Would Andre The Giant Have Been As Big Today?

[Dagger Dias]

Honestly.... I don't think so. In today's product you cannot get by on simply being a huge heavyweight giant. That's boring. You need to be able to cut great promos and then back them up in the ring. I find nearly every big guy to be boring, and I know for a fact I am in the minority here, but I never liked Andre. Perhaps I am a bit biased. I don't hate all big guys though. If they give me a reason to care about their matches, I will watch and be more likely to enjoy. Undertaker for example, is a big guy. He also has an awesome gimmick, good promo skills, and puts on great matches. Andre would need more than the giant gimmick in order to make it if he was a part of today's product. He would likely have seen about as much success as Big Show, and that's only if he didn't get fed to guys like Cena or Orton following his push.

 

[Goldie]

People are obviously remembering the past his peak age 40something Andre in the late 80s. When he was younger he weighed it around 350 and was even know to throw a dropkick! He was also a big big star in the 1970s... and one of the most recognised people in sport.

However when we are talking about having the same impact today? maybe not.
Promos and mic work are much more important pieces of the package today... and Andre was very softy spoken. His size and bulk helped make up his aura.

Thoug if still pushed correctly (as a giant should be) .... unlike Big Show who has lost to countless small wrestlers and (non-wrestlers like Flloyd Mayweather) ... then Andre may still be relevant

 

[justtxyank]

No. Andre, like most giants, has appeal in wrestling because they seem impossible to beat. Eventually though they have to lose. The territory days made this easy. Move from locale to locale, feuding with top guys and never staying too long. It helped Kamala be an icon during the territories as well. The problem is, once you are on tv and you lose, as a Giant where do you go from there? You can only be reinvented so many times.

Look at Big Show. He doesn't have the drawing power he should. He was an OUTSTANDING worker for a big man in his prime. WCW got a lot of run out of him. But once Hogan's beat him, and Sting's beat him and Luger's beat him...what do you do with him? Eventually by the end of 98 he was an afterthought. He had run through good feuds but the mystique was off.

Yokozuna. Umaga. Etc. If they are booked as monsters they can only run the course until they aren't unbeatable anymore. How many times can "slamming Andre" be cool? He can't win all the time on tv because people will tire of it but he if he loses too much he loses the luster.

 

[byrnside]

Well since the question was would Andre be as big today as he was, my answer, unfortunately, is no. I can't help but think of The Great Khali, the guy is not much shorter than Andre and Andre couldn't do much more than Khali and think of how much most (all?) of us complain about him wasting precious TV time. The Big Show is twice as agile as Andre was and he isn't that special any more, either. On that note, Andre was/is perhaps the greatest legend of all time. He was wrestling before wrestling was wrestling. He was special and every one loved him and he didn't take shit from any one. The man was the very definition of respect. I'll never forget Bobby Heenan telling the story about Andre not letting The Ultimate Warrior have his way during a match and Andre laid him out. Priceless.

 

[MrMojoRisin]

Would Andre have been as big today?

Yes and no.

No in that the business is completely different than it was in Andre's day. One of the things Andre benefited from hugely was the fact that he never stayed in one area long enough to get over-exposed. Not in the fact that he wasn't as good as his legend said he was... because he was that good... but you can't be as unbeatable as Andre was, and never be a champion, like Andre would never be, without exposing yourself.

The way the business is today, he wouldn't really have anywhere else to go. It would be WWE every week, and eventually he'd get stale. He'd have to lose. The aura wouldn't be there. To run the same gimmick, he'd have to be used exclusively as an attraction, with limited dates every year. Bring him out every couple of months to run an angle, then keep him off TV for a while. No idea how something like that would work over a period of years though.

Yes in the fact that he's still Andre. Before his disease started wearing him down, he was just phenomenal. Even after, he was still so respected and revered by everyone in the business, that the normal rules didn't apply to him. You'd never see Andre doing the types of jobs that Big Show does. You'd never see Andre as a Khali type character. He would lose more, but every single loss would be something special. Something monumental. Not only did he respect his position too much to allow that to happen, but so did everyone else.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

That there are so many 7ft+ guys in the business these days kinda shows the answer. If there was one of the talent of 70's andre, yes he would dominate. But turn it round and in the 70's Khali would have dominated much the same as Andre did.

Had Andre himself survived to today, then he would probably be in a condition that he would not want seen on screen. As someone once said, you never see old giants. Don't mean they don't exist, just means they don't want to be seen!