Andre the Giant: TV Schedule and Preview for HBO Documentary

No professional wrestler has been larger than life in the way Andre the Giant was, and the WWE Hall of Famer is the subject of a much-anticipated HBO documentary set to air Tuesday.

The first showing of Andre the Giant is Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on HBO, and it will be available on demand starting Wednesday.

Bill Simmons, who helped produce the documentary for HBO Sports, has been teasing this since he first joined the network in 2015. Finally, fans will get to see the fruits of that labor.

Plenty of wrestlers are worthy of deeper examination, but Andre was billed as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" for a reason. He's a legend inside of the ring, and the stories of him outside of the ring almost beggar belief.

In that regard, Andre isn't too dissimilar from Ric Flair, who was profiled in an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary last fall. Although Flair is one of the greatest wrestlers in history, the fact he's almost never out of his "Nature Boy" character lends itself to incredible stories outside of wrestling.

In a trailer for the documentary, Arnold Schwarzenegger recalled how Andre once picked him up "like a little doll," such was his strength.

A piece by WWE.com's Ryan Murphy in January 2013 also detailed some of the tales regarding Andre's prodigious alcohol consumption. One myth had Andre drinking 156 beers in one sitting, and another had him knocking back 125 beers.

Former WWE referee Tim White, who was a friend of Andre's, couldn't provide specifics about Andre's drinking but corroborated the general thrust of the rumors to Murphy.

"He could drink an airplane dry before it got to takeoff," White said. "He'd go into a restaurant and eat 12 steaks and 15 lobsters. He didn't do that often, but if he felt like putting on a show and having some laughs, he'd go ahead and do that."

Fans can almost certainly count on similar anecdotes in the HBO documentary.

More importantly, the documentary will be a great showcase of Andre's wrestling career.

He died in 1993, and his last match with WWE was at WrestleMania VI in 1990. The image of Hulk Hogan slamming Andre at WrestleMania III is one of the most iconic in wrestling history, but there are generations of fans who are largely unfamiliar with what made Andre such an attraction in the 1970s and 1980s.

As much as Hogan helped make WWE what it is today, he wasn't alone in being critical to the company's explosion in the 1980s. It's certainly interesting to imagine where WWE would be were it not for Hulk vs. Andre at WrestleMania.

While Hogan was already a mainstream star in 1987, it's hard to see how any other opponent for the Hulkster helps draw 90,000-plus people into the Pontiac Silverdome.

Tuesday's documentary is a must-watch for any wrestling fan, and the only potential problem with the documentary is that at one hour, 25 minutes, it may not do justice to Andre the Giant's full story.