Andre the Giant Enforces Carpool Rules

Andre the Giant vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan WWF 5/21/88 - GREAT

ER: Heel Andre is one of the most perfect Jim Duggan opponents we ever got. Nobody is better prepared for Duggan's strengths, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies. He is impossible to gobble up so there's no danger of Duggan lazily walking through the hits. Duggan wasn't really doing that in '88 anyway, but he certainly wasn't going to do that against Andre. Andre forced Duggan's selling to be at its best, and he paid off Duggan's selling with some incredible work of his own. All of Andre's work here is incredible. He puts on such a show. There is something so damn funny about the largest man in the country steadfastly, calmly refusing to wrestle if the referee doesn't remove Duggan's 2x4 from the ring. Andre acting as a lawyer is some of his best work. He's not losing his temper, he's just acting like a kid who is perfectly fine waiting at the dinner table if he can wait out his parents making him eating his vegetables. Andre is resigning himself to sitting at that table until bedtime if it means he doesn't have to eat them. He hears the threats and does not care. He has drawn the line and made up his mind and everyone in the Spectrum hates him for it.

Andre holding out his hands, palms down, to quiet down some of the threats is so fucking funny. I had to keep skipping back to watch him do it. Look at his face man, look at his face, turning over his right shoulder when one of his young twin sons verbally crosses a line during carpool. Andre's son just said the S-word and Andre is trying to get control of the situation. "Hey, Jace? We don't say that okay? Hey...we don't say that." Andre is riling up the Spectrum, a man who has just paused the movie for the 4th time so he can use the bathroom again. Nobody else has even gone once! 

Dick Graham, as really only Dick Graham can do, starts imagining what he thinks a typical Andre the Giant breakfast might consist of, but he's clearly speaking of some mythical Andre who has a specifically Philadelphian palate. "Imagine what this Giant might eat for breakfast. Couple pounds of bacon, couple dozen eggs, scrapple, pancakes, cinnamon milk..." I have never heard of cinnamon milk as a Philadelphia thing. I always assumed cinnamon milk was what homeless people made at the Starbucks straw and lid station without having to buy anything. No doubt it was also a treat Dick Graham's mother made him in the 30s and Dick assumed a French countryside giant also grew up drinking it. Dick Graham presumably thinks broccoli rabe is Andre's favorite side and that his mother made milk pie for dessert. 

My Scrapple Breakfast with Andre. 

The match is great. Andre beats the damn bricks off Duggan. His closing speed when he "starts" the match is the most imposing and unavoidable attack. He closes distance so fast and goes from not being next to Duggan to choking the life out of him in short seconds. He comes off like a lumbering ogre but that distance disappears quick man. But how about the way Andre responds to punches? How Andre sells punches? The way Andre takes a big right hand, wipes at his nose with the back of his hand multiple times to check for what has to be blood, taking another punch, finally throwing judo chops because he is tired of taking punches to the nose. Andre going to his bearhug sure shuts people in the Spectrum the fuck up. House shows are great places to work bearhugs, especially ones this good. Duggan is so good fighting through his various stages of pain and grief while in a Giant's grasp. His only chance is to go for nose. 

Andre shoves Duggan off and starts holding his nose and yelling at him through the pain. When Duggan fights back he starts targeting Andre's End of Level blinking red nose and the way Andre unsteadily staggers in response is wrestling. Andre keeps taking three point stance charges - FIVE of them! - and is walking uneasily while using the ropes for guidance, a giant walking on mousetraps out of the corner, the ropes acting as his guide and support. Duggan finally bumps Andre him by kicking the ogre's support ropes to send him flying, a tortoise flipped to his back. It's everything I want.

The only thing I did not want was The 2x4 Finish (pronounced "TUBA-four" by Dick Graham). This is one of the weaker Andre finishes of the 80s, sadly. Andre swinging a board into Duggan's back looked nowhere near as dangerous as any of the times Andre swung his arm at him. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT