[1984-10-21-WWF-Toronto, ONT] Andre the Giant vs Kamala (Cage)

[AstroBoy]

So this was a really awesome Andre performance, first and foremost. The amount of sympathy that he garners while making Kamala look like a dangerous killer is astonishing. Here you have this giant of a man that the crowd loves and he takes Kamala's chops and bites and stumbles and staggers around the ring, carrying himself like some brittle big target that's being beaten down. There is a part in the match where Kamala goes for the door to escape and Andre uses all his strength to go after him and stop him, selling the entire time, slumping into the ropes after he's made the save.

 

Kamala is always fun to watch and his wildness adds to the match. What he lacks in physicality is made up for in his presentation and the moments where he resorts to biting and slapping his belly and getting confused by the rules kind of enhance the element of danger. We also get some really fun Andre hip attacks and he comes off the top rope with a sitting splash for a really emphatic ending. This was a lot of fun, and a really good example of Andre working as a sympathetic underdog to great effect.

[C.S.]

I'm really glad you enjoyed the match. It was one of the first ones I watched on the Network. Just the sheer spectacle of it alone intrigued me, but I wasn't expecting a match nearly as fun and well-worked as this one ended up being. For all of the revisionist history people spew about the "limitations" of wrestlers like Andre and Kamala, they knew their characters backwards and forwards - more than most of the "great workers" today who don't have a prayer of being able to connect with the audience the same way these old masters did.