From the Archives, 1974: Andre the Giant is a mighty big crowd puller

A genial 28-year-old Frenchman named Andre, better known then and now as Andre the Giant, laced up his wrestling boots for a special night out at the Hordern Pavilion in 1974.

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From the Archives - SMH/The Age Facebook

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday, November 11, 1974

It looked, outside the Hordern Pavilion on Friday at 8 pm, as though the Revolution had finally arrived. But there was, really, no reason for alarm.

All those masses of people pushing and shouting — in unfamiliar languages too, some of them were just trying to get into the wrestling.

Still, you could understand the consternation of one bemused woman, heading for the Pekinese dog show next door, who for one awful moment got mixed up in the crush. “What’s it all about? What’s going on?” she kept asking.

Well, what it was all about was a genial, 28-year-old Frenchman called Andre who was being paid a reported record fee to entertain Sydney fun lovers on Friday night. Andre, who hails from a farm near Grenoble, is widely known around wrestling circles as “The Giant,” for reasons which are immediately apparent.

He stands 340.7 cm (7ft 5in) in wrestling boots that look like a couple of small boats, and weighs in at a trim 204 kg (30 stone). He is the biggest athlete ever to appear in Sydney.

And he certainly put king-sized smiles on the faces of the program’s promoters. People scrambled for seats at $3 and $2. Pensioners, young couples, children poured into the pavilion. One baby occupied a push-car. A man perched on a ladder at the back of the hall.

“It’s a nice family night out” said American Mr Leo Garibaldi — himself a former champion wrestler — who was associated with the promotion.

Mr Garibaldi watched attendants struggle in with extra chairs. “We didn’t put the prices up,” he said wistfully, “but we sure could have.” Then he grabbed a microphone and apologised to everyone for not having a bigger building.

In his dressing room Andre the Giant, perhaps soothed by a $30 lunch and the prospects of $US50,000 for his three-state Australian tour, remained calm, “I am having a nice day,” he smiled gently.

But soon it was time for him to go into action in a refinement of straight wrestling new to me and called, quaintly, “Russian Roulette.” The rules of this game are simple: the last man standing wins.

Andre, hardly surprisingly, turned out to be terribly good at it. For a little while the air seemed to be full of flying wrestlers. Then he was quite alone.

The final match — Andre versus a well-nourished American Indian warrior called “Bull” Ramos. 158.1 kg (23 st), ended when a couple of Ramos’s wrestler mates, who had been lurking at the ringside, charged in to help him out of trouble.

Andre was, thereupon, declared the winner.

It was a happy verdict. The cheering surpassed anything Frank Sinatra had been able to raise at the Pavilion. And Andre had hardly raised a sweat. But then, as he admitted, shrugging shoulders as broad as a hay waggon: “Wrestling beats working on the farm.”

(The Sydney Morning Herald)