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Pinning Andre

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27K views 27 replies 14 participants last post by  Brock  
#1 ·
I was wondering, does anyone know how many pinfall losses Andre had roughly throughout his career?
As far as I know Andre just lost by pinfall to

Hogan, Warrior, Race, Thesz and El Canek (Maybe)
 
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#2 · (Edited)
This site seems to be legit with win-loss statistics - http://www.profightdb.com/winlossrecord/andre-the-giant-15.html

According to The Internet Wrestling Database, Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior have pin-fall victories over Andre The Giant in singles matches on TV/PPV and/or house shows. Antonio Inoki has a "TKO" victory over him in NJPW in '76. Andre's other loses are DQs, count-outs, battle royals, and tag team matches (where he didn't take the fall). Draws are also recorded.
 
#19 ·
Part of that is because they successfully booked him as a monster. He won all the time. So much so, that we are here in this thread talking about the handful of times that he did lose. There was a mystique about Andre and fans did view him as unbeatable for a time. One of the reasons that the Wrestlemania III match with Hogan worked so well was that Andre more than a believable challenger for Hogan. Imagine that after 4 years of winning as Champion, they were actually able to believably build Hogan as the underdog because it was impossible to think that he could beat Andre.

Compare that to today where they constantly tell us that Big Show is a monster and yet he loses all the time. I don't buy into it for that reason. And that's just this year alone. I shouldn't even have to cover the countless times Big Show has been booked as a loser yet they keep going back to the monster thing sooner or later.

Another thing that benefited Andre was the fact that he worked the territory system. He wasn't on TV every week for a full year with one company. He traveled the world. A few months here, a few months there, a few months overseas. Andre was a special attraction because of that and it kept him from getting over exposed.
 
#7 · (Edited)
I always heard Don Leo Jonathan pinned him somewhere in Canada....and Canek pinned him in Mexico.....Believe it or not there has been a rumor for years that Ronnie Garvin has a pinfall victory over Andre. In addition to this I always heard he put Lawler over in Memphis. I know he wrestled Lawler on a couple of occasions I have the newspaper advertisement copied, but I think that was a countout victory for Lawler and not a pinfall.

The Garvin and Lawler stories are both fascinating....

I did a little research....the Garvin pinfall happened in Knoxville, Tennessee apparently for the Robert Fuller run territory. There is tape of the match but it cuts off before the finsish. Legend has it that Andre would only allow Garvin to get the pin if the cameras did not film the pinfall....convienant right? So I don't take much stock in that one, although there are witnesses who swear they saw it....and it would make sense that Andre took an extra bit of green back in the day. All he had to do is tell Vince SR. that he did not do the job and the locals were just trying to get there guy over.

AS far as the Lawler pinfall it was in fact reported by the Apter mags that Lawler beat Andre and Vince was pissed!

Check this out in the last half of an article written by former wrestling manager Scott Bowden.

Great story....


http://www.comics101.com/kentuckyfr...iedrasslin//?mode=project&action=view&project=Kentucky Fried Rasslin&chapter=41
 
#8 ·
One thing's for sure, you won't find too many wrestlers that you have to search and dig up the few occasions he was ever defeated. That's the mystique of Andre The Giant I guess. The stories of “so & so once pinned The Giant" sound like old fables being told. Stuff of legend. (Y)
 
#9 · (Edited)
Agreed, great thread. I can only find evidence of the Hogan and Warrior pins. I would give credibility to the Canek claim and the Garvin claim due to eyewitnesses. So maybe four times although according to Apter, Lawler won, I need to read Lawler's bio again and see what he says about it. It would make sense to me that he probably jobbed to other territory stars for money but then again Vince SR was very protective. I seem to recall Andre letting one of the Stampede guys going over on him him.

However you are right, there are very few stars whom we can say jobbed to to only a handful of stars. So it stands to reason that his losses were in the single digits.

The first link posted with win loss records is really weak considering it only counts matches on pay per view and Andre's career mostly took place during the pre-pay-per view era,
 
#10 ·
Well, after doing some reserach on this topic. Here is what I came up with regarding Andre's pinfall losses or losses that were of significane:

1989: IC Champion the Ultimate Warrior pinned (according to the History of WWE) at least 9 times in the autumn during the houseshows. Since there are many clashes between these two it is believed that Andre actually lost many more matches by pinfall since many of the results are unknown and WWF tend to have the same results for each town they went in to. (I've seen one of these matches so I can for sure say Warrior pinned Andre at least once)

31-jul-88 Andre lost to Hulk Hogan in a Steel-Cage-Match at the Wrestle Fest 88 event in Milwaukee, WI
29-mar-1987 Andre got pinned by WWF Champion Hulk Hogan at WM 3 in Michigan

17-jun-1986: Antonio Inoki forced Andre to submit in Nagoya, Japan, in a an IWGP Semi Final (This match do exist since I've seen the entire match)

12-feb-84 Andre loses to UWA Champion El Canek in a 2-Out-Of-3-Falls-Match at at UWA Show Naulcalpan, MEXICO (People claim it was by pinfall, But I have never seen the entire match, just clips)

? - ? - 1980-1982 Andre loses to Mid South Champion Jerry Lawler by Count Out in Louisville, KY for Mid-South. (Lawler confirms this in his book, that it was by CO, not by pin, but still go a lot of heat from Vince sr)

05-mar-78 Andre The Giant and Roy Welch loses to Ron Garvin by (According to the legend) pinfall in a Handicap-Match at a TV Taping in Knoxville, TN (However there are no footage of the entire match)

07-okt-76 Andre loses to Antonio Inoki in a Single-Match in Tokyo, when the referee stops the match

10-feb-74 Andre loses to The Sheik in a singles-Match in Toronto, when the referee stops the match (I've seen this match so I know for sur it took place)

18-dec-72 Andre for sure lost to Killer Kowalski in Quebec City, and according to legend it was by pinfall

31-maj-72 Andre for sure lost to Don Leo Jonathon in Montreal, and also here according to legend it was by pinfall

06-maj-72 Andre lost to Strong Kobayashi in the 4th-IWA-World-Series-FINAL in Morioka Japan. How Andre lost can only be speculated, but it is not entirely ruled out that he lost by pinfall

27-apr-71 Andre lost to Karl Gotch in Nagoya, Japan. According to sources it was by pinfall


Also it is to be assumed that Andre lost several times before these dates by pinfall, because he started his career in 1964, so it is highly unlikely that he did not lose a single match up to that point.



So with that said, so far Andre lost to

Warrior 9 times by pin
Hogan 1 time by pin, 1 time in a cage
Inoki 1 time by submission, 1 time by stoppage
El Canek 1 time by pin
Garvin 1 time by pin
The Sheik 1 time by stoppage
Kowalski 1 time by pin
Don Leo 1 time by pin
Gotch 1 time by pin


That is 16 known pinfall losses for a career that lasted for 28 years.

anyone who can add more to this topic?
 
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#22 ·
Great post! Thanks for the research this is the kind of stuff I could read all day. BTW I bet someone comes on here and posts that "didn't Warrior beat him once?" I am getting tired of these guys who don't read any of the previous posts.
Anyways, are we sure Bigelow never pinned Andre? They had a house show run in 1987. Andre's post "winning streak" fueds were with Bigelow, Hacksaw, Jake the Snake, and with Haku vs Demolition. I don't think Andre lost to any of them but if he had it would have been to Bigelow because Vince was pushing Bam Bam hard at the time. I was at a house show in Tennessee where Andre pinned Bam Bam and I was more than a little suprised. Seems odd to me that they would let Andre pin a percieved hot shot star every night.
 
#12 · (Edited)
This is a great thread. I knew that Andre's persona was well protected back then, but I didn't realise that his image was so well protected. Now I understand better why Hogan/Andre was such a big deal at WM3. Andre's win loss record is even better than The Undertaker's.



I guess though, "if it didn't happen on TV, it didn't happen". Losing at little House Shows like that isn't really a big deal, especially as (as pointed out earlier) they had basically the same results for every show at the time. I'd just count that as one loss to Warrior, repeated over and over. I bet those matches were fucking awful as well.
 
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#15 ·
If WWE claims that only pinfall losses and submission losses counts, and the they are only speaking about his career in WWWF/WWF they are pretty much accurate. Over the last twelve years I've scanned the net for results, Iäve never came across such a loss for Andre.

Andre did lose some matches, but by reading his book, it is safe to say, he rarely lost. And for those losses to take place in the first place, they had to have McMahon sr's blessing. Everything went via McMahon. It is safe to say that Andre was as protected as Undertaker is protected today. Similar career/legacy/legend, different guy.

Some people don't count Houseshows as losses. But I do and many of those matches took place at tapings or was broadcasted at the local tv station at the time. Also if matches at housshows does not count because it never was seen by an large audience. Then most of the matches between 1900's all the way to 1980's did not take place, because not many of them was televised.

I do count Andres losses to Warrior, but I dont consider them to be such a big deal though


Speaking of houseshows and the results are basically the same all the time. I have a tape of which Silver Vision released where Warrior wrestles WWF champion Randy Savage in 1989. Both mathces were almost identical, almost move by move all the way to the ending where Rude came in and interfered on Savage behalf costing Warrior a count out losses. Then Warrior Gorilla presses Rude on to Savage.
Talk about strange for Silver Vision to put on two matches that were almost identical on the same tape back in the erarly 1990's. Only difference between the matches was the outfits of the wrestlers
 
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#16 ·
It's not that the house show results don't count because they did happen and they are on record (although Flair dropped and won a couple of World Titles at live events that never went on record). It is the results aren't as significant or memorable when they take place at non-televised live events.
 
#18 ·
It is the same with The Ultimate Warrior and Goldberg they both lost matches by pinfall on houseshows durign their career.

Warrior lost to Andre, Dino Bravo and Rick Rude in 1987-1988
Goldberg lost to some jobber in 1997
 
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#21 ·
Agreed sort of....unbeatable monsters get OLD. Vince Sr. knew this and this is exactly why they sent Andre out on loan to all the other territories. Vince basically acted as his private booker. It helped him make bank, and it helped him keep Andre fresh by not overexposing him,
 
#23 ·
From all the results I've seen, Andre never lost to Bigelow, not even by Count Out or DQ. However, Andre lost to Duggan, Jake, Savage and Studd on numerous occasions by CO and DQ. But none of them ever pinned Andre. But Andre did pin Jake on several occasions, same with Duggan too.

So to say from all the results I've gathered over the years, despite losing to Hogan at WM3. Andre did not lose by pinfall until he wrestled Warrior. But then again, I could b wrong, he could easily have lost to someone on a househow in some remote town of no where.
 
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#24 ·
Andre was the perfect example of how to book a big guy/giant

Look at Big Show currently, someone beating a 7"2 500 pound guy should have a hell of a lot more meaning that beating Big Show does and I think it all stems back to WWE not handling him correctly when they bought him in, my opinion of course
 
#25 ·
If WWE claims that only pinfall losses and submission losses counts, and the they are only speaking about his career in WWWF/WWF they are pretty much accurate. Over the last twelve years I've scanned the net for results, Iäve never came across such a loss for Andre.
Click to expand...
Wow, there was some truth to the angle. That's crazy!

- Vic
 
#27 ·
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