In today's landscape, would Andre the Giant have been anything special?
 

I'm watching Lesnar vs. Show from Survivor Series just now and thinking how athletic Show is compared to Andre. Andre is a legend, no doubt, but I think it had more to do with the fact that someone of his size was a rarity in the 70s and 80s.

But now, guys close to 7 feet and/or 500+ pounds are fairly common. Andre, even in his prime, wasn't THAT athletic (and by Mania 3 forget it). I would compare him to someone like Khali before I compared him to someone like Big Show.

So, in today's landscape, would Andre be as impressive as he was back in the 70s and 80s? Would he be lost in the shuffle? Would he have been hated and touted by smarks as another one for Vince's big man collection?

Discuss.

The word Khali comes to mind.


I wonder how Big Show's career would have turned out if Andre had never come before him.

Andre could wrestle in his early days though

I don't think Andre would have been anything special. He'd most likely get lost in the shuffle. Maybe a World Title run ala Khali, but that's it.

Andre was fairly nimble in the 70's if you have ever seen his matches from then. He definitely started to lose it in the 80's though. It is way too difficult to compare the 1970's to 2009.

Pro Wrestling has just changed so much.

I know he could wrestle in his early days, but it just seems like he'd have been more of a Khali than Big Show.

Yeah, I wouldn't deny he could wrestle in the 70s, but even then he wasn't that impressive, compared to today.

And I do feel it's fair to compare the 70s to 09 because there have been a lot of Andre clones running around over the past 20 years.

Andre would be decent. But not special. he would be the rival to Big Show.

You guys need to se Andrea's work from the 70's watch him do drop kicks and get slammed in every other match.

Andrea could work in his prime. IE the 70's not the 80's/

no, he would not be special today. but who is? Vince would of booked him in a comedic role.

one thing I will disagree with you on was back then there were a ton more big guys then you see today. Big guys were a main attraction on the scene. The difference is they were booked as killers, where today, they are booked as killers for like 2 months and then turned into jokes

jokes with Kiss Cams

Andre could really move quite well in his younger days, basically most of the stuff he did once WWF got really big was shit

Def. Youell knows.

You have to couple that fact with the fact that the styles were slower too. There wasn't an emphasis on keeping a pace and building momentum. YOu could have much slower drawn out matches and the crowds would eat it up. I have no doubts that Andrea would have rose to the new style the same way Big Show has.

I've seen some old tape of Andre when he was in Quebec and he was a good wrestler, he even did some 3rd rope move !!!

I think he would have been another Paul Wight or Khali. At the very least Trips would have made him his bitch.

Are you guys taking his crazy charisma and psychology into account?

In today's landscape, he could have had better medical options available to him that would have most likely allowed him to be just as athletic as Big Show.

Yeah, early Andre was easily as agile and capable as early 90s Hogan, and moreso than mid-late 90's Hogan. Hell, Hogan barely capped Andre in the 80s.

Also, the best thing on the Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warior DVD was Heenan telling the story about how Andre let Warrior run face-first into his fist.

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I am a huge fan of Andre, but this is probably very true.

This board has clearly on seen his stuff post Wrestle Mania 1.