Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Professional wrestling can be a very cyclical business. Many times you could be watching a match, a gimmick or a storyline and think to yourself…”I have seen this before.” Sometimes, you may be right, as many things in wrestling do get recycled over the years. Other times, it just may be something similar to something you saw years ago. In any case, Deja View looks at stuff that may or may not have been re-used in wrestling or something that was simply similar in nature that made you go…”Oh yeah, that’s where I remember that from.”
In the Spring of 1986, Andre the Giant was suspended from the WWF for “no showing” several matches. In reality, Andre was off filming a movie. That Summer, Mean Gene Okerlund introduced a mysterious masked team from Japan called ‘The Machines’ consisting of The Super Machine (Masked Superstar aka Bill Eadie) and The Giant Machine (Andre). At that time, while most fans here in the United States knew that Andre the Giant was under a mask hiding his identity, few if any, knew that the Machine gimmick was already used in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
In 1982, Japanese wrestler Junji Hirata created the masked gimmick of ‘The Super Strong Machine’ while on an excursion down in Mexico. The gimmick proved to be very popular in Japan. So much so, that Andre gave the idea to Vince McMahon to use to reintroduce Andre after he completed filming ‘The Princess Bride.’ Everything from the name to the exact design of the masks were copied by Vince.
