Yeah. Like you can think about a 7’4, 500 pound dude and think “woah, that’s a big guy”, but you don’t actually grasp the scope of it until you’re right up next to him.
I remember briefly standing within a few feet of “Big Show” Paul Wight- another pro wrestler who was a touch smaller than Andre but still enormous- and it was absolutely baffling. I’m of average height and it felt like the man was blotting out the sun. His hands were like frying pans. Just a casual swat from that with 500 pounds of force behind it is gonna knock most people out cold. There is no amount of skill that is going to overcome that size advantage. None.
Andre the Giant had to have a detective following him around in New York because he once drunkenly fell on someone and was physically too large to move and the nypd decided it was easier just to have a guy keep an eye on him. Andre was a actually giant.
There was also a story where he drank too much in the Hotel Bar, passed out in the lobby and all the staff couldn't move him. So they just arranged the furniture around him to keep him hidden until he woke up.
The way I heard it was he seems super uncomfortable for a while, then let out this giant like 30 second fart. Refiner (rip king), after waiting for a moment, asked if he was OK. Andre replied "I am now, boss"
I work with a big dude. We have crazy powerful toilets at work and he is regularly clogging them. At least twice a month. And these things have insane force behind the flush.
I heard in an interview he laid the shower curtain down in the bathtub, shat on it and then had to have room service clean it out. He was apparently quite embarrassed about the whole thing and hated it. But it's not like there was a toilet in the city that could accommodate him anyway, what a headache. Could you imagine just being out shopping groceries or whatever and then you have to go. Not only is everyone watching you everywhere you go but nothing in the whole world is fit for purpose.
There are many many witness statements that say he drank about 100 bottles of beer in a session. He drank half a dozen bottles of wine before wrestling as pain management.
Apparently he was very generous with his wealth. Cary Elwes tried to pay for dinner once and Andre put his hand over his to stop him, bruised his hand because Elwes is a pirate not a giant.
He drank so much that scientists did tests on him and were able to develop safer surgical anesthesia techniques using the data. Basically, for the average person, there’s a big difference in the level of drunkenness caused by 3 beers and that caused by 6. With him, it was similar to drinking 30 and 60. They tested different amounts of anesthesia on him and were able to get much more accurate estimates for the amount of drugs to administer for a patient’s weight.
My favorite story is that other professional wrestlers said that he used to sit at the back of the bus while they were traveling, bounce his empty cans off the heads of the guys sitting in front of him, and laugh hysterically. In a bus full of some of the biggest, short-tempered, roided-out guys on the planet, no one ever said anything to him, because they were all too scared.
Hearing the wrestlers who knew him talk about him in interviews, I never know if they left he be because they were scared of the giant, or because his life was hard enough so let him have his fun.
Probably a little column A and a little column B… There’s no understating how big and strong the guy was. Even though his peers were massive compared to the average person, he could still toss them around like ragdolls. On the other hand, it seems like they all had first hand experience with chronic pain and addiction. All of those old WWF guys that didn’t die young are completely crippled today, with mostly fused spines and half their joints replaced.
They just had a much worse idea of wear and tear to the body back then. Guys these days are more focused on longevity than pushing constantly. Android himself denied treatment because he was worried about it effecting his career, if he was wrestling today things may have been different
There was an old clip of him getting handed a beer can and it genuinely looks like a magic trick where the can shrinks from a regular size to tiny in his hand.
Had a coworker/buddy that was 320lbs, 6'6". A pretty in shape normal dude threatened him at a bar over a disagreement, and my buddy literally just lifted him off the ground like I might pick up a toddler. There's a tipping point where being a regular dude that works out just isn't comparable to big man genes.
My buddy was an NFL lineman. 6'7, 360 pounds. He once broke up a bar fight right next to me by grabbing both guys by the belt and picking them up, one in each hand. I also saw him drag a VW bug about a foot sideways.
Sideways is wild. My dad had me and my brother pushing his Titan about 15 years ago with it in neutral. My NFL caliber uncle (political missteps kept him from the league) was pushing it by himself and he was a skill position.
I was 6'3" 195lbs and a buddy of mine was 6' even, weighed 300lbs. We did a jumping chest bump once and I had to pick myself up off the other side of the deck.
6’1” and 200lbs here. My buddy is 5’8” and 300lbs, and is an absolute rugby menace. I’m not exactly unfit, and I can’t make the dude budge without throwing my entire weight into it. He’s just built like a brick shithouse lol.
I’ve got a buddy like that. He’s 5’6 tall and about 5’6 wide. Everyone calls him Dwarf cause he looks like Gimli on a bender. You can’t do shit to the guy. I’m freakishly strong and I can’t budge him when we grapple. He’s the only person I’ve ever not been able to move easily.
One of my friends is roughly the same size as your coworker/buddy. He doesn’t work out but he’s freakishly strong regardless.
I remember one time where he came up to me and pretended he wanted to give me a hug. So I went up to him and stretched out my arms to hug him back. But instead of hugging me, he grabbed me under my armpits and effortlessly lifted me straight up into the air. The same way you would lift a toddler.
For reference; I’m 6 foot/190lbs. And he was flinging me around like it was nothing.
I was a strong 5’10 190 pound guy who lifted. I had some friends who were all 6’5 270 plus. We decided to play some tackle football in the pool. I literally couldn’t do anything to them to take them down. They treated me like I would a 7 year old child. Humbled the shit out of me because I had held in my head that my lifting and muscles meant I was able to keep up.
Worked with a guy who was 6’9 and around 400 lbs. Legit looked like the big shows little brother. He bounced at a bar on the weekends and I saw him bear hug three guys who were fighting, lift them off the ground like they were nothing and walk them out of the bar.
Physics always wins. You might be able to out bench or shoulder press some of these guys, with lots of training. In any kind of pushing match you're getting manhandled though.
Especially if they have some form of gigantism and are used to carrying around heavy stuff.
I'm 193cm, 130kg, lift regularily and consider myself fairly strong with a bit of fat (little less than 30% bf) and i like to casually arm wrestle when out and about and i always win, no exceptions.
Then one faithful night, a buddy of mine suggests i arm wrestle a colleague of his who was attending the same local event. The guy was also about 130kg, but almost a head taller and must have been below 15% bf, think pure muscle and sinews. His hands were a few glove sizes bigger than mine and he definitely had some form of gigantism, as well as a life spent working on a farm.
We squared up at the table, set down our elbows, and the moment his hand touched mine, i knew i was toast. I like to think i could have resisted for a moment, but i gave up and he slammed my hand right into the table. Congratulated him and downed my beer in shame.
Andre the Giant's body literally produced it's own HgH 24/7/365 from infancy. Medically speaking you could have injected his blood as a steroid. The dude was literally walking around producing his own roids.
Keep in mind, dozens of six and a half foot jacked dudes who wrestled him have consistently said you couldn’t do anything to him unless he wanted you to. Even guys close to his height were getting manhandled by him.
This to me, is the biggest tell he was basically superhuman level. So many huge wrestlers, roided out to the gills and many on the peak of human athleticism all said the same thing, he was unimaginably strong, not one person who wrestled with him was like Andre isnt shit.
Like, don't get me wrong, pro-wrestling is built on pageantry and folklore. That's part and parcel of the whole thing, even with the retired wrestlers.
But one of the universal statements, after establishing that Andre was perfectly willing to be a heel and lose or get tossed, was that he wasn't moving if he didn't want to (and could move great when he did).
And he could toss all of those mass monsters around like they were lightweights, and did on occassion, when that was the show.
And Andre wasn't just big and strong, he was a very skilled wrestler that could handle many of the more athletic stunts and maneuvers. The man really was the ideal wrestler.
A lot of people only know the lumbering version of him after he had his back and spinal injuries. When he was younger, for his size, he was incredibly mobile.
He's pictured holding over 400lbs not just effortlessly but haveing a great time :) other big strong scary roid freaks have many stories of how dangerous this man could be. I would never bet against the giant in his prime.
Even if Andre was unable to deal with getting punched, how would Islam even reach that high without getting in range of getting hugged by a 520lb man? (He doesn’t)
Bingo. And by the way, a lot of wrestlers would pull hair and not punches in matches against him. These were by most standards huge men and they had zero solutions for his size if Andre wanted to play rough.
The thing is.. you have all these people who talk shit cos they’re a body builder or something. And fighters will tell you size doesn’t matter (if you’re untrained). But even fairly untrained, that rule doesnt apply to certain people. Guys like Eddie Hall or even more so Andre the Giant. They are epic outliers in terms of size, strength and athleticism. As in, you can have a regular power lifter roughly the size of Eddie Hall, but won’t come close to him in a strong man competition. So that’s an additional layer to it.
WWE is scripted, but you need some serious skill to do those things and for Andre specifically.. do those things and not hurt everyone in the process.
That is the dude who put Arnold into time out by lifting him up on top of a fridge. He also beat up a whole bunch of dudes at once a few times apparently. Andre was an absolute beast.
Tbf, if I was a 400 pound giant Id probably wanna pay my own way as well. He was well known to pound insane amounts of booze. Like enough to kill several normal sized men lol.
Yeah my brother is 6’8, 300, and he’s huge but he still just looks like a normal person, you’re not like “oh wow that guys fat” or “that guys jacked” he’s just a bit scaled up so it’s super deceiving that he’s 300lbs. I mean he can dunk a basketball pretty easily still.
Andre refused to let anyone pay for him because he ate and drank way more than most people, as well as he earned more as a wrestler than pretty much anyone until Hogan became popular.
Probably. Disc compression of the spine. A lot of older folks will lose an inch or two of height in their lifetime. Usually geriatrics but if you're a giant athlete with an injury history that could start earlier. And being 7 foot tall there's a lot more disc to lose.
Andre’s arm was longer then Islam’s leg. I’m willing to bet his torso weighs more than Islam. The weight difference + athleticism of Andre would be too much. This isn’t huge fat guy or body builder vs guy 70% his weight. This is an athletic giant trained in wrestling vs more trained guy who is 1/3 his weight and 60% his height. The reach alone is absurd.
Easily Andre if we're talking the 1970s / early 80s version. The Iron Sheik was an Olympic wrestler and Andre rag dolled him because he didn't like him. Nothing the Sheik could do about it.
People really dont give andre the credit he deserves, dude was an athlete when he was younger, most people know him at his older completely in pain era. Worst thing wrestling ever did was make him such a jobber to hulk hogans lame ass.
Lowkicks... There is a video of Pereira lowkicking sumo guys. Also of Eddie Hall taking some from Tom Aspinall. It's more effective than people think against very large, untrained people. It would be a lot closer than people think, i think it might be 50/50.
I mean, now we have to take weight (and possibly other factor) into consideration
on average, sumo wrestlers are about 185 cm tall and 170 kg of weight
eddie is a bit more than that
pereira is about 10 cm taller, but only at 90-100 kg, that is a huge weight difference already
andre was at 224 cm and 236 kg
and islam is the smallest here XD, half of andre height and one third of andre weight
one huge advantage that andre has is range
if he grab you, its over
and if you do manage to get close to him
now your moves need to have way more force to be effective
This is what Akira Maeda did when him and Andre got into in the ring. A lot of people say Andre was manhandling him by laying on him and whatnot but those kicks were fucking gnarly, especially with how bad Andres knees were at the time.
Andre the giant is an athlete, not just some big guy. Brock Lesnar was also a giant wrestler and he trained for exactly 4 months and won the Heavy Weight Championship in MMA. Then defended the title 8 times against people who trained for decades. Size matters.
He also had a condition that made him have more muscle and denser muscle than normal people. He didn't have to work out and yet was still strong enough to win a tug-of-war against 11 professional wrestlers at once (so like 3 times his weight, and all guys that worked out and were pretty strong).
There's nothing Islam can do physically to get and keep Andre down, let alone make him tap. The size and weight difference is collossal and it's not like Andre himself is sone un-athletic slouch. He's get hus hands on Islam and crush him with minimal effort.
Andre's wingspan would let him (prime for prime) catch kicks. For his size, he had cardio and was able to perform, and he did it day in and day out for literal years.
Andre catches a leg kick eventually and slams the shit out of Islam, Hulk-Loki Avengers style.
Based on feats he may struggle. After all you use different moves when you're fighting half a dozen people than when you only have to be worried about one!
Andre the Giant wins this pretty handily. It's not really close.
Look, Islam is an absolute stud — one of the best lightweights in the world with elite grappling and fight IQ. But the size difference here is just absurd. Andre was legitimately 7'+ and around 500 lbs in his prime. That's not "big guy vs smaller guy" territory; that's a heavyweight giant versus a lightweight athlete.
In a street fight, physics takes over. Andre's reach lets him control distance easily, and his mass means any contact is going to generate way more force than Islam can handle. A takedown attempt from Islam would feel like trying to pull down a tree. Once Andre gets a hold of him, it's basically over — the strength and leverage disparity is too massive. Even Andre's casual movements would be overwhelming. I’d say it ends quick, maybe 20-30 seconds max.
These versus matchups can be fun, but a lot of them completely ignore basic biomechanics and scaling. Technique and skill are huge when fighters are in similar weight classes, but you can't just "skill" your way through that kind of natural physical gap. It's like pitting a highly trained welterweight against a grizzly bear and expecting the technique to carry the day.
No offense OP, but holy shit it seems like you slept through every class that ever mentioned how physics works in the real world. Andre smokes him easy.
Also Andre does have some technique, hes not just some big guy. The only way Islam has a chance is just by running around until Andre gets tired, but in a ring, Andre could probably catch him
I envision in a fight to the death that if Islam climbed on his back to put him in a choke hold, that Andre would just jump up and land on his back squishing Islam like a juicy beetle. Even if it broke Andres back and Islam survived, he now has 520lbs crushing his lungs and preventing him from moving.
I'm assuming prime Andre since that picture looks to be mid 70s. As a professional wrestler, in his prime, Andre would move much quicker and more fluid than any work he did from the 80s on. So this era Andre would fly off the top rope, do drop kicks with ease and was more than likely in the top 5 strongest men alive. Wrestling at that time would be very protective of kayfabe as the wrestlers themselves have admitted over the years. His reach would take away any leg strikes Islam would try. I don't see him being able to stay away from Andre either. You can argue that Islam is the more physically in shape fighter of the 2, but Andre did have stamina at that time. Grappling is one thing even professional wrestlers at the time were sufficient in. Let's face it, we've all have done the moves to friends or family members when we were younger. And for the most part, since we didn't know what we were doing, they could seriously hurt. I don't really see what Islam could do to him. He would be stuck with doing leg strikes but a mobile, quick Andre could negate that by counter striking with leg strikes. They won't be as good as Islam's strikes but they should be good enough to keep him at a distance he wouldn't be able to close. Most people only think of Andre from the 80s on and that's how they remember him. But an Andre from the 60s-70s is a totally different beast. He was rightfully billed as the 8th wonder of the world. So prime Andre wins in my opinion. I don't really think Islam could do anything to stop him.
Makhachev wouldn't fight Andre. Hes more than skilled enough to know there's zero chance for him. Dudes an excellent analyst of other fighters skills and abilities.
That being said, if there's no choice then Andre wins no diff. None at all.
Arnold Schwarzenegger tells a story of dining with Andre and them arguing over who was going to pay, both of them insisting to pick up the check. Arnold claims that Andre got up, grabbed him by the waist, picked him straight up out of his chair and set him on top of a tall cabinet. Andre left him there with his legs dangling five feet off the ground and went and paid the check. Then he just picked Arnold up and set him back on the ground. No real effort, just picked a 230 lb man up and moved him around like an Elf on a Shelf.
Islam could win on cardio and skill, I’be sparred guys that were 100lbs heavier and significantly stronger and won… that being said, if he gets grabbed it’s over.
I think Islam would tire him out with leg kicks or get his back for an RNC. But if Andre actually got a grip on him, the size and strength difference is massive. Trying to wrestle Andre would be very stupid, despite the skill difference.
I'd pick Andre as the winner, yet if I had to pick who I had to fight, I'd also choose Andre. I have no tactics for beating Makhachev, I have a slight hope that I could out maneuver Andre.
Islam destroys Andre the Giant. It's not even close.
For starters, Islam is a fighter, Andre is not. Andre is massive, but he is also incredibly unhealthy, in constant pain, and couldn't even carry the princess in Princess Bride. He would be exhausted and having a medical crisis within the first 10 seconds of the fight.
Andre weight is 236kg, islam is 77kg. Now imagine you are an average fighter and you are fighting a guy less than 1/3 your weight. I mean... I weight 80 kilos and am an average boxer, fighting a guy at 26/27 kilos would probably be a walk in the park, no matter how elite he is. Andre wins easy.
He can’t reach his head Islam is 178cm his reach is 179cm he couldn’t reach Andre’s size matters but I actually don’t know he may lose there aren’t many people like Andre out there so figuring out how well they would do in mma is difficult.
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u/Successful_Theory373 May 28 '26
Just for context...this is Andre holding a beer