big guy that would be used like Big Show. Keep trying to argue against that but with working for only ONE company in this day and age, do you really think Andre would be booked the same as the 70's? Of course not. He'd be booked like Big Show because they're the same kind of guy. So, Andre in 2007 let's say, would be booked to lose to Cena. He'd be a guy that people beat to get over in Cena's world.
In conclusion, Andre holds the lure of being an international star because he was the first of his kind. Had anybody come before him that had his build and size, he'd be significantly less important. John Cena, however, with tons of competition of muscular, good-looking, charismatic guys, rose to the top of a crowded industry and never left. A guy like Cena is timeless and he's a better pro wrestler than Andre the Giant. I'm sorry that the vote went the way it did, because clearly people were not willing to look at things this way. It sucks, but what can you do.