Was Andre The Giant known for his strength and fighting skills, or was it all just for show?

The most common thing you’ll hear about Andre the Giant from other wrestlers who worked with him:

“If Andre didn’t want to move, you weren’t moving him.”

Andre Roussimoff was billed at 7′4″ – though most people believe this to be a bit of a fib for the benefit of wrestling fans, and more assiduous comparisons of photos from the time seem to put him around 6′10″ – buit in any case, he wrestled at a weight between 400 and 500 pounds. He had acromegaly – commonly known as “gigantism”. This meant his muscles never stopped growing, and his skeleton was exceptionally hard and dense. It also unfortunately meant that as he approached age 40, he lived in crippling pain, with even his own frame unable to bear his staggering weight – but was he strong and tough? Absolutely.

Men who argued or messed with Andre outside of the ring were most commonly simply picked up and dumped somewhere that they couldn’t bother him anymore – and we’re talking big, strong wrestlers and bodybuilders. It even happened to Andre’s friend Arnold Schwarzenegger once, who annoyed Andre at dinner over who was going to pay for the bill (both men wanted to pay) and got left on a high shelf after Andre “picked him up like a doll”, paid the bill himself and left.

Andre was never the most technically skilled wrestler.

He didn’t have to be.

He was, quite simply, too big and strong and tough for most other men to hurt.