Something about Andre.......

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

Ok something I always wondered. If everyone went on about how much pain Andre was in at WM3 and how he was so close to dying......then why did he go onto compete for 3 more years?

Just something that was bugging me.

[Guest Sassquatch]

Simply put, that was all Andre knew how to do along with the fact that he was an adrenaline junkie like most of the wrestlers and he also didn't mind being one of the WWF's highest paid guys during those years.

 

From a personal standpoint, he felt more accepted and comfortable being in a locker room with the wrestlers rather than being out in public surrounded by strangers.

[Guest Midnight Express83]

well put.

 

To put it in better words: no wrestler stops wrestling until they can't anymore. Except for Jack Brisco.

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

Well I just found it weird that he could barely stand in his match with Hulk but then he went onto wrestle reguarly for 3 more years.

Wasn't his match with Hulk the first one that he wore the singlet in? To hide the back brace.

[Guest MillenniumMan831]

That's very possible. If you notice, Andre did almost NOTHING in his matches following WMIII. He was mostly in tag matches and very short single matches.

[Guest wayzing]

And he didn't wrestle on a full time basis. Survivor Series in November 1987 was his first match since Pontiac Silverdome in March. I might be wrong here but I think that, except for the SNME Battle Royal before WM3, these were the only matches Andre participated in in 1987. Very light schedule in 1988, too. He feuded with Jim Duggan and also had a few matches with Big John Studd in 1989.

 

In 1989 he did a house show run jobbing for Ultimate Warrior in matches that usually went the same way as UW vs. Honky Tonk Man at SummerSlam'88. The matches didn't even last a minute. After that Andre was put in a tag team with Haku (with Andre mostly standing on the apron before coming in to finish the matches) and as The Colossal Connection they held the tag titles for four months before Andre wrestled his last WWF match at WrestleMania VI.

[Guest Grenouille]

Actually between WMIII and SS87 he was touring in Japan, which he also did after WMVI.

[LooseCannon25 0]

at WMIII the singlet was for the backbrace and Andre also had on a girdle to hide the excess gut he had gotten.

[Guest dreamer420]

The man loved the business and I'm sure he wanted to stay in it until the day he died. I didn't like watching Andre in that state but he was such a draw that he probably did it to make the big bucks.

[Guest wayzing]

Actually between WMIII and SS87 he was touring in Japan, which he also did after WMVI.

Wow. I knew about the tag matches with Baba after WrestleMania VI but I didn't know he wrestled between WM3 and Survivor Series 1987. Can someone confirm this, please.

[Guest Luke Michael]

I think Vince pushed him to wrestle too. Andre was still really popular after WM3 and made Vince money. So I'm sure it wasn't Andre who was begging Vince to stay in the WWF. Vince and him both wanted it.

 

Watching Andre the Giant now that I'm older though, he was in horrible shape! I was born in 1984 so I was very young when he was still around. Andre was always the "unbeatable giant" to me. I remember marking out like crazy when Demolition beat him and Haku. If anyone ever beat Andre, it was a huge deal to me. Now that I'm older I see how bad of a wrestler he was but his presence was awesome! It still is.

[Guest kurtangledoesnotsuck]

Andre had massive drawing power, and so Vince used him even though he was getting worse. I think he was technically sound when he was younger but come 1987 he was shell of his former self.

[Guest nl5xsk1]

Why did Andre stay on for three more years?

 

This is just a guess, but ... for the money.