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Here's what happened when Andre the Giant came to Mississippi

Posted: Apr 27th 2018 By: Clarion-Ledger.com

In this corner, from Moliens, France, we had Andre the Giant, a professional wrestler: 7 feet, 4 inches tall, 520 pounds.

In the other corner, fresh out of the University of Missouri’s journalism school, we had Bob Wagner: 5 feet, 8 inches tall, 150 pounds.

I liked Bob. Good guy. Good sports writer. But I’m guessing he wouldn't have been much of a wrestler, especially against someone three inches taller and 200 pounds heavier than Shaquille O’Neal.

Thank goodness the “match” never came to fruition.

But for a few hours during the mid-1970s, we at the Meridian Star sports department thought it might.

I bring this up because of the HBO documentary now airing that profiles the humongous wrestler, who died in 1993 at age 46. He was a megastar. But as one might suspect, he tired of being viewed as a freak.

Is it a compliment when the TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man” casts you as Bigfoot? I tend to think it was sad, though he was perfect for the part. He wore size 24 shoes.

'Do you think he might show up here?'

In the mid-70s, Andre the Giant was just starting to become well known. To increase his popularity, he traveled throughout the country, showing up in small towns to wrestle some poor sap and visit with the local media.

Meridian happened to be one of the cities he visited.

We covered boxing. Meridian had a fine local boxing club at the time. But we didn’t cover wrestling because, well, you know what they say. Do I have to say it?

So one night Bob was catching up on some work in the sports office when the phone rang. It was Andre the Giant.

Bob didn’t know if he played for New York in the NFL or San Francisco in Major League Baseball.

No, Andre explained, not that kind of Giant. He was a wrestler, and he had been injured that night during a match. He was calling from a Meridian hospital bed.

He suggested Bob grab a pen and a notebook and come on over to his room for an interview.

Bob didn’t care for the idea because wrestling, well, you know. Did he have to say it?

Apparently, he thought so..

Here is Bob’s recollection of the conversation, which he posted recently on Facebook:

“I told him I wasn't interested, saying to Andre the Giant that wrestling was fake sports. Yes, that's right I had the chutzpah, bravado or, if you will, death wish, to tell Andre the Giant that wrestling was fake.

“I told him wrestling was more entertainment than sport, and the very fact that he was on the phone trying to get me to do a story on his injury was proof of it.

“I remember to this day, how his voice BOOMED across the phone lines. 'Fake? You come up here and I'll show you fake!'”

Bob said, “No thanks” — and hung up.

Yep, hung up on Andre the Giant.

And this is where I entered the situation: In those days, newspapers received wire stories on coded ticker tape fed through a computer. A roll of ticker tape wouldn’t last all night, so somebody had to drive to the sports department and put on a fresh roll. It was my night to do it.

I wasn’t paying much attention to Bob’s conversation when I got there. Plus, a ticker tape machine is loud. I heard none of what Bob said. But I did notice he seemed a little fidgety afterward.

He finally told me what had happened.

I didn’t know who Andre the Giant was, either.

“Do you think he’s serious?" Bob asked me. "Do you think he might show up over here when he gets out of the hospital?”

“So you told this Andre the Giant fellow that wrestling is fake?” I asked.

“Yeah. Because it is,” Bob responded.

I quickly decided that compassion for my co-worker was more important than the truth.

“Naw, by tomorrow he’ll have forgotten the whole thing,” I said.

I didn’t believe that. Wrestlers were crazy.

It wouldn’t have been hard to walk into our sports department. There was no such thing as security at a
newspaper back then.

And Bob sat at the first desk on the right. Andre could've reached him one step into the office.

As the night crawled on, the more Bob worried and the bigger he pictured Andre the Giant.

Bob on Facebook again: “What had I done? Would all 9 feet and 800 pounds of Andre the Giant show up in the office in a couple days to confront 5-foot-8, 150-pound me? Would (sports editor) Mac Gordon defend me? Or would he let Andre pummel me and then fire my corpse?”

We never saw Andre the Giant, and he never called our sports department again. Bob has gone on to live, in his words, “a long and fruitful life.”

“But,” Bob adds, “they’ll never make a movie about me.”