Andre the Giant vs Arn Anderson

[elliott]

Andre finished 51st in 2016 and Arn landed at 19th. Neither of those results feels right to me. Who ya got?

[DylanZero]

I think Arn blows Andre away. BUT this comparison was unique and immediately made me want to see these two wrestle in their physical primes. A spinebuster on Andre would have been freaking awesome. 

[Tetsujin]

I'm not familiarized with André's work besides the Hansen, Killer Khan and Race matches, and his late WWE run, so I don't know what could be the argument for him ranking higher than Arn for anybody, other than "his best match (Hansen) is definitely better than Anderson's best match/matches". But I agree this would've been a hell of a match with both at their peaks.

[MoS]

People who have been going through the French catch footage can probably expound on how much it helps his case. From reading the excellent Pat Laprade bio, his work was completely different and a real revelation

[Dav'oh]

2 hours ago, Tetsujin said:

what could be the argument for him ranking higher than Arn

"Andre could do everything Arn could do; I don't think the reverse is true"?

"Most half-decent, technically sound wrestlers could've played the part of 'Arn Anderson'; only one man could play 'Andre the Giant' "?

"Andre was tested by the best on the biggest stages, and never looked out of place; Arn was a mid-card remora in a small pond"?

"The sport looks exactly the same, with or without Arn Anderson; the wrestling world looks different without WrestleMania 3"?

"Arn is often imitated and often duplicated (see: FTR), and was an imitator himself ("he worked like an Anderson"); try saying that about Andre the Giant"?

...would be my first five guesses. I'm just going to assume PWO gives out prizes and mine has been sent to me in the mail 

 

[Rah]

They're valid arguments, depending on your criteria of 'greatest wrestler', but I don't see much application to how I interpret that moniker. A lot of those points are either in his favour due to genetic lottery (obviously not in health) or impact. The landscape with or without Andre and WM3 doesn't matter to me in this project.

 

Quote

"Arn is often imitated and often duplicated (see: FTR), and was an imitator himself ("he worked like an Anderson"); try saying that about Andre the Giant"?

 

 

[Grimmas]

Arn is good, but I feel he may be one of the most over rated wrestlers of all time. He has some route spots that really bug me, because they are really stupid (jumping off the top rope into a boot while clearly not going for a move, working as a babyface in a tag match as a heel and having the face work the heel spots for comedy, for examples). 

Andre fucking rules, whether he's young and athletic, or old and slow but super smart.

I take Andre and I take him easily. Hopefully, after Saturday's Watch Party, more people will think that as well.

[Rah]

1 minute ago, Grimmas said:

jumping off the top rope into a boot while clearly not going for a move

I am clearly a lot higher on the guy than you are but we agree there. Oh, man, that's a trope I do hate. I don't think he's the most emblematic worker for this spot, though, and it was quite widespread in wrestling, especially in the 90s. I imagine it's a move that popped a crowd for these guys once so they went to the well until it ran dry (hint: it was always dry). I don't know how many times I've seen Shawn do it or have his opponents jump into it, for example. 

I am excited for the watch party, though, and am open to the idea of Andre's longevity and consistency being a lot longer and higher than I thought. At the moment I feel Arn got much more out of much less than Andre even if I don't think Arn is a top 5 "reliable hand" worker. 

[elliott]

I reject the universe where Arn Anderson gets to spinebuster Andre the Giant. In reality that match would've been a handicap match with Andre knocking Arn & Ole's heads together while laughing. 

[Dav'oh]

@Rah Wasn't Paul Wight impersonating Andre's son, before dropping that and becoming his own man? Either way, he never duplicated Andre; no-one could.

9 hours ago, elliott said:

In reality that match would've been a handicap match with Andre knocking Arn & Ole's heads together while laughing. 

Absolutely. Then squashing both of them in the corner and piling them on top of each other for a one-footed pin. 

[Tim Cooke]

"working as a babyface in a tag match as a heel and having the face work the heel spots for comedy"

Can you give one or more match examples where this happens?

 

[Grimmas]

2 hours ago, Tim Cooke said:

"working as a babyface in a tag match as a heel and having the face work the heel spots for comedy"

Can you give one or more match examples where this happens?

 

The majority of The Rockers-Brainbusters MSG/MLG/Spectrum/BG house show matches come to mind immediately.

[Tim Cooke]

Ah, okay.

I believe that's a WWF tag team structure problem.  Wouldn't hold one year of those over 10-15 high end southern tags from Arn

[elliott]

Arn has 15 years of high end work?

[Grimmas]

25 minutes ago, Tim Cooke said:

Ah, okay.

I believe that's a WWF tag team structure problem.  Wouldn't hold one year of those over 10-15 high end southern tags from Arn

It may be a Rockers thing,  because I think they did that against the Rougeaus (but I can't recall 100%), but nobody else did it.

[Cap]

Nothing to do with the substance of this conversation, but I remember very distinctly as a child getting like half the WCW galoob figures as a child and it opening up my wrestling figure booking. I "booked" some feuds and results as I went and planned some stuff out in advance. I had a battle royal shortly after getting the arn figure where Arn and Andre were the final two after Andre eliminated Barry and Flair.  Though Andre won it kicked off a feud that would help elevate Arn. 100% arn spine bustered Andre eventually, but it took months. I told my grandma about it and she was probably the only person who knew (and much like grandmas... she simultaneously couldn't care less and more at once) until now. Sorry yall got subjected to this nonsense, I've never had another chance to tell this dumb ass story that stuck in my brain. I had YEARS playing with wrestling figures and that is for whatever reason one of like 3-4 things I remember.

 

this is tough.  Their resumes are built very differently. I feel like it would be tough for me to properly rank andre without watching the french stuff.  Even still he is more or less a lock. I think he has great high end matches. I also REALLY like watching him beat the piss out of savage on SNME.  He has lots of relatively quality performances like that. Does he have enough to get him over the consistency machine that is Arn? There seems to be a whole really important section of Andre's career I need to see, but there probably isn't that for Arn.I suspect they are really close on my list because - gun to my head - I'd have Arn a bit higher right now. The TLDR version is that Andre's highs are higher but Arn is an old standby you can put out there any time. Both used their physical skills masterfully, Andre having some more obvious advantages and disadvantages in this regard and Arn being really good at standing out despite not... well... physically standing out. Both have great input and both have differently great output. 
 

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't think the Catch stuff adds a ton to Andre's case. In the 60s footage, he's in great shape and works like a traditional French heavyweight. Within a few years, he's heavier and working like an embryonic Andre the Giant. It's interesting stuff, but I don't think it changes the conversation about Andre. 

[Cap]

3 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I don't think the Catch stuff adds a ton to Andre's case. In the 60s footage, he's in great shape and works like a traditional French heavyweight. Within a few years, he's heavier and working like an embryonic Andre the Giant. It's interesting stuff, but I don't think it changes the conversation about Andre. 

Good to know.

I'll personally sort of lump it in with my "unseen Andre" section because there is still more of that than there is for Arn (for me). 

[Matt D]

I disagree with OJ completely, by the way. If you’re super familiar with the French footage it’s easy to brush it aside but if you’re just very familiar with later Andre, seeing him work a completely different and relatively challenging style quite competently matters.

It’s so easy to take the basic difficulty of the French style for granted if you’re awash in it. Watching NWA title matches from the 80s and seeing guys just dramatically power back and forth on a top wristlock exchange instead of flipping up and over and doing complex escape attempts and cutoffs like you see in almost every French match has been so jarring. 

That's just an aside, though. With Andre, I think it's revelatory in showing how he was trained, the sort of matches he was put in early in his career, their complexity and length, how he did just work relatively normal heavyweight matches of the style (which as I said, was no small thing), while still leveraging his size, and then how he adapted a few years later as he started to face different styles and different expectations in the states. I think they're important for their own sake especially if you're unfamiliar with the style and I also think they're important as a bigger puzzle piece.

But I think a lot of things are important with Andre. I think it's important to see how he works a Japanese trios match in early 70s IWE vs 80 NJPW, the way he uses comedy and interacts with his partners and the crowd. I think it's important to see how he works as part of the Colossal Connection when he has huge reputation and connection with the crowd but can barely move. All of that is important as seeing the Hansen or Race matches a dozen times.

The keys to Andre are instincts, control, and adaptability, and it's important to see both how the story begins and the matches of potentially highest relative difficulty on a technique level that he was while he was in while he still happened to be in his physical prime.

[Jetlag]

Does Arn have any singles match on the level of Andre vs. van Buyten or Andre vs. Khan?

[Cap]

Thanks Matt D. I guess I just have to really dig into the French Catch stuff and see for myself. I have been saying for 2 years it is on my to do list, but I keep getting distracted. Regardless it is a MUST before 2026, so I'll figure it and how it affects Andre out one way or another. I do find the differing interpretations on how it affects his case interesting.

 

Andre is a guy who - like I said - is a lock for me, but he has sort of been raising in my mind the past couple years. I was sort of pondering this last night after I responded and I think instincts and timing are two things that really do jump off the screen with him. He "gets" wrestling in a big way. I feel like the range of outcomes that seem reasonable to me for him is much wider than Arn.

[Kadaveri]

Arn Anderson vs. Bobby Eaton - WorldWide 01/26/91
Arn Anderson vs. Barry Windham - Saturday Night 06/06/92
Arn Anderson vs. Steve Regal - Superbrawl 1994
Arn Anderson vs. Ric Flair - Fall Brawl 1995

Now these aren't singles matches on the level Andre's very best, but I do think they're examples of Arn having just about the best match that anyone could possibly have expected. None of these were big main events, Arn was never put in that spot as a singles wrestler like Andre regularly was. I think when you combine how much more consistently good Arn was (I've seen a lot of really horrible Andre matches, and I'm talking athletic prime Andre here) I think how much he excels in category trumps Andre peaking a bit higher in his top end stuff.

[ohtani's jacket]

9 hours ago, Matt D said:

I disagree with OJ completely, by the way. If you’re super familiar with the French footage it’s easy to brush it aside but if you’re just very familiar with later Andre, seeing him work a completely different and relatively challenging style quite competently matters.

It’s so easy to take the basic difficulty of the French style for granted if you’re awash in it. Watching NWA title matches from the 80s and seeing guys just dramatically power back and forth on a top wristlock exchange instead of flipping up and over and doing complex escape attempts and cutoffs like you see in almost every French match has been so jarring. 

That's just an aside, though. With Andre, I think it's revelatory in showing how he was trained, the sort of matches he was put in early in his career, their complexity and length, how he did just work relatively normal heavyweight matches of the style (which as I said, was no small thing), while still leveraging his size, and then how he adapted a few years later as he started to face different styles and different expectations in the states. I think they're important for their own sake especially if you're unfamiliar with the style and I also think they're important as a bigger puzzle piece.

The Catch stuff is interesting, but there's not enough of it to change the perception of Andre, IMO. It's fascinating to see what he was like in his rookie years, but forget about him being Andre for a second, how would you judge him relative to other French heavyweights? Did you see anything exceptional in him? I didn't expect him to be so technical or to be so versed in the style, but it's a really short period and most of it was in the halls. By the time he leaves France, he doesn't look anything like his rookie year. I don't know if was because of his disease or Parisian dinners, or a bit of both, but he was well on the way to being a monster even before he showed up in Montreal. People should watch the footage, for sure, but to me it's impact is like seeing young Baba more than holy shot, young Andre is one of the best European heavyweights ever. 

[Matt D]

29 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

The Catch stuff is interesting, but there's not enough of it to change the perception of Andre, IMO. It's fascinating to see what he was like in his rookie years, but forget about him being Andre for a second, how would you judge him relative to other French heavyweights? Did you see anything exceptional in him? I didn't expect him to be so technical or to be so versed in the style, but it's a really short period and most of it was in the halls. By the time he leaves France, he doesn't look anything like his rookie year. I don't know if was because of his disease or Parisian dinners, or a bit of both, but he was well on the way to being a monster even before he showed up in Montreal. People should watch the footage, for sure, but to me it's impact is like seeing young Baba more than holy shot, young Andre is one of the best European heavyweights ever. 

I get where you're coming from, but it's not about Andre being one of the best French heavyweights, but instead about Andre being a passable French heavyweight, because the issue at hand isn't about French heavyweights in general, but about the total picture of Andre.

[ohtani's jacket]

Fair enough. Now, if only we could agree about Carpentier. I'm surprised that you guys like him so much.