The View From Down Under:The Big Show – Good For Business for 15 years

Since his arrival in the WWE at the St Valentine’s Day Massacre: In Your House pay per view on 14th February 1999 The Big Show has had a roller coaster ride of popularity and importance within the WWE Universe. He is currently on one of his upward roller coaster rides, with many including myself thinking this has been his best work outside the ring I have seen.

 


 

We have seen Paul “Big Show” Wright as an unstoppable giant, embarrassed, sobbing and humiliated. He has come out dressed as the Showster, Showkishi and even The Big Showbowski. He has battled and beaten the likes of The Undertaker, Triple H and The Rock, yet lost to non-wrestlers such as Shane McMahon and Floyd Mayweather. He is a former WWE Champion, World Heavyweight Champion ECW Champion and multiply Tag team champion and definitely a future hall of famer.

I thought I would look back at this roller coaster ride and what I feel are some of Paul Wright’s best and worst moments during his near 15 year in the WWE.

showster

We will start with some of the low moments and none stick out more then The Big Show’s feud with The Big Bossman and the funeral scene. Now unfortunately for The Big Bossman he would have similar poor tasting moments like feeding Al Snow his dog Pepper, but the image of The Big Bossman dragging The Big Show on top of his dad’s coffin wasn’t good viewing. While during the Attitude era, controversy ruled, this is one time where controversy completely missed the mark. Neither The Big Show nor The Big Bossman gained anything from this feud or segment.

The WWE has a habit of deciding to do things simply to please a fan based demographic, keeping The Great Khali around for the fans from India, and keeping Alberto Del Rio as champion for the fans in Mexico. For the fans in Japan, instead of pushing a wrestler like Yoshi Tatsu we get a gimmick Sumo match at Wrestlemania which The Big Show has to wear possible the most unflattering wrestling gear he is going to ever have to wear. This is where a picture is better then words…..

Big show

Since his arrival in 1999, he’s turned between face and heel close to 20 times with six of those turns coming in his first 14 months in the company. He has just completed another turn in the current storyline where he has gone from a heel with an ironclad contract who can do anything he wants, to a face who has lost everything and is being humiliated by the boss.

So many turns makes it hard for fans to fully get behind him as either a face or heel which has halted is popularity on many occasions.

While understanding how professional wrestling works, it always frustrated me when The Big Show would lose to someone he should beat easily. The Big Show as I will talk about later has helped put over many wrestlers, but it is The Big Show losses, to the likes of Shane McMahon twice and Floyd Mayweather who in real life he would squash them like a bug. Losses against The Undertaker are not normally looked upon as bad, but when it is a 2 on one handicap match and The Big Show’s partner is Albert, then the loss did make The Big Show look weak. After being the unstoppable giant for much of 2012, the 2 last man standing losses against Alberto Del Rio would halt all that momentum he gained. The Big Show career is filled with embarrassing losses and moments like these and for a man who has been portrayed as an unstoppable giant on many occasions these losses and moments have hurt his legacy as they all they do is make him look weak.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMwJUdZ5-C8[/youtube]

What has made The Big Show last 15 years in the WWE and not be a walking joke like The Great Khali, is for every low moment there is a great Big Show moment or match. None more better then his match against Sheamus at the Hell in a Cell in 2012. With all the talk about CM Punk and Ryback, Sheamus and The Big Show stole the night with this classic and brutal match inside the Cell. It was Sheamus’s best work as champion although the WWE tried very hard to wreck all the good work done by these two superstars with that “giant chair” at TLC. It showed the WWE Universe that there can be great big man vs. big man match, and this match has been the catalyst for The big Shows best run in the WWE.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrf7expENCU[/youtube]

The Big Show, like the likes of Kane and Mark Henry, are great, big company men who have helped established other superstars and elevated them to main event status. It was battles with The Big Show that helped establish Brock Lesnar as a “beast” of the WWE, and the great strength that he had, and there feud in 2003 was one of Big Show’s best, it was his battles early on for the US title with John Cena which helped elevate Cena to the main event scene. He has helped put over and establish stars as main eventers like Kurt Angle, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H and The Undertaker. Just recently he helped (at least for a couple of months) make us believe that Alberto Del Rio was a worthy world Heavyweight Champion.

The Big Show has had 2 very similar ‘Holy shit’ moments that have involved the wrestling ring collapsing. The First came against Brock Lesnar on Smackdown in June 2003, and then nearly 10 years later this time with Mark Henry. The Big Show has not been afraid to put his body on the line to give us fans a great match or moment.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K30gm2OFhY[/youtube]

The Big Show has formed some great and formidable tag teams over the past 15 years and he has won the tag team titles in the WWE 8 times. Each time he holds the tag team title it brings importance to the title which has been very poorly looked after over the past couple of years. The Big Show possible works best as a tag team, or in multi-man matches where he has a chance to catch his breath, without looking like he is catching his breath. He is never going to have an ironman match, but put him in a Elimination Chamber and watch him dominate (which he has done on numerous occasions). He has held the tag team titles with the likes of: The Undertaker; Kane (2), The Miz (2) and Chris Jericho. His time with Jericho as the team of ‘The Jerishow’ was possible his best run with the title.

Jerishow

At 41 years old, The Big Show’s in-ring career will soon wind down, and if the WWE is smart they will offer The Big Show a position training other large athletes so we never again have to be put through a ‘Giant Gonzales’. The Big Show is the last active member of the Attitude era, so it will be sad when he does finally hang up the boots, but until that time I will sit back and enjoy watching The Big Show, and look forward to the big payoff match against Triple H.

What has been you favourite Big Show moment?

Hooroo and see you next week.

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