SCHNEIDER SEVENTIES SATURDAY SPECIAL: Three Giants with Lee Benaka

Three Giants: A retrospective by Phil Schneider and Lee Benaka

PAS: So Lee stopped by and he was intrigued by all the Andre The Giant I got recently, so we watched the amazing Andre v. Inoki match, and we decided to compare that with the best of Big Show and Khali.

LB: Giants in wrestling are always slightly tragic to me. People who are that huge are eventually going to end up with health issues as they age and possibly even premature deaths due to their genetic conditions (Andre the Giant) or a combination of genetic conditions and performance-enhancing drugs (Big John Studd). Or they may just suck at wrestling (see El Gigante). Speaking of El Gigante, I was lucky enough to see one of Ric Flair's title defenses against El Gigante at the UIC Pavillion in Chicago in the mid-1990s, back when Ric had the bad haircut. I don't remember the match as being very good.

Focusing on Andre, Big Show, and Khali seems sensible as Big John Studd was a borderline giant and didn't have any amazing matches that I can remember. And El Gigante, as I mentioned, sucked. There are a few other wrestlers who may have looked like giants when matched up against the right opponents, such as Blackjack Mulligan versus Kevin Sullivan or Ernie Ladd versus, say, Nelson Royal. But they were never consistently billed as giants throughout their careers and looked more like huge guys rather than freakish giants.

And the huge guy v. freakish giant dichotomy comes into play when looking at the best of Andre, Big Show, and Khali. Big Show, at least in his WWE incarnation, looks to be more of a big guy than the genuinely freaky looking Andre and Khali. Big Show as the Giant in WCW did have more of a freaky look going with the Andre-esque afro and the facial expressions. And of the freakish giants, Andre and Khali present quite a contrast. Andre seems huge in every way, especially his head, hands, and gut, whereas Khali has a taller and more slim build with seemingly unbendable stick legs and a disproportionately broad chest. Khali's face is indeed freaky, though. But enough giant ramblings, on to the matches....


Andre The Giant v. Antonio Inoki 10/7/76

PAS: Seeing highlights of this match was the impetus for getting all this Andre, and it is as great in full as it is in highlight form. They set this up by showing the end of an earlier match where Andre loses by countout by missing a headbutt against the post and crushing his dome. This is the rematch and really feels like a big match.

LB: The missed headbut into the post spot was amazing and resulted in a rare (to me) Andre bladejob. It's too bad that spot wasn't used more, but obviously it was for special occasions and very effective as a result.

PAS: They open with the national anthems of France and Japan, the Japanese anthem is really sad sounding, it is kind of a mix of stereotypical Oriental music, and a mournful country ballad, like if the Carter family wrote music for the Mikado.

LB: It was touching seeing the determined athletes' faces superimposed against their respective flags during the playing of the anthems. It looked as if they were really moved by the music.

PAS: Inoki spends a lot of this match playing possum, picking his points. His offense isn't particularly impressive, but he really knows when to do everything. Meanwhile Andre is so agile that it blows you away, he is taking armdrag bumps, flying headscissors, and bumps to the floor. It was like Jerry Estrada injected gigantism instead of heroin. Both of the other matches were worked around the giants dominating and the smaller faces using their wiles to pull out a big victory. Here Inoki uses his wiles to dominate most of the match, with Andre getting more and more frustrated, at one point he even attempts a flying body press and crashes and burns. Watching Andre miss a body press is like watching the Hindenburg falling out of the air. Finally Andre loses his temper with the tricky little guy and just snatches him and slams him on the table for the count out win. Both guys come out looking super strong, Inoki does everything right, he can compete with Andre, but the Giant can end a match any moment and proves it by crushing Inoki at the end.

LB: In a lot of these 1970s Andre in Japan matches, he is accompanied to the ring by a rather tall dumpy handler who interferes in the matches once in a while. If you are accompanying a giant to the ring, you should not be about as tall as he is. It would be better if you were a midget, or better yet, four midgets, with one of you perched up on the giant's shoulder as he walks to the ring for a match (at least El Gigante got that one right).

Inoki's selling was interesting to me, as he did so stoically with a slight grimace and a look of concentration as if he were devising a new strategy to get the better of Andre. This was quite a contrast to the exaggerated bumps of Eddie Guerrero against the Big Show and the great facial expressions of pain by John Cena against Khali. In fact, I would compare Andre's bumping to Guerreros, consistently going the extra mile to make Inoki's offense look great. And it wasn't just Andre's bumping, but also his frustrated expressions and jeers at the crowd that made this match electric. My favorite spot was the dueling bow and arrow submissions where Inoki gamely tried to get Andre hoisted up onto his knees and then Andre successfully carried out the lucha spot. And the pedigree was awesome.

This appeared to be the finals of some tournament, because after the match ended with Andre slamming Inoki onto the edge of the table (ouch!) outside the ring and then tossing around some ring attendees, Inoki was lifted on a mat and dumped into the ring to receive a large trophy and lots of oil (alcohol?) being slathered onto this back and shoulders.

Big Show v. Eddie Guerrerro 4/15/04

PAS: Show is the biggest of the three giants, but may be the least intimidating. I think that has a lot to do with both Andre and Khali having gigantism. The giant heads and facial features really make both guys look terrifying. Meanwhile Show just looks like a big normal guy. Eddie was so amazing during 2004, one of the best years any wrestler has ever had. He used a similar strategy to Inoki, but is so much more expressive then Inoki is. It seems weird to see a Giant work a body part, but Shows arm work was really great, I loved grabbing the shoulder muscle and crushing it with his hand. He looked like he was going to rip the shoulder right out.

LB: This was a fun match that made me sad that Eddie is dead. The match was mostly Eddie bumping wildly off of the slowly stalking Big Show. There was one spot toward the end of the match when the Big Show took a big flip, which was followed up I believe by the frog splash for the win. Eddie's cheat-to-win hijinks were fun and also kind of sweet and innocent. I expected Eddie to brain the Big Show with the wrench from under the ring, but instead he threw it to the Big Show to get the referee on this case, and then jumped the Big Show with a great flurry of punches while the Big Show was being reprimanded. The only classic giant mannerisms the Big Show adopted was a roar as he delivered the big chops to Eddie in the corner, but other times he sported a sh*t-eating grin as he beat up Eddie. A sh*t-eating grin does not make me think, big scary freaky giant.

John Cena v. Great Khali 5/20/07

PAS: Cena may be the most impressive performer in any of these matches. Khali is so much worse then either Andre or Show, but this match is comparable to the other two and it really is all Cena's doing. Cena made him look like a total killer. Just taking giant bumps on all of the moves. They weren't Hennig or Micheals style athletic bumps which are all about the bumper, they were the kind of whiplash bumps that make the guy applying the move look powerful. Eddie flew around more for Show, but Cena is great at kind of floppy legged KO selling. Cena is also amazing at timing all of his comebacks, as the crowd went nuts for the catch of the chop, and the shoulderblocks, the finish was real great. I don't know about Khali tapping out in the first match, but they set it up really well. I get the sense Khali may be unable to take a bump, so kicking the stairs into the knee, and landing a legdrop is devastating enough to buy the STFU being put on. This was the best of their three singles matches with each other, with SNME being a squash, and One Night Stand having such a dumb finish. Part of the greatness is really seeing the spots for the first time, Khali's spin kick is a holy shit spot the first time, not particularly good looking the second.

LB: I'd have to go with Andre being a little more impressive than Cena just because perpetual-motion lucha Andre was so much more impressive than barely mobile Andre. But Cena was great making the match here, with Bret Hart-caliber whiplash-into-the-corner spots. Catching the chop was campy but fun, almost as good as the block of Baron von Raschke's claw where the opponent tries to turn the claw on the Baron and the Baron sells fear of his own hand. I thought the set up to the finish was good and impressive that Cena was able to get the hold on a guy of that size. It also made me think that perhaps Khali was not an invincible monster but rather had some pointed weaknesses where all you had to do is soften him up a bit and then get him down, and he could be put out. Khali's freakishly disproportionate giant body supports that theory, I think.