Former WWE Champion The Big Show was recently interviewed on After the Bell to talk about several professional wrestling topics.
Here are the highlights:
WWE’s ECW reboot:
I think there was a big disconnect that WWE had with the ECW fans. I remember going to the live event shows, and the merchandise that they were selling at the ECW shows was you know, Undertaker, Triple H. Like, these people didn’t buy a ticket to see these guys. They came to see Tommy Dreamer, you know what I mean? I had to earn a lot of respect from the ECW fans.
And it took a lot for me because when I had that match with Dave [Bautista] at the Hammerstein Ballroom, Bautista and I gave them a hell of a match, but we weren’t what they wanted to see. They didn’t give a crap. They may have liked Dave Bautista, they may have liked the Big Show independently, but not for their ECW. They wanted the guys that they identified with and that they were emotionally invested in.
And that was the difference, and it took a while to get emotionally invested with the ECW audience till they realized, like, ‘Ehh, the Big Show’s not such a bad guy, we’ll cut him a break.’ But it took me a while of not letting that get to me, and just going out every night and trying to do the best that I could every night. Working with guys like Sabu, who was such an amazing lunatic.
He was fun, because I never knew what Sabu was gonna do. He was so talented, like you never knew. Or you’re working with RVD who would in the middle of selling would jump up and give you a high spinning back kick and knock your molars down the back of your throat. Like, ‘You need to come back now? You just have to ask for one, you don’t have to really start making one.’
Going from the top of card down to ECW:
Didn’t bug me. I’d already been through worse. I’d already gone from WrestleMania 2000 main event to a few months later being in OVW. I went out there one night in OVW and there was seven people there. And some guy asked me, because he was selling hot dogs outside, as I’m in the ring, ‘Show, you want me to save you a hot dog?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, appreciate it.’ I know that somebody [in the audience] needed to pick up bread on the way home because they wanted to have bread for sandwiches the next day.
Making his OVW experience into a positive:
In all sincerity, I could have taken that experience and made it a negative thing, and bitched and moaned and blah blah blah. But you know what, in that OVW experience, I got a chance to get away, to reboot, to rethink, and establish some friendships and relationships that I couldn’t make in WWE when I first got [there]. When I first got to WWE dude, I was like, a nuclear power plant I was so irradiated. You know what I mean?
There were guys that wouldn’t come within 20 feet of me. It was like, I had way too much heat. Big contract, from another territory, giant, blah blah blah. I was a heat magnet. When I got to OVW, I got to be friends with Batista and Brock and Cena, and Randy Orton. The next generation of main eventers, and it was good for me because I got to interact with those guys and build relationships with them that made it easier for me once it started picking up again.
Also Read: Big Show Shares Premiere Date for his Netflix Show
H/T 411Mania for the transcriptions
