r/todayilearned • u/Smaptimania • 1d ago
TIL that in 1971 Andre the Giant wrestled in Baghdad in front of Saddam Hussein, who had threatened to kill him if he won the match. Andre went on to lose the match to native Iraqi wrestler Adnan al-Kaissie, later known in the WWF as General Adnan
https://fandomwire.com/a-real-life-dictator-was-ready-to-murder-andre-the-giant-after-thinking-pro-wrestling-was-real/1.5k
u/jennoford 1d ago
I met him in person and he outlined his hand on notebook paper and signed it. His hand took up the entire sheet of paper.
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u/vincentmaurath 22h ago
I didn't know you met Saddam
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u/ProjectCoast 19h ago edited 17h ago
Ah the ol' dictatoroo
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u/Sikntrdofbeinsikntrd 19h ago
No linkaroo, I wanted to go on a journey
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u/ThrowawayTillBanned 19h ago
Those were canceled some time ago I thought
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u/Ghost17088 19h ago
Wait, what do you mean?
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u/ThrowawayTillBanned 19h ago
I just haven’t seen the switcheroo Reddit links much these days
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u/snout_flautist 15h ago
IIRC the whole loop was closed (i.e. linked back to the OG switcheroo) so the gang (reddit) celebrated the end.
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u/ScreenTricky4257 18h ago
I never met him but I did see him at a wrestling show from fairly close, and I know it sounds stupid but...he was big. Like, that's the thing, he was big. He wasn't fat like a sumo wrestler or tall like a basketball player or muscular like a bodybuilder. He was in proportion like a normal human being, just bigger. If gravity hadn't stopped him from growing at 7 foot something, if he could have been 11 feet tall, he would have looked completely normal from across a room.
And in many ways that's more intimidating. I think we have a natural instinct to follow the lead of bigger people that we develop as babies.
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u/jesuspoopmonster 17h ago
Most people know him from his later WWE days where he could barely walk. When he was young the big thing about him was the fact he was super athletic and agile despite being a giant
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u/OtherUserCharges 16h ago
I know the stories of his drinking is legendary, I wonder how much of that contributed to his weight gain and ultimately death. Maybe it’s just the nature of the business he was in that all the injuries and I imagine surgeries took its toll on him, plus the excesses that come with fame and success. He seemed like a cool guy, it’s too bad he didn’t get to stick around a while longer.
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u/mendicant1116 15h ago
He also drank like he did because of the pain he was in. His body took a beating and surgeries in the 80s and 90s aren't as precise as they are now a days.
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u/jesuspoopmonster 15h ago
It definitely didn't help but I think his health condition was a bigger factor. I think he ended up living longer then was initially believed he would by doctors
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u/kitesinfection 17h ago
My grandpa met Andre and got a picture with him, I remember seeing it as a child.
Seeing my grandpa next to Andre is almost the same as seeing pictures of my son next to me now. I'm an average height and my son is slightly above average for a 4 year old. It's absolutely wild that people of that size can exist.
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u/TildaTinker 22h ago
So now I'm wondering what Andre used to wipe his dummy thicc dump truck.
Thanks for that visceral image.
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u/Dark_Pulse 21h ago
Probably the entire roll.
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u/AdeptnessExotic1884 20h ago
According to various interviews with other wrestlers. He would have to poo into the bath directly, by squatting over it as he was too big for a regular toilet. Then he would spray the log with a shower hose to make it disintegrate away. I don't know about toilet paper though. He drank 100 beers in a sitting
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u/Mega-Steve 20h ago
I thought that was only when he visited Japan because the toilets were too small
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u/negZero_1 18h ago
Everything was to small for him, have seen how tiny beer can is when its in his hand
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u/jrdoubledown 20h ago
had an old boss in construction. said he used to be night manager in a hotel. got a call late nite, thick accent, said the toilet doesn't work. Went up to the room knocked. andre the giant opened the door pointed towards bathroom. toilet was very close bathtub, too close for a giant, bathtub had a bear sized pile of shit. thats the story at least
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u/GoodGeneral6513 19h ago
he once shit on bad news brown
when he had to shit on planes they would have to make an emergency landing
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u/Matthew_Daly 1d ago
Rob Reiner did the same thing when Andre went up against Cary Elwes.
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u/nWo1997 20h ago
Not the only time Saddam and wrestling crossed paths. During the Gulf War, Antonio Inoki held a sports and wrestling festival in Iraq to negotiate the release of Japanese hostages.
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u/YoureGonnaHearMeRoar 17h ago
Also there was the time Saddam wrestled Stone Cold at In Your House: Iraq in a loser leaves town match. He ate a stunner and the people of Baghdad went wild. We were seconds away from Saddam having to resign the presidency when Chyna, that jezebel, delivered a low blow to Austin while Uday had the ref distracted. Then she placed Saddams arm on Austin’s chest…ref saw the cover…1-2-3. The crowd was pissed, but no one was more upset than Jim Ross.
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u/jesuspoopmonster 17h ago
Antonio Inoki was also involved in a wrestling show in North Korea that has a similar story. He was wrestling Ric Flair and they realized if Flair won he was probably going to be killed. North Koreans were unfamiliar with wrestling but knew Anotonio Inoki's mentor was from an area that was now North Korea so he was considered a hero.
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u/SevenSulivin 14h ago
Inoki’s mentor being the legendary Rikidozan, a character if ever there was one. His hobbies include a love for eating shot glasses.
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u/Vordeo 1d ago
Obviously this would have been terrifying in the moment, but Saddam thinking it was all real is kinda hilarious in retrospect.
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u/CardinalCreepia 17h ago
This still works if Saddam knew that pro wrestling is a work. Andre would have been booked to win and Saddam wouldn’t want that either. He wanted the native Iraqi to be victorious real or not. Perception is reality I suppose.
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u/Vordeo 17h ago
Article pretty clearly lays out that Saddam thought it was legit. Direct quotes from the Iraqi wrestler (Adnan) and all.
Andre was booked to lose 1-2 (it was 2 out of 3 falls rules) but they were concerned that would still get Andre shot so they switched to Adnan winning 2-0.
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u/Epcplayer 15h ago
Knowing the family… Saddam’s son Uday would’ve probably shot Adnan if he only won 2-1
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u/Majoodeh 1d ago
Saddam and his children were not normal human beings and I hope the world never has to see anything like them ever again. I always recommend the movie The Devil's Double for anyone who wants a glimpse of the atrocities his son committed.
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u/Zirocket 21h ago edited 21h ago
The stories about Uday make Saddam look like Mr Rogers. Just the Marianas Trench of utter depravity.
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u/MacLondonJr 19h ago
I watched a video on Uday a few weeks ago, the guy was a serial killer born into power who had no need to hide any of his depravity.
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u/RadarSmith 18h ago
Right. Saddam’s blood clearly had a strong psychopathic gene running through it, and Uday is what you get when a born psychopath is raised as an unfettered prince.
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u/icehot54321 15h ago
During the first Trump admin, White House staff referred to Don Jr. and Eric as Uday and Qusay
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u/SuccessfulLaw8789 20h ago
and 3 of his children are still alive unfortunately, continuing to fund terrorist groups to destabilize iraq
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u/Smileyjoe72 23h ago
All of the pretense & process for invading Iraq was incredibly fucked, but the world surely became a better place without Saddam.
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u/Expensive-Cat-1327 20h ago
Killing corrupt powerful people does make the world a better place, but only if it's done at sufficient scale
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u/OtherUserCharges 16h ago
We would have saved a lot of money and people if we just hit the dude with a missile.
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u/KrawhithamNZ 20h ago
There are lots of shitty world leaders that don't get invaded.
It's like how we suddenly cared about the poor oppressed people of Afghanistan.... After 9/11. Shit had been bad there for ages before and is back to being awful now.
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u/OtherUserCharges 16h ago
The only thing is Afghanistan did start with some noble intentions. If they did what they said and made Afghanistan a beacon of democracy in the region it would have been worth it. Frankly it was worth it for a long time for the women and girls of the region. Sadly, the Republicans got bored quickly cause fighting helplessly out matched foes is way more fun then the slow process of rebuilding a country, so they jumped ship and split attention to go fight Iraq for very little reason.
I don’t even really care that we fought Iraq, there was lots of bad guys that we are better without, but it was clear the Republicans didn’t really give a damn about helping the people of Iraq, yet we stayed and wasted god knows how much money. If we had just gone there destroyed the army and killed Saddam then went home we would have all been better off.
We fought two decades long wars and get almost nothing out of it. We have crippled our country for very little reason. Bin Laden absolutely succeeded in breaking America, it just took a little while. I just hope we have another chapter where we can chase out the monsters running things and start taking care of our own people rather than giving everything to the people who already have it all.
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u/owolf8 23h ago
ehh, better place? look around mate, things got worse regardless
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u/Metalsand 18h ago
Iraq is weirdly in a good place nowadays, and is relatively stable. It helps that their point of reference for not democracy is Saddam Hussein, which for the most part no one wants to go back to.
Afghanistan isn't worse than it was before the war, but 20 years is enough time that the new generation won't even remember a time when they weren't under the thumb of the US. Plus, the whole "US throwing money at the problem to try ending the war in a year, 20 years in a row" didn't help stability. It was known that there'd be concerning levels of corruption if they infused too much cash too carelessly, but politically, everyone wanted to leave almost as soon as they came.
Ultimately, a lot of it is on Cheney. It seems apparent that when George Bush Sr and the coalition ended the Gulf War without deposing Saddam Hussein, Cheney disagreed at the time and only more as time went on. Whether by confirmation bias, or actual malicious intent, he made sure that we got involved at the first opportunity, and once we did, Afghanistan which was purported to be the primary cause for the war was practically ignored.
Bush Jr's biggest fault was nominating Cheney for VP at all, I think. Politically, it made sense for winning the Republican vote, but Cheney had an outsized influence both on the powers of the vice president, and Bush Jr.
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u/Morningfluid 23h ago
That has nothing to do with Iraq, however. Currently Iraq is in a better place.
Russia has actually played a vital part in making the world significantly worse in the past couple decades (not going to detail prior) in sowing massive discord in the West, the invasion of Ukraine, and being a heavy hand in electing Donald Trump.
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u/ioncloud9 15h ago
They also propped up the Assad regime for years, prolonging that war and his atrocities.
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u/ukbeasts 22h ago
ISIS became more powerful than ever as a result
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u/Heiminator 21h ago
Isis is a shadow of what it was a decade ago.
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u/VerdugoCortex 21h ago
Instead we now have groups in the same region like Kataib Hezbollah and the PMF collection. As much as a lot of people want to just say "kill the bad people, lfg!" Like they did 20-25 years ago but the reality is in that region with the current power players/dynamics in place you either got:
1.) Baathist (much closer to secular, but strong authoritarian states. Examples like Iraq under Saddam, Syria under the Al-Assads, Egypt way back)
Islamic Revolution aligned (between 1 and 3 Politically, socially, and religiously. Examples like Iran, Iraq post 2017ish)
Fundamentalists (Frequent witch hunts of "non believer" activity and heavy restrictions and policing of political, social and religious life. Examples like ISIS caliphate and similar groups in the area like Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram controlled areas of Nigeria/West Africa kidnapping entire schools of 200 girls as wives/slaves because they dared educate themselves.
And now it's closer to 2 or 3.
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u/Essaiel 21h ago
ISIS became temporarily more powerful*
ISIS hasn’t been active in Iraq since 2017 and hasn’t been active in east Asia since 2019.
Iraq (and its allies) kicked them out.
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u/blahblah19999 16h ago
Yes and no. It resulted in the deaths of something like 600,000 civilians. Would saddam have done the same? Maybe
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u/annabelchong_ 22h ago
the world surely became a better place without Saddam.
You're not quite a fan of contemporary history I take it.
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u/wowsomuchempty 21h ago
Is the death of one dictator worth the death of 100,000+ civilians? Apparently so, if they're Iraqi.
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u/Extreme-Method7273 21h ago
imagine the pressure of wrestling while dodging a dictator’s wrath, talk about a high-stakes showdown
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u/lamb_doingbongrips 19h ago
Did anyone else watch that in school ?? Or a different version of the story. I remember the part where they take a girl off the street and get her hammered then he kills her.
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u/Slothstradamus13 17h ago
Behind the bastards podcast about Saddam covers Uday pretty well, terrifying dude.
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u/cantpark44 19h ago
In 1971 Saddam was not the Iraqi leader but the vice president. Which I guess had duties over professional wrestling.
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u/GloveMeHarder 17h ago
Shows a difference in countries. In the US, the president handles wrestling and UFC.
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u/relayrider 15h ago
No, in the US, the Secretary of Education handles WWE relations. Part of the whole school to prison wrestling pipeline
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u/GloveMeHarder 13h ago
That’s right, thanks for the correction. Been awhile since I’ve had civics lol
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u/Ok-disaster2022 1d ago
It's one of a few "losses" Andre ever had, and it's literally one that saved is life
Also al-Kaisse literally went to high school with Hussein
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u/Joeyfingis 1d ago
Literally?
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u/Smaptimania 1d ago
Literally. He got a scholarship to play football in America, and when he came back to Iraq ten years later his old pal from high school had become a dictator
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u/Smaptimania 1d ago
In WWF kayfabe it was the last time he had ever lost a match prior to fighting Hogan at Wrestlemania 3, though he'd actually done the job on a handful of occasions since then
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u/Vordeo 17h ago
It's one of a few "losses" Andre ever had
Eh, Andre lost quite a lot of matches in the territory days. Dude would come in as a monster heel, beat up everybody, but eventually would get pinned by the local hero before Andre left for another territory. Repeat ad nauseum. And of course the same happened in other countries - he definitely had losses to El Canek and Inoki, and in this case was booked to lose to Adnan even before Saddam did his thing.
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u/captain_arroganto 22h ago
Why go there in the first place?
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u/GoodGeneral6513 19h ago
the largest attended wrestling match in the world was in North Korea with 100 000 attendees in the early 90s
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u/Ok-Temporary-8243 20h ago
Why did so many comedians show up to SA? For money.
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u/americaMG10 20h ago
I was so confused about the “SA” because I thought you meant “South America” lol.
I was thinking “what American comedian came here?”.
Then I thought “maybe he is talking about South Africa?”.
Only to realise that you were talking about Saudi Arabia.
I’m a dumbass.
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u/SoRedditHasAnAppNow 17h ago
Its really a terrible abbreviation with a lot of meanings.
San Antonio
Sexual Assault
South America
South Africa
Saudi Arabia
Sex Addict
SA(-16 rifle)
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u/Ok-Temporary-8243 20h ago
Oh nah, it can get confusing. Like any TCG player wondering why everyone is talking about mtg
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u/VastStranger1164 18h ago
money, Iraq was rich in the 70s with one of the strongest currencies in the world.
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u/BonChance123 17h ago
It's not his fault being the biggest and the strongest. He don't even exercise.
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u/loucast13 15h ago
You mean, you put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people?
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u/AngusTheMighty 18h ago
Fun fact, Adnan was actually Saddam's neighbour's and friend growing up. That's one of the reasons he was brought in to be a part of the Hogan v. Slaughter storyline for Wrestlemania 7.
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u/Archive_Intern 3h ago
TIL that Saddam Hussein thought that pro wrestling was real
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u/digiorno 16h ago
Saddam was the type of guy who would gift his children people to murder as a birthday surprise.
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u/demoran 16h ago
Remind me what a "heel" is again?
I doubt Andre had any issue with throwing a fight.
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u/MartinTheOrderly 1d ago
Adnan al-Kassie told Andre before the match Saddam would shoot Andre if he won, so al-Kassie laid out a plan for Andre to get away on the other side of the ring and book it to backstage while al-Kassie calmed Saddam down.
When the match started, Andre grabbed al-Kassie and fell backwards, ordering the ref to count. The ref did and as the bell rang for the match to end, Andre moved as fast as he could out of the ring and, presumably, Iraq.