During the match (aired the following week), Hogan again successfully body slammed André but André gained the upper hand. During a television taping at Hamburg, Pennsylvania, Hogan and manager Fred Blassie confronted André as he was being interviewed and challenged him to a match, to which André accepted.

At Shea Stadium during Showdown at Shea, as well as a month later in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, Hogan body slammed André but ended up losing by pinfall, even though Hogan clearly kicked out before the three-count was made. The two met 16 times throughout the year with André victorious in most of their matches several matches, however, ended with both wrestlers being counted out. Their first WWF encounters came in the spring of 1980, when André competed as a face and Hogan as a heel. Andre was at the time a six-year WWF veteran who also toured the regional circuit and Japan. Hogan joined the World Wrestling Federation in 1979, after two years of competing for smaller, regional promotions. Also on May 5, 1979, in Dothan, Alabama, they had an arm wrestling match that ended in a no contest when Hogan overturned the table and his manager, Billy Spears, interfered. Hogan, then wrestling as Terry Boulder, wrestled Andre five times in Southwest Championship Wrestling, twice in 1978, and three times in 1979. The rivalry is considered by many to be one of the most important in professional wrestling history. The André the Giant–Hulk Hogan rivalry was a professional wrestling rivalry between wrestlers André the Giant and Hulk Hogan that took place in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE).

Family feud set 1987