Ask 411 Wrestling: Did Andre the Giant Ever Fall Asleep in the Ring?

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Through Hel Stryer and brimstone . . . it’s Ask 411 Wrestling!

I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

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Let’s kick it off with long-time asker Night Wolf the Wise:

What’s the story behind Andre the Giant falling asleep twice during a wrestling match? The first time was Sgt. Slaughter and the second was John Studd.

Night Wolf is right. There are two prominent stories of the Giant falling asleep in the ring.

Sgt. Slaughter told the tale of his sleepytime match against Andre on Sam Roberts’ podcast. Though he did not give a specific date or location, Slaughter claimed that the two had just come back from Japan and were wrestling in a “little town in New Jersey.” Sarge claims that he applied a front facelock early in the bout and the next thing he knew, the massive Frenchman had fallen asleep. Slaughter further relates that he woke Andre up and Andre was none too happy with that development, angrily chasing him out of the ring and throughout the locker room.

I did a bit of research into the history of Andre vs. Slaughter matches to see if I could figure out when and where this bout happened. However, try as I might, I couldn’t find a match between the two men taking place in New Jersey following a Japanese tour by Andre the Giant. In fact, I couldn’t find any match between Andre and Slaughter immediately following Andre returning from Japan, whether it was in New Jersey or anywhere else for that matter. There also weren’t any matches between the two men immediately following Andre engaging in any significant travel that would have worn him out anywhere near as much as a flight from Japan.

As a result, the details of the story as relayed on Roberts’ show do not quite add up. That’s not to say something like what was described didn’t happen, just that the precise match described alluded me if it did happen exactly as noted by the Sarge.

The Studd/Andre match that Night Wolf referenced is a bit more clear cut, though.

On June 4, 1983 in the Philadelphia Spectrum, Big John Studd and Andre the Giant had one of their many singles matches. The match is available in full through a variety of sources, and it is noteworthy because Studd puts Andre in a front facelock that lasts EIGHT-AND-A-HALF MINUTES. No, I am not kidding or exaggerating. It’s a rest hold that lasts longer than a lot of full matches.

During the hold, commentator Dick Graham even comes out and says it looks like Andre is asleep, though that is quickly shot down by Gorilla Monsoon.

This is the match that most everybody cites as the one in which the Giant took a snooze in the middle of the ring.

In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter obituary of Big John Studd, the Andre/Studd feud is recapped, and it is mentioned that Andre once fell asleep while the two were in the ring together. However, the way the obit is worded, it makes it sound as though the incident occurred when the two were feuding in the WWF in 1989, not in ’83.

Also, in one set of results I found for the 6/4/83 Spectrum show that featured the infamous front facelock, I saw it noted that before the match Andre – who was a babyface at the time – got on the house mic and yelled at the fans because some of them were throwing trash at him during his entrance. Part of me wonders whether he decided to intentionally tank the match because the crowd pissed him off, which is definitely the sort of behavior I wouldn’t be surprised to see from an 80s wrestler. This is just speculation on my part, though, and not anything I’ve seen confirmed elsewhere.

A Different Ryan drew the queen of diamonds, boy:

How did hardcore legend Terry Funk end up using a soft rock Eagles song as his entrance theme in ECW?

First off, for those who may not know, the song in question is “Desperado” by the Eagles.

If you’re asking how Funk wound up using “Desperado,” I’m curious as to whether you’ve ever listened to the lyrics of the song. Let’s take a look at them:

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
You’ve been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one, but I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin’ you can hurt you somehow

Terry Funk is the titular desperado. He’s 50 years old, well past the age when most pro wrestlers of his era retired, and yet he’s still out “ridin’ fences” despite others in his life begging him to come to his senses and go out to pasture at the Double Cross Ranch. He may be tough (“you’re a hard one”), but his continued pursuit of the rush he derives from pro wrestling could end with him being crippled (“can hurt you somehow”).

Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She’ll beat you if she’s able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can’t get

These lyrics are often interpreted as a warning to avoid the most beautiful or glamorous woman (“the queen of diamonds”) to be with the one that you truly love (“the queen of hearts”). However, in Funk’s story, the queen of diamonds isn’t a woman . . . it’s the glory that comes with being a professional wrestler and, in particular, a world champion. Meanwhile, the queen of hearts references his home life. That home life is stable and very good to him (“some fine things have been laid upon your table”), but the siren song of the wrestling ring keeps pulling him away from it (“you only want the ones that you can’t get”).

Desperado, woah, you ain’t gettin’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh, freedom, well, that’s just some people talkin
Your prison is walkin’ through this world all alone

“You ain’t getting’ no younger” is obvious.

The Funker is banged up from decades on the road and contemplating giving it all up, hence his pain and his hunger are drivin’ him home. Meanwhile, the romanticized lifestyle of a professional wrestler may appear to offer all the liberty in the world, but in reality it keeps the man trapped in his own head, lacking somebody that he can share his own pain with.

So yeah. The genre of music is certainly unusual for a pro wrestling theme song, particularly in the hardcore 1990s, but that song could have been written about Terry Funk. It was perfect.

Tyler from Winnipeg has no shame in his game:

In WCW, how many PPVs did Rey Misterio, Jr. NOT wear a luchador mask for his match?

Rey was forced to remove his mask as a result of losing a tag bout at Superbrawl IX on February 21, 1999 where he teamed with Konnan against Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.

By my count, he had 13 pay per view matches for the company after that, though some fans might only count 12 because one of them on my list was the unusual German-exclusive pay per view called Millennium Final.

And, because I originally misread the question, I can tell you that Misterio had a total of 203 matches for WCW after unmasking, including PPV, television, and house shows.

Shaun is doing things backwards:

Who was the first person to win a title in TNA before winning one in WWE?

As with many questions, this one is a bit open to interpretation.

This is because the question as written is somewhat ambiguous. I can’t tell from the way it is worded whether Shaun intends to limit the answer to only those individuals who actually won a championship in WWE after they won a championship in TNA or if people who only won a championship in TNA but never won a championship in WWE qualify.

If we are including people who never won a WWE championship, then the answer is . . .

Barbara Bush

No, not the former U.S. first lady.

I’m talking about Kathy Dingman. In the late 1990s, Dingman was working at a Hooters restaurant in Daytona Beach, Florida when a couple of indy wrestlers befriended her and eventually talked her in to working as their valet. She later ran into Terry Taylor, and that lead to her signing with the WWF, where she was renamed Barbara Bush, or B.B. for short, being introduced as a ringside paramedic who eventually started wrestling after she was attacked and humiliated by Ivory.

After being written out of the WWF following a powerbomb through a table by the Dudley Boys, Dingman had a cup of coffee in WCW under the name Papaya.

Then, on June 19, 2002, she was part of the first ever TNA show in Huntsville, Alabama, though as a cost saving measure the show was chopped up into two separate pay per view events.

Dingman, now called Taylor Vaughn, competed in a women’s battle royale that was included on the second PPV. She won that match and became the first ever “Miss TNA.”

But the former B.B. never went back to WWE, let alone won a title there, so she’s not the answer if you read the question that way.

If you read the question in such a way that the wrestler had to win a championship in WWE after winning a championship in TNA, the answer to the question comes from the exact same show as Taylor Vaughn’s Miss TNA win, and it is . . .

AJ Styles

A few matches after the Miss TNA battle royale, Styles became the first ever X Division Champion by defeating Low Ki, Jerry Lynn, and Psicosis in a double elimination four corners match. Of course, some 14 years later, he would join WWE and win multiple championships there, starting at the top with the World Championship.

Jonfw2 is not going to the pay winduh:

You’re in “the room” with Hunter, Nick, and Heyman. Ari Emmanuel pops in and says before you all leave the room, you need to cut at least five performers from Raw, Smackdown, and NXT. At least 5 from each brand.

Assuming we don’t actually know the salaries or contract status of anyone, who do you recommend?

It seems like I get some variation on this “who would you fire” question every couple of years, and I always feel dirty answering it because I really prefer that people not lose their jobs, but I was cursed by an old Romani woman to answer all these questions, so here goes nothing.

In reviewing the Raw roster, cuts are actually difficult to make, because it’s a pretty tight, pretty talented group. There’s not a lot of fat there. I suppose I would start with Maxine Dupri, because, regardless of gender, she’s the least talented in-ring performer of the group and doesn’t seem to be getting any better anytime soon. Otis is next. I actually really like him as a performer, but he’s done almost nothing for years, so my hope is that this would free him up to ply his trade someplace where more focus could be put on him. I’d actually be interested in seeing him reinvented as a monster heel in Japan. I don’t fully understand why Nikki Bella is back, so she can go. I suppose we’ll round it out with Joaquin Wilde and Cruz del Toro, as they’re talented but feel just the slightest bit extraneous right now.

On Smackdown, the decision is much easier for me: Let’s cut Bo Dallas, Dexter Lumis, Joe Gacy, and Erick Rowan. The Wyatt gimmick has been terrible for years, cheesy horror that tries to convince people that it has substance and “layers” when it most definitely does not. Plus, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen one of these four guys do anything particularly impressive in the ring. I’m sparing Nikki Cross because, even though I feel she’s wasted in her current role, I have enjoyed her work in other contexts. As to number five, let’s go with Nia Jax. She’s poor in the ring and has been forever. There are plenty of other competitors in the women’s division who I’d rather see get the opportunities she has had.

And to be quite honest, I have very little familiarity with what’s going on in NXT right now. I’ve always found Ethan Page pretty boring, so I might get rid of him, and I don’t think anybody knows what Ava brings to the table, but otherwise everybody down there just kind of runs together for me.

Only one of Jase‘s feet has hit the arena floor:

Has a wrestler ever been eliminated from a battle royal when they were not supposed to be? If so, how was it handled?

Yes, this has happened several times.

Perhaps the most famous example is the 2005 Royal Rumble match, where the finalists were Dave Batista and John Cena. According to the February 7, 2005 Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the match was originally supposed to have a clean finish with Batista simply powerbombing Cena and then throwing him out of the ring. However, they lost their balance and both men went over the top rope. In fact, if you watch closely, Batista, who was supposed to win the match, hit the floor first. This lead to Vince McMahon, who was running the show backstage, calling an audible and declaring the match a draw before restarting it. (And Vince managed to tear both his quads while coming out to do that, but that’s another story.)

Similarly, there is the 2000 Royal Rumble, which came down to the Rock and the Big Show, which the Rock was supposed to win in a photo finish. However, despite what was planned, Rock’s feet actually hit the floor before Show did. The referees and commentators still called the match as though Rocky scored the victory, though the WWF did pivot in their storylines a bit and had Big Show claim he was the rightful winner, so Rock had to beat him again on the road to Wrestlemania to put the controversy to rest.

On his podcast, Steve Austin admitted he was accidentally eliminated from the 1996 Royal Rumble, where he was supposed to be one of the final four. He was going to get clotheslined out of the ring by Fatu and do a “skin the cat” type spot, but an overabundance of baby oil on the performers made the ropes slippery, and he was unable to hang on. The other wrestlers in the match had to wrap things up without him, which probably wasn’t too difficult for them because this was still in the era where matches were called in the ring as opposed to being heavily choreographed and rehearsed.

Kofi Kingston had an unfortunate incident in 2022 in which he was attempting to perform one of the athletic spots in which he saves himself from sure elimination, something he’s become well known for over the years. He was supposed to land on the guardrail and hug it to save himself, but his feet wound up hitting the floor, so the match just had to go on without him.

Other noted examples include Bayley at he 2021 Royal Rumble and Alex Riley in 2011, though there really aren’t great stories to go along with those.

There are probably also several other examples of this that we just don’t know about, because they didn’t turn out to be big deals. There are plenty of battle royale eliminations that have no impact on the match as a whole, so if they happened at the wrong time, nobody would ever notice.

We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.