10 Weird Ways We Remember Legendary Wrestlers
7. André The Giant: Immobile
Sadly, for all intents and purposes, wrestling prior to 1984 may as well have not happened for many. Hulk Hogan shaped WWE as we know it today which, the recent tributes to Bruno Sammartino excepted, is largely framed as the genesis point by the victors who write history. The WWWF is too small time to celebrate in retrospect. Vincent Kennedy McMahon also had little to do with it.
Post-1984, André The Giant is remembered most prominently as the gatekeeper to a more glamorous age he was physically unable to enter himself. He wrestled his most famous match - arguably the most famous match - in an understandably weakened physical condition, as the effects of acromegaly took irreversible hold. Still imposing in terms of physicality and presence, this version of André could only just lift himself to take one bump, albeit the most famous of all time.
Pre-1984, André was a genuine phenom, an impossibly agile behemoth and draw who could have rested on his literally immense freak show appeal but did not, drawing numbers as huge as his frame in disparate areas of a more fragmented wrestling landscape with specific tastes - all of which lapped up the genuinely inhuman in-ring capabilities WWE chooses not to glorify, for the legend of WrestleMania III is even larger.