06/01/2026
WrestleMania IV. Atlantic City. Trump Plaza.
Most fans spent that weekend trying to catch a glimpse of André the Giant.
Book Pro Wrestlers reader Ann Marie Plouffe Ellis was lucky enough to be sitting just a few tables away.
This photo was taken by Ann Marie inside the Trump Plaza lobby bar during WrestleMania weekend. She was friends with André’s handler, Tim, and remembers the scene better than almost anyone.
What struck her wasn’t André’s size.
It was what he was carrying.
“I felt so bad for that guy all the time,” Ann Marie told us. “He was in constant pain and never anywhere comfortable for him… except for home.”
After we shared the photo, another member of the Book Pro Wrestlers family chimed in with a memory of the very same night.
Nate Parks wasn’t sitting in the bar.
He was working security at Trump Plaza.
According to Nate (another reader of the page,) security operated under a strict WWF directive that weekend. If problems arose involving WWF talent, security was expected to contact WWF management and talent relations before involving local authorities. Everything possible was handled in-house.
Nate remembered that André had become heavily intoxicated that evening and that security ultimately coordinated with WWF personnel to help get him back to his room.
Not through the casino.
Not through the crowds.
Through the back hallways of the hotel.
Ann Marie remembers watching as security surrounded André and guided him out. Nate remembers the concern among hotel staff as they made the trip upstairs.
One detail stayed with both of them.
If André had fallen, nobody was entirely sure how they were going to get him back up.
Think about that.
The most famous attraction in professional wrestling.
The man who packed stadiums around the world.
The giant who seemed larger than life to millions of fans.
And on this particular night, an entire team of people was simply trying to help him get back to his room safely.
That is why stories like this matter.
Not because they make André seem bigger.
Because they make him human.
Nearly forty years later, a fan who sat a few tables away and a security guard who worked the hotel both remembered the same night, the same man, and the same feeling.
Nobody in that building ever forgot they were in the presence of André the Giant.
📸 Photo and memories shared by Ann Marie Plouffe Ellis. Special thanks to Ann Marie and Nate Parks for helping preserve a piece of WrestleMania IV history.
— Steve Stasiak, Book Pro Wrestlers