In 1986, there was a mega-hyped match in Japan between Andre the Giant, and Akira Maeda that turned into a near shoot because Andre was drunk, and wouldn't sell Maeda's offense. Also, according to various sources at the time, Maeda was getting a big head, and Andre was asked to embarrass him in the ring. Maeda didn't know, and Andre, even drunk, was still very powerful, and started going for Maeda's eyes after no selling his submissions. When Maeda saw Andre was really trying to hurt him, he quickly defended himself. Maeda started kicking Andre's knee until it turned bright red. Despite kicking him so hard, Andre was still too strong, and would not go down. So Maeda was forced to take him down using other moves. Maefa turned to Kantaro Hoshino who was at ringside, and asked if he could finish Andre off, and Hoshino shook his head "no." The match was soon stopped, and the reason the match wasn't stopped earlier was because the idea was for Andre to beat up Maeda, and the people in charge of the show were waiting for it to happen. Dick Murdoch later said that he thought Maeda was going to end Andre's career. After the match ended, Maeda was angry, left the ring, and threw a kick at the guard rail. Maeda had been very unprofessional at certain points in his career, and some viewed him as nothing more then an over-grown baby, but he earned some respect for standing up for himself against a man twice his size that had started a fight with him, and he was trying to protect himself, put some fear into Andre, and not seriously hurt Andre all at the same time. Some believe if Andre was sober and/or was a few years younger before he started having back problems, he would have been able to very easily hurt Maeda.