Ep 126: The story of how Ben Hildebrandt got beat up by Andre The Giant
The Moonlight Graham Show · The Moonlight Graham Show
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Show Notes
We've had some incredible wrestlers on the podcast. The Moonlight wrestling crew includes high school, college, World, and Olympic champions. However, it was a small-time tv news reporter that has one of the wildest wrestling stories of them all. Ben Hildebrandt was on an assignment to catch a glimpse of a real-life giant when the lines of fake wrestling and real assault were blurred.
Ben Hildebrandt was working a big event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in August of 1989. The World Wrestling Federation was coming to town and one of the biggest stars in the 'sport', not to mention the largest athlete in the world, was coming to town. Ben was supposed to get a story about how professional wrestling was fake but things turned ugly when Andre the Giant thought Ben was filming his match.
Needless to say, 5'9" 160-pound Ben Hildebrandt was no match for the 7'5" 540-pound giant. After a smashing the camera and throwing Hildebrandt around like a ragdoll, the 'match' was over in about 15 seconds. From there, a whole new match started in the courts. When the dust settled, Hildebrandt probably came out on top because he didn't have to pay for the $15,000 camera that was broken.