The Eighth Wonder of the World by Bertrand Hébert

Author:Bertrand Hébert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2020-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

In his prime, André could “fly” when he wanted to.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated

On June 8, André made a surprise return to the delight of the crowd at the Madison Square Garden, in an interview segment with Vince McMahon Jr., in which he said he was going to be back in three or four weeks. The following night, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where the TV tapings were held, he did another interview with Vince broadcast on June 13 as part of the WWF Championship Wrestling TV show. It’s during that interview, in which he said his cast would be removed the next day, that the feud with Killer Khan really started.

Billed as a Mongolian, Killer Khan was, in fact, Masashi Ozawa, from Tsubame, Niigata, Japan. Khan and André had known each other for a long time. When Khan made his debut in the early 1970s for New Japan under his real name, he was one of the boys carrying André’s bag to the locker room, a huge honor in Japan. They first squared up on March 3, 1974, in a handicap match, and their first singles match was on November 24 of the same year. They faced each other six years later in Georgia. Khan, whose Mongolian gimmick was given to him by Karl Gotch, started working for the World Wrestling Federation in December 1979. In 1980, he was matched with manager “Classy” Freddie Blassie and began wrestling there full-time. At six foot five and 300 pounds, he was a natural antagonist for André, even more so with Blassie in his corner, since the former wrestler had a history with André from when he was managing Hogan. Khan was being pushed as a threat to both WWF champion Bob Backlund and Intercontinental champion Pedro Morales at the end of 1980 and for the first part of 1981. He lost to André in that April 13 match in Rochester, New York, and then wrestled the two champions quite a few times thereafter. When André’s injury happened, Khan was ready to move on to another program.

The angle got on its way on May 20, in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, during a TV taping. After a match, broadcast on Championship Wrestling on May 23, Khan and Blassie were interviewed, and that’s when the injury was credited to Khan. While the interview was going on, photos of André at the hospital were shown. The following week, André was interviewed to discuss how Khan had broken his ankle. That led to the June dates.

André was telling the truth in his interview when he said he would be back in three to four weeks, as his return was in a house show on June 24 in Norwich, Connecticut. However, rehabilitation wasn’t an easy journey for the Giant. It was his first real injury, besides his chronic back pain that had plagued him since his days in France. “He started to have back problems in Paris,” said his brother Jacques. “He had missed some matches because of that. The kinesiologist didn’t know where to start.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.