Jimmy Korderas On Lesson Andre The Giant Taught The Ultimate Warrior
On a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman was rejoined with WWE veteran referee Jimmy Korderas. With the finale of A&E's biography series and an upcoming Dark Side of the Ring episode on WWE Hall of Famer The Ultimate Warrior, Korderas shared his memories of Warrior. He revealed an interesting lesson that WWE legend Andre The Giant taught Warrior.
"I was cool with Warrior," Korderas stated. "He kind of kept himself, so there weren't too many instances, except a couple of times, I heard some some loud discussions in the locker room, and I was one of those guys. You want to be hanging by the door to hear what they're talking about, but at the same time, you don't want to be caught hanging by the door listening to what they're talking about. So it happened every once and a while.
"I remember one time, for some reason, when he was working with Andre, they used to do a spot where Warrior would hit the ropes, running clothesline, and Andre would stagger a little bit, and after about the third or fourth one, Andre would stagger back into the ropes and tie himself up in the top and middle rope, old school move. But for some reason, Warrior would run a 1,000 miles an hour, and Andre would tell him, because you couldn't hurt him anyways, 'you don't have to hit me so hard. I will sell for you,' but Warrior was Warrior. He'd run 900 miles an hour, and here he comes.
"So one night, he throws the clothesline. He throws the second one, and it came time for the third one where he's going to tie himself up in the ropes. He kind of glanced over at Bobby Heenan, and he puts his fist up. Warrior runs right into it and goes down, and they get back up, and they go back into it, and Warrior hits him with the clothesline and he ties himself up in the ropes. As he turns down, he looks at Bobby and goes, 'He's learning.' That was it. That was that was Jim's only problem was he got so hyper sometimes he just forgot, 'hey, we're working here.'"
Korderas then shared a story from his time on the road with Andre and for Tim White, fellow veteran referee and longtime assistant to Andre. While Korderas does not recommend doing this, he recalled what he had to do when he had to go pick up Andre and White at a hotel.
"We're at Maple Leaf Gardens. I'm there early of course, and Jack Tunney hands me the keys to his Cadillac," Korderas recalled. "He says, 'Go up to the Marriott and pick up Andre and Timmy and bring them down.' I go, 'Absolutely, sure.' So I jump in the car, drive up to the Marriott. I call Andre's room, there's no answer. So I called Timmy's room. I said 'Timmy, I just called Andre's room. There's no answer.' He said, 'He's probably down at the bar. Go there and I'll meet you guys down there in a few minutes.' So I go down to the bar, and I said, 'Hey boss, I'm here to take you down to the building' and Timmy comes down.
"He goes, 'Oh good, have a drink.' I want to say, 'But I'm driving,' but it's Andre. You don't say no to Andre. I'll have one. No big deal. Next thing you know, I'm a little, and I don't recommend this, but Timmy comes down and goes, 'Oh, maybe I should drive,' and I'm thinking to myself, if we pull into the building and Timmy White is driving Jack's car instead of me, this is not a good look. So I'm driving. The speed limit is 60. I'm doing 59 the whole way.
"We get to the building, and Timmy says, 'Just hide from everybody.' So I'm trying to hide from everybody, and Jack sees me. And Jack says, 'Jimmy, come here.' I go, 'Yes, sir.' He says, 'Have you been drinking?' I didn't say yes, but I did the shoulder shrug and the whole bit, and he said 'Was Andre in the bar?' I wasn't going to rat out Andre. He says, 'Okay, I'll tell you what, you go into my office and have some coffee.' So he was cool about that at least anyway, but I guess I wasn't the first one."
You can follow Jimmy on Twitter @JimmyKorderas. Jimmy's full interview can be found via the players below: