Andre the Giant Book Review

I was really looking forward to this book. It is about one of my favorite wrestlers. Andre the Giant stories are typically the highlights of any book or shoot interview they appear in. The author, Michael Krugman, co-wrote one of my favorite wrestling books, Cheating Death, Stealing Life. What could possibly be wrong about this book? Almost everything.

If this book was a 3-disc DVD set, it might get 5-stars. However, it is supposedly a biography and it fails miserably in that endeavor. What type of biography fails to mention that someone has a daughter? I've read many biographies in my life and this is the first time I have ever seen that happen.

The bulk of the book deals with Andre's feuds in the WWE. During these sections, the author provides an almost word-for-word transcript of interviews and a detailed play-by-play of the matches. If this was a DVD, that would be great. However, it doesn't make for a page-turner.

In between these recaps, there are portions of interviews with a few members of the McMahon family, Bobby Heenan, Tim White, and several other wrestlers. A vast majority of these interview clips seem to deal with Andre's ability to drink alcohol. I've read and heard many Andre the Giant stories that had me in stitches. None of them are in this book.

Overall Recommendation: Unless you are a huge fan of Andre, I can't recommend this book. If you want to learn more about Andre, I suggest watching his A&E Biography or read the article Sports Illustrated wrote about him.