Andre the Giant was far too good for such a despicable business as professional wrestling
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
763 points (99.1% liked)
196
16410 readers
1254 users here now
Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.
Rule: You must post before you leave.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Inconceivable!
Kind of makes me wonder what hulk Hogan was doing at that time to make Andre so upset with him.
Probably the same things he’s doing today- lying, stealing, shit talking, and engaging in casual bigotry.
being a union busting RAT
he was vince's spy. of course thats a rumour, BUT ...... a whole lot of incidents.
I watched a documentary about Vince and he straight up admits that he was Vince's spy. He has no shame about it.
The only good union buster is a cadaverific one.
ultimate warrior was kinda unhinged, I think wrestling fame was bad for his personality. but the stuff he said about hulk hogan seems to have truth in it.
Hulk Hogan was close personal friends with someone that raped Andre the Giant's best friend. Also keyfabe got Andre needing to say the thing because that's how the business works. But also its easier to make your keyfabe hatred of someone believable when you actually factually hate that person. Which in this case Andre the Giant did
There was also the fact that Hogan ratted out the wrestlers attempts to unionise, leading directly to the terrible working conditions that persist to this day... All because he liked being paid the most.
There's a lot more to it, but these examples should begin to paint a picture of the kind of guy he is.
Fair enough. I wasn't including the unionization efforts because I thought that was after Andre's time, but it was a couple years before his retirement
Yeah - fair. As I said though, it all speaks to the kind of scumbag the guy is.
Shoot or kayfabe?
I have no idea what this means
There are some times when i believe i'm only as old as i feel. And there are other times when i realize i'm actually just Abe Simpson with an onion still on my belt yelling at clouds.
It's pro-wrestling terminology, not new lingo. Keep that onion on your belt, old timer.
Shoot means its real kayfabe (or work) means its fake.
See my above reply if you are actually curious
This definitely feels kayfabe with some shoot undertones
You keep using that word, and [I'm] not sure [I] what it means!
Kayfabe means scripted or in character, or 'fake' as people like to say. Shoot means off script, or it is real. Shoot fight means the guys in the ring actually started throwing blows. Shoot interview would be a wrestler speaking their mind off script and out of character
You've had a good definition, but Wikipedia has (a lot) more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe
I was shocked when i realized that people that talk bad about the hulkster are entirely justified. he must be the single most vile person in wrestling buisness.-
and there a a couple of very shady characters
Vince McMahon has to be worse, but I agree with the sentiment.
I DID consider him, but I think he has some kind of thieves honor.
other side is sexual allegation stuff, and the sheer number of people he must have screwed over and under paid. i recently saw how DDP ended his career, it was sad. the baseball shadow guy who hang out it the rafters, same thing.
one thing he got right was, he gave brett hart the chance to hit him in the jaw, which brett hart did, and he went hard. maybe not as hard as brett could have, but still.
but maybe he believed brett would not do it.
Wrestling is full of horrible people. Vince has already been mentioned but there is also Fitz Von Erich who drove three of his sons to suicide. Invader 1 who murdered Bruiser Brody. Grizzly Smith who raped his step daughter which is how Jake Roberts was conceived. Dynamite Kid who was a notorious bully who broke his step daughters legs for insurance money. Buck Zoomhoff who raped his daughter. Benoit who murdered his family. A good chunk of the Dragon Gate roster tortured a monkey for years.
And this is just a few. Wrestling is better in that regard these days, but there is still a lot of abuse going on to the point that it had it's own #metoo movement that almost entirely killed the British scene.
Benoit who murdered his family.
To be fair to Benoit, tests conducted his suicide showed that Benoît's brain was that of a 85 year old dementia patient.
Neuroscientist and former wrestler Christopher Nowinski argued that Benoit may have been suffering from repeated, untreated concussions throughout his wrestling career, ultimately leading to an unstable mental state. Nowinski was quoted as saying that Benoit "was one of the only guys who would take a chair shot to the back of the head ... which is stupid". Tests conducted on Benoit's brain by Julian Bailes, the head of neurosurgery at West Virginia University (WVU), showed "Benoit's brain was so severely damaged it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient". Other tests conducted on Benoit's brain tissue revealed severe chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and damage to all four lobes of the brain and brain stem. Bailes and his colleagues concluded that repeated concussions can lead to dementia, which can contribute to severe behavioural problems. Benoit's father said that brain damage may have been the leading cause of the murder-suicide. A statement released by WWE described the findings as "speculative".
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Benoit_double-murder_and_suicide#Possible_motives
He was a piece of shit before that too. Plus you can say similar stuff about other wrestlers too.
I Wouldn't say worst but he's near the top of the list for sure.
Nah i think that price belongs to vince.
thats the fascinating thing about wrestling: you have so much to talk about.
yeah, I saw some interwievs, vince is far more scary than hulk, I mean, in a psyscho way.
I think he enjoys intimidating people. but thats just my personal impression from interwievs.
He is basically a tougher and smarter Trump.
After visiting America and seeing how much they celebrate assholes I'm less and less surprised. If you're standing in line and a car pulls up just to rev its engine as loud as possible, here in Europe we get mad at the fucking obnoxious asshole. Never ever did I want to disassociate from a crowd faster than when surrounded by Americans losing their marbles at seeing an expensive car be loud.
It's a tiny example, but it has to start somewhere. Glorifying shit is just wrong.
Lol, you are full of shit. I’ve never seen otherwise stoic European men light up with smiles and point like kids, than when an old 70s C3 Corvette let its v8 sing and went ripping through one of the streets in an Eastern European capital.
That's cause it's an old timer. This would even make me smile. However if it's a new car it's just obnoxious imo, and my family, friends and colleagues seem to agree
Some people like electric cars, some people like rice burners, some like euro engineering while others want a good old fashioned American V8. It’s all relative.
load more comments
(3 replies)
It's nuts, isn't it? It's insane how much they celebrate celebrities. Even people like gotti for example, they cheered him on, waving american flags in front of the courthouse. I was at a comic con where the hodor guy was there at the height of game of thrones. They had a huge line planned, but no one was there. I thought, since no one was in line, it would be funny to get a signature for a friend of mine who was super into got. I walked to the very front and saw a sign of how much they charge for a signature and just laughed put loud and turned around. Then i realised that's what everyone did there. It's not that no one was there, all the people who stood around there were people who already backed out of the line. And if there was a line, no one would wait in line to see mr. Celebrity.
I was shocked when i realized that people that talk bad about the hulkster are entirely justified.
He was a heel-turned-hero with a ton of extraordinarily positive media coverage following his heavy commercialization in the 80s. Can't say I'm shocked an 80s-era celebrity athlete turned out to be a bad guy, given the litany of 80s-era celebrity athletes that turned out to be awful, miserable people in hindsight.
he must be the single most vile person in wrestling buisness.-
He pales beside Vince McMahon himself.
Based.
Turns out he was 100% right
From one of the few people who actually could squish Hulk Hogan's face.
Andre was correct on both accounts.
Snopes says they haven't found evidence that this is something he actually said, and also that even if he did say it, it was most likely "kayfabe" - a pro wrestling term for maintaining the story line outside of the ring.
Otoh, https://www.houstonpress.com/news/opinion-the-reality-behind-hulk-hogan-vs-andre-the-giant-16554572 is an interesting read i just found while searching for the above which includes some good reasons why Andre might legitimately have stopped being friends with Hogan. Also TIL Jesse Ventura tried to unionize WWF and later learned in court that it was in fact Hogan who had ratted him out to their boss (Vince McMahon). (Or maybe this is all just higher-order kayfabe? 🤡)
even if he did say it, it was most likely “kayfabe” - a pro wrestling term for maintaining the story line outside of the ring.
Well, yes. That's a big part of what makes the quote easy to believe. It sounds like an adorably polite spin on the kind of teeth nashing promos common both then and now.
Snopes says they haven’t found evidence that this is something he actually said
I mean, I'm seeing it in black and white right there in OP's post. Snopes even suggests it may have come from a popular wrestling zine of the era, they just don't have access to the full catalog to confirm it.
Also TIL Jesse Ventura tried to unionize WWF and later learned in court that it was in fact Hogan who had ratted him out to their boss (Vince McMahon). (Or maybe this is all just higher-order kayfabe? 🤡)
If its kayfabe, its something Ventura has kept to well past its expiration date. He was outspoken on this incident long after he'd left the Minnesota governor's mansion.
Me too, Andrew. Me too...
goon
Me too, Andre, me too.
view more: next ›