[1991-06-16-WWF-Wrestling Challenge] Barber Shop: Andre the Giant

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Andre is out on his cane again. Brother Bruti asks what the future holds for Andre. He calmly says he needs a new knee, but his doctor told him he's too young for it. He plans on getting his knee rebuilt, then coming for revenge. No way did they think they could do an Earthquake/Andre feud this late, but the Bushwhackers match at Summerslam definitely felt like an attempt to salvage something out of the build.

[PeteF3]

There's definite gravity to Andre's words, as unintelligible as he can be. Even in this artificial setting, the fact that Andre was breaking down in real life brings some genuine solemnity to the proceedings.

[shoe]

This is pretty sad looking.

[Kevin Ridge]

Beefcake seems to be doing Andre’s promo for him at the beginning. Andre finally gets to speak and talks about coming back and that his career is not over. Andre wasn’t exactly convincing me of a return. Sad to see Andre like this.

[soup23]

I had liked this angle a lot so far but Andre promising to come back better than ever seems really hollow and untrue.

[garretta]

With all due respect, how much of Andre's promo seeming "hollow and untrue" comes from the fact that we know in 2015 that he was not only in bad physical shape, but due to be dead in two years? If I'm listening to this in 1991, I'm completely buying that Andre's going to at least try to come back and get revenge against Quake. He did make reference to the fact that fighting Quake might be the last thing he does in the ring, so for all we know they might very well have been planning a showdown between the two of them at some point as a retirement match for Andre before they realized that it simply wouldn't be possible.

 

Beefcake's not improving as an interviewer at all. He has to learn not to cut promos on behalf of his guests unless he's in a position to back up his own words with actions, which we know he isn't. Yes, guys like Brother Love did the same thing at times, but everyone knew that they weren't wrestlers at that time, and in fact had never been. With Beefcake, he still looked like he could go; there were no scars or other signs of damage from the accident. If one didn't know the real story, they could assume that Beefcake was as much a cowardly pot-stirrer for the faces as guys like Brother Love were for the heels, which leads to the question of why the faces need a great big good-looking fraidy-cat like Beefcake doing their talking for them. That's not a question you want even some of your fans asking. They need to either tell Beefcake to channel Mean Gene or bring back the genuine article to do straight platform interviews.

[soup23]

With all due respect, how much of Andre's promo seeming "hollow and untrue" comes from the fact that we know in 2015 that he was not only in bad physical shape, but due to be dead in two years? If I'm listening to this in 1991, I'm completely buying that Andre's going to at least try to come back and get revenge against Quake.

 

I was a young fan around this time and never saw Andre as anyone but a former star that would pester officials and needed crutches to walk around.

[dawho5]

I wanted to believe Andre. They probably should have let it go with the attack by 'Quake though.