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How Andre the Giant Hilariously Ended Up As the No. 1 Trending Topic on Twitter

Also in Traina Thoughts: A new ‘SI Media Podcast’ has dropped; Popeye’s weighs in on Timberwolves’ drama; Steve Nash gets scary and more.

Jimmy Traina

1. Today, I bring you something rare: a story about something good that happened on the hellhole known as Twitter.

At 1:10 pm ET on Wednesday, Twitter user @ColossusNick sent out this tweet:

Thanks to the very creative and crafty caption, the tweet went viral and the replies ranged from some people questioning the “information” even though the image in the tweet was clearly Andre the Giant.

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We also had a slew of people who responded to the tweet by pointing out, “That’s Andre the Giant,” as if they were solving a murder mystery.

What added to the genius of the tweet was that Twitter even had to add this fact check to it:

“This is a @sketchfab 3D rendering of the actor Andre the Giant. The unsupported claim is that the image is from Stanford researchers and represents the Biblical Joseph, husband of Mary.”

The result of @ColossusNick’s clever piece of work was more than 55,000 likes and “Andre the Giant” becoming the No. 1 trending topic in the United States.

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Another result was some truly fantastic responses that tied the tweet to Andre’s legendary wrestling career and his performance in The Princess Bride.

The best thing about that last tweet was that this actually happened.

2. A brand-new SI Media Podcast dropped this morning and this week’s show features a conversation with Sports Business Journal‘s John Ourand about the latest sports media news. Topics covered include:

• Amazon’s declining Thursday Night Football ratings 

• Jim Nantz out, Ian Eagle in for the NCAA tournament 

• World Series ratings issues 

• ManningCast perspective 

• NFL Sunday Ticket update

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.

3. Karl-Anthony Towns caused a stir a few days ago when he called out Timberwolves teammate Anthony Edwards for eating too much Popeye’s fried chicken. (Side note for a controversial hot take: Popeye’s is one billion times better than Chick-fil-A.). 

On Wednesday night in Minnesota’s 134–122 win over San Antonio, Edwards had 34 points, while Towns put up 21 points and Popeye’s weighed in.

4. Nets coach Steve Nash had a VERY intense ejection during his team's loss to the Bucks on Wednesday.

5. The NBA has announced it will stream all of the games of the player several teams will tank their season for.

6. The rendering for the Bills’ new stadium looks pretty great. The most significant development, though, is no roof. No NFL stadium should have a roof. The elements should be part of all NFL games.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: In honor of today’s lead item, here’s the video that has given us the Andre the Giant GIF that everyone loves to use.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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