Future WWE Hall Of Famer The Big Show was recently a guest on “Busted Open Radio” to talk about several professional wrestling topics. Show talked about advising the likes of today’s big men such as Braun Strowman, and struggling to find a niche in his early days in the business. Check out the highlights here:
Advising Braun Strowman not to take bumps for Sami Zayn: “No, there isn’t any more politics,” Big Show said. “You didn’t have to out-maneuver the guy next to you who was influencing through promos, or burying you through promos, or doing something to you in the ring that made you look stupid or took advantage of you and did things they shouldn’t do to make themselves look better.
“You had to be conscious of all of that, but nowadays I saw Braun Strowman, what was it – a year and a half ago and was all over him because he was taking a clothesline from Sami Zayn, and he was all, ‘Well, it was just one bump before I would kill him.’ I was like, I don’t care. Sami Zayn should not bump you ever. Sami Zayn does not look like a guy – I asked him if Sami Zayn can kick his a** in real life, he said, ‘Well, no.’ I said, alright then. Why are you taking a bump for him? You know what I mean?
“This is coming from a guy with personal experience who had bumped for the wrong people my entire career because I didn’t want to do the no-fall down stuff. I wanted to be respected as a worker so I can thank my knees, shoulders and back because I wanted to be a worker.”
Struggling to find a niche early on in the business: “My biggest problem was, and this isn’t an excuse, but I didn’t have a mold to fit because I was way too athletic to work like Andre the Giant like everybody wanted me to work. But I wasn’t a phenom like The Undertaker because let’s face it, The Undertaker was the best big man athlete I have ever seen in my life. You have worked with him,” Show said. “You know how amazing he is. So, when you’re a hodge-podge mix trying to fit in the middle where you can’t decide whether you are going to attack the entire locker room one week or get knocked down by the mechanical bull the next week.
“There was a lot of things to work with and I had learned a lot to tell you the truth. I learned a lot from Steve Austin when I started to work with him where things started to click in my head that this was the thing that I should be doing. Then I started understanding the business aspect of it of making people come to the show and putting a**es in seats and delivering every night when you are in the main event. It isn’t that you are in it, but you have to go out there and put that match on with whoever it is.
“I was fortunate as well and had a lot of great guys help me along the way like Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Edge, Eddie Guerrero. The tag team division I tagged with Kane. I got to work with you and D’Von Dudley, so there was a lot of things that helped me along the way to make me understand who I was as a talent.”
H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions
