Fire Fundraiser: Andre in Portland

Andre the Giants & Hack Sawyer vs. Rip Oliver, Dizzy Hogan & Matt Borne 5/8/82

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only Andre in Portland match that exists to the general public. I haven't seen anything else pop up in matchlists. And really I just wanted to see this because I love the idea of Andre wandering around Portland. It's such a wonderful little city, and yes I do realize I'm picturing Andre wandering around CURRENT Portland, going to great breakfast places, drinking Stumptown, going to a bar that makes their own bitters to try a house Manhattan; just picturing "local weirdo Portland celebrity" Andre makes me smile. Like if he wasn't Andre the Giant, legendary wrestler, and instead worked at a hardware store and lived in a cottage near Burnside. Andre as the owner of an Air BnB. Andre as local guy ordering one of everything off the Pine State menu. Portland Andre just sounds wonderful.

And the match was good! It was really smartly laid out, and while I didn't get as much Andre running amok as I wanted, I was still satisfied. First fall was mostly Hack and Andre, with Hack trying to keep the heels at bay and the heels all dying once Andre tagged in. The second fall was really great, with Andre stranded on the apron as the heels cut off the ring and took apart Sawyer. There were a couple really great spots of Sawyer coming so close to tagging Andre in, with one spot seeing him reaching out but Oliver grabbing Sawyer's close arm and pulling him away. Also a great spot of Andre leaning WAY in on the right part of the screen to tag Sawyer practically halfway across the ring. Rip is great and crazy, taunting the giant, and I loved Borne going up top for a splash on Sawyer only to catch knees. I didn't see that coming. Sawyer was really good as a babyface fighting from under, knowing his gigantic get out of jail free card was looming over on the apron. Sawyer was a really important factor here, as the focus of most of the match was on him and his struggles to get to Andre. And yes this was a fine fine babyface performance from him. His hope spots were good, the alllllmost tags to Andre were good, the selling was good. This is maybe the most I've loved Hack Sawyer. Third fall sees the heels wisely draw Andre away from the ring, with Borne and Hogan luring him out into the crowd. Andre going wild down the aisle of the Portland Sports Arena, bodyslamming dudes while tiny humans looked on, while Oliver held Sawyer into a full nelson that would surely end the match. Andre fights his way back and every time he'd roll in to save Sawyer would believably get drug out by Hogan or Borne. Andre would ram them into each other, kick them off, but both men were really good about just holding all their weight onto Andre's legs since Sawyer's time was running out. I was excited to see how it would end but alas, it ends with men running in. I don't know why heels would run in when the heels would clearly have won anyway. I guess because they're jerks? Probably because they're jerks.