Why Is Andre The Giant Trending Today?

You may have noticed Andrew The Giant has been trending on Twitter today (Oct. 27, 2022). There’s a good reason for it, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the WWE Hall of Famer’s legendary career. The online website Sketchfab recently published a 3D rendering of the former WWF Champion, resembling his appearance in the 1987 classic The Princess Bride. However, the Twitter account @ColossusNick took a screenshot of the rendering and posted it to Twitter, writing, “Scientists at Stanford University have reconstructed this 3D model of how Joseph, the husband of Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ might have looked.”

Obviously, that’s not what the rendering was for, but the post still managed to generate nearly 67 thousands likes in a day. Twitter even had to go out of its way to correct the post, writing, “This is a @sketchfab 3D rendering of the actor Andre the Giant. The unsupported claim is that the image is from Stanford researchers and represents the Biblical Joseph, husband of Mary.”

Pat Laprade released the book “The Eighth Wonder of The World: The True Story of Andre The Giant” back in 2020. He spoke with Chris Jericho that year to promote the book and shed some insight on Andre’s somewhat contentious relationship with Vince McMahon. 

“The big difference between the way that Vince Sr. and Vince Jr. used Andre was that Vince Sr didn’t use him much in his own territory because he was getting a cut on Andre when he was traveling all over the world,” Laprade said (h/t WrestlingNews.co for transcript). “He was making money on Andre without using him in his own territory and what he had learned from was that if you used Andre too much in the same territory, he was not going to draw as much as when you first book him. That’s what Andre liked.

“He could travel the world, visiting different friends, different promotions, and I think that’ what he didn’t like from Vince Jr that Vince Jr kept him more in his own territory and Andre didn’t get to see all his friends,” he continued. “He was traveling all over North America, but it was the same locker room over and over. I think Andre had a lot of bitterness toward Vince Jr because of this.”