This might be unpopular, but I feel like when he was in WCW, he was more of a threat and made a bigger deal of. It always took multiple people to take him on and if anyone picked him up it was a huge deal. Don't get me wrong, he had some shit booking but he felt more special there.
The WWE doesnt have the greatest track record of protecting talented WCW guys who jumped over, he definitely felt like a bigger deal and a bigger attraction/threat in WCW even if they didn’t always know how to use him either.
Yeah, in WWF, maybe Kane or even Viscera should’ve been the only ones that could’ve given him a challenge story wise, everyone else beating him just didn’t make sense other than they just had more baby face superpowers
I think what gave him such longevity is that not only is he freakin' yuge, he can also talk if he isn't made to read a script. The guy has some charisma to him if you let him play the monster badass.
Every promotion have script and pointers or it would be chaos even for some people who are really great at promo usually at least have pointers to help them. Script are given to people unable to ''improv'' or look good doing ''improv'' with pointers. The Giant/Paul Wight said he had trouble playing a giant... he truly wanted to be a funny guy which he was able to be at time
Being yuge doesn't usually lead to a 24 year career. Guys his size don't have runs as long as he did and if they do you can tell how broken their knees and backs are. Yeah 2020 show was aged, but he had some of his better matches the last 4 years of his run.
@@jdackeretdackeret4039 Kahli floated around for a decade and the guy's body was falling apart. But the main point I was trying to make is that Giant/Show is actually really good on the mic and with storytelling if allowed to work.
Big Show is a beast, but was unreal when he was younger. I'm sure many have said, but he came off the top rope more than once(that drop kick was nuts) He was so fast, and still huge!
Big Show looked great at the beginning of his career. And near the end when he was putting on entertaining matches with guys like Sheamus, Mark Henry, Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, etc. His weight and physical condition in the middle of his career however, tended to fluctuate wildly.
Paul Wight had all the potential in the world, but he was surrounded by people who didn't give a shit and. I think he was young and impressionable enough that a lot of the main eventers' bad habits rubbed off on him. It also didn't help that he was grossly underpaid during the latter part of his run, so he started phoning it in. I'm curious how his career would have gone had he started in WWF and had people like Bret Hart and The Undertaker as his mentors.
Big Show is arguably one of the most accomplished wrestlers in the history of the industry but his career will always be overshadowed by the amount of heel and face turns he has had in his career.
He also just wasn’t very good at any one thing. He wasn’t awful by any stretch of the imagination but he never really developed much of a character (which is why he had so many heel and face turns) and his in ring skills were also kind of whatever.
Have you seen the one he does to Stevie Ray where the guy just does not jump and Big Show has to lift him up mostly with just his own strength? It's botchy but awesome
Huge fan of Paul and his WCW work as The Giant. He was only in his 20s at the time and worked like a vet. Look at the Goldberg Jackhammer and see how professionally Paul helps Goldberg get over and by helping Goldberg Jackhammer him. He knew when it was time to leave WCW and jumped ship and the rest is history. Paul Wight along with Taker and Kane etc are the most durable big men in the business. I've never heard of Paul Wight injuring an opponent and that's a huge plus.
When are we gonna get that Eddie Guerrero in ecw run. Now that should be a fun watch. Give me if his WCW was any good. I mean we already know the answer but damn it. It's fun to rewatch
The fact he got to be champion in his rookie year, feud with the big boys (Sting, Luger, Macho Man, Hulkster, etc) and was an imposing presence on TV (he made the chokeslam one of the most over wrestling moves), still makes his WCW run infinitely better than his WWE career. His merchandise was also in demand and he got to be the poster boy for the early WCW games (WCW vs nWo World Tour, WCW Nitro).
@@jamaaldagreatest2748 Giant's chokeslam was his finisher and he made it look deadly the amount of height and force he used. I always credit the Tombstone Piledriver to Taker.
You missed a lot of awesome stuff that happened on Thunder. He beat the entire NWO while still in that neck brace, and I swear he lifted the ring by himself once, but I can't find a clip of it anywhere so maybe it was just a really cool hallucination or something. Edit: I found the clip, he didn't lift the ring, he pushed the pole over to make it collapse.
Allegedly, during WCW house shows early in his run, Giant/Big Show was during kip-ups, dropkicks and, one time, a moonsault. Although this is still considered lost media in wrestling and no footage of it exists (although he did do a kip-up at Armageddon 1999)
@@trappestarrgaming3422 No, let me help you here "If only they knew he would fuck over every luchadore who HAS to do that stuff to get over, so they RIGHTLY kept him acting like a big unstoppable man"
@@handsolo1209 it's no different then brian cage doing shooting star presses or keith lee and dijakovic doing there thing. It's not lik he was gonna be doing 630 leg drops on ppl. Maybe have him pull it out for bug matches or special moments but I'm never a fan of stunting somebody moveset ever unless it's a finsher type situation
@@trappestarrgaming3422 No, there is a reason that small guys did high flying, medium to large sized guys did grappling, big guys did power moves and giants did slow beatdowns. When you let the big guys do little guy stuff, then who gives a shit when Juventud Guerrera does something because 6'6" Sean O'Haire did the same thing and he looks much more impressive. If Andre ever, and I mean EVER did a Tito Santana move it would have killed his gimmick dead. The giants are the immovable objects who takes a true hero to topple or takes a real piece of shit villain to screw over to defeat. Apply it to a movie. Arnold is The Terminator, but he doesn't slowly chase with a foreboding "We can't get away", but he does backflips to chase after Sarah Connor and does the splits in front of her. after a shooting star press through the police station He doesn't punch through the windshield, he does a swanton on it instead and then kips up and does The Worm. Styles were applied based on size in wrestling for a reason and they losing that concept has lead to the shit show that most wrestling is today.
man... Big Paul White..... he was such a victim of Wrestling POLITICS.. in WcW he had to deal w/Hogan being over booked and just overall brain dead programing and in the WWF/E..... well..... IT's THE WWF/E LMAO
And in AEW…. well, I think he’s a commentator every 6 months. No love for Paul Wight, where ever he goes, even from his fan calling him Paul “White.” But he got a 2 seasons Netflix show.
Even with his outstanding athleticism for his size, no one knew how to book him. all the creative teams said "we need a giant" and that was that. terribly booked and under utilized consistently being passed over for new talent then used as a jobber. It was truly amazing to watch Lesnar superplex Show and break the ring. It was awesome when Cena give him the FU, but then McMahon started using other people to lift up Show constantly and it became a standard modus operandi. WWE did him dirty for almost 20 years. One of the most memorable Big Show runs was his stint tagging with Kane, they had great chemistry in ring but the Big Red Machine with The Big Show just didnt work for long term story telling.
I think it was fine at first, because he only had to deal with Hogan, who was a fan of his and still made him look as good as he could. The problem was when the rest of the nWo came along. Too many cooks spoiled the food, and he couldn't deal with three backstage politicians at once.
Yeah. His second career match headlined a ppv for the belt. He won the belt in his 5th match. Was paid as a headliner his whole career. Terrible for Paul
I remember the announcers explaining that when The Giant fell off the roof, he landed in the river right next to the arena... Ok, but his hair isn't even wet! How hard would it have been to just spray him down with water before he went down to the ring? A horrible angle and a horrible match... But overall I liked Giant in WCW, they seemed to use him better than WWE did, at least early on.
I was 10 or 8 when that happened early WWF/WWE was great but it went tits up and went to a shit show even though he was one of few pro wrestlers who looked legitimately like he could knock your block off WCW wasn't that good but it was awesome even if awful at times
No. Heenan was asking if he fell in the river to which Bischoff answered 'You got the river on one side and parking lot on the other. What difference does it make?'. Although nobody in WCW made it 100% clear, the idea was that the Giant 'rose from the dead' becuse the Dungeon Of Doom was cartoonish faction.
It's sad how WCW wasted Paul's potential, and WWE turned him into a joke wrestler who would sometimes be a reused threat randomly after he was sent back to lose weight. Two companies wasted Show's talent.
No, he wasted his own WCW career by getting fat and lazy. Had he have kept himself in shape he would have been in the picture with Hogan, Goldberg, etc. The fat bastard literally came to the ring smoking a cigarette in one of his last WCW appearances. He was unprofessional and that is what Vince first saw when he signed him, hence being sent to OWV to lose weight.
I think The Giant leaving WCW was probably the best thing for him especially for him to learn the business better in the WWF. Imagine if he stayed in WCW all the way to the end would there have been any coming back for him? Say what you will though hes the only one to be WWE, WCW, ECW and World Heavyweight Champion and nobody else can say that
I have very fond memories The Giant in WCW. He scared me when I was a kid when he first showed up. And when he turned babyface he became one of my favs. I do remember being so upset with him going back to the NWO. And now being older, that still doesn’t seem right.
For all of you wondering why The Giant joined the New World Order, it was revealed in “The Death Of WCW” by RD Reynolds & Bryan Alvarez that The British Bulldog was supposed to defect from the WWF and join the group. However, Bulldog unexpectedly renewed his contract, so they had Giant turn instead.
Anything you read in that crappy book is 100% bullshit. It has been debunked by EVERYBODY who was actually there at the time, from Bischoff to Sullivan, JJ Dillon to Russo.
His early months really show he was stifled as he was trying to wrestle like Andre in WrestleMania III instead of Andre in the late 70's/early 80's. No way somebody that young could wrestle that slow.
No, his early months show he was booked perfectly for a green rookie and treated as something special. His later days in WCW and all of his WWE run showed they treated him like just another guy and made him not special at all.
He was the ring announcer when the NWO took over Nitro, that was very entertaining and probably one of my favorite Nitros. I think The Giant was underutilized in WCW, and after he took off was even more misused in WWF/E
12:09 That's exactly what was wrong with WCW as far as storylines go, nWo always had to get the last laugh and the same guys had to be the main focus of every show. If I'm not mistaken, this card stagnation was another reason that he jumped ship before WCW went under. I know that Hogan got him in the business, and that he's grateful for it, but based on interviews it wasn't until he got to the WWF that anybody started to really help him instead of just telling him what he was doing for the night's show.
Yeah, Hogan spoke about how they never really trained him and would just coach him during the matches. That's why he looked not as good when facing guys like Nash because he didn't want to put him over.
I was working security once at a WCW show. I was standing in the isle they come down. I was facing the crowd. Big show music hits, he comes out. I'm watching the crowd. I feel his presence behind me as he walked out. I turn my head as I almost shit myself when he was behind me! Fucking hell dude IS a GIANT!! Just scary.
It only took WCW and WWF awful booking to make a man close to 7 feet over 400 pounds who moves well for size to a midcard talent at best. Instead of a guy you build as your top star.
Honestly, I thought the Giant was pretty impressive in WCW. To be green, he came in really good! He could wrestle well, especially for a big man. He could talk, which is rare for a newcomer. And he just looked really impressive! The NWO was his downfall, just like it pretty much was for the entire company. Yeah, it started really awesome, but it hung around too long and the constant beat downs and DQ's ruined a lot of people. And got fans to changing the channels. I know that worked for me. When you tune in and can automatically know that it's going to be an hour of NWO music and talking, a bunch of run-ins, and Sting coming down and beating everyone up, WWE starts to look pretty solid. I was watching some old WCW matches the other night and I still have to say I love the match where Ric Flair won control of the company and the Macho Man comes in the ring when the Giant is beating on Ric, shows Giant his NWO shirt, and when the Giant turns around Macho wrecks him. That has always cracked me up and it still does! One of the most underrated funny moments in WCW! I was disappointed when he went to WWE and became the Big Show. They just couldn't seem to come up with anything for him to do and just made him an eternal mid-card guy, which was a shame since he had rocked the WCW title scene in his early days. Talk about career mismanagement...
Flair becoming president in '99 doesn't get talked about enough. The match neither because he was soooo stiff against Bischoff. He beat the hell out of Easy E lol.
I'm 32 I was a wcw kid growing up. This was a cool flash back for me. I remember my older brother explaining to me who andre the giant was. I truly believed he was his son till he went to the wwf
Wight's WCW career was officially ruined when he lost to Nash and almost broke his neck @ Souled Out. He never got the win back and then unthinkably turned heel to rejoin the nWo, which made no sense.
Paul and I trained together briefly back before he signed with WCW. I wasn't a WCW fan but I started watching it now and then around the time he beat Flair for the belt. I honestly preferred his run in WCW over what he did in WWE. Not to mention his chokeslam just seemed like such a devasting thing back in WCW. Maybe because the WCW rings were louder I don't know. But they seemed weak in WWE.
Nash did not get pinned or submitted in a televised singles match during his second WCW run until the Fingerpoke of Doom, two and a half years after his debut.
I loved The Giant. He just seemed to have such a presence, so much talent and charisma and character... I never liked The Big Show... he just seemed like a knock off of the real thing. And I _never_ got over that WWF never once brought up who he was, or how big of a deal him jumping ship from WCW was... *especially* after they freaking owned WCW!
I was too young to know the big show as anything else, but seeing his athleticism shows me that I missed an important part of his career. Top rope moves and dropkicks, it’s crazy how people like rey mysterio can keep going and you can barely tell he’s slowed down, but with the giant/ big show you could easily tell. Insane
Thank God life isn't linear..he was made a joke here. I feel bad for the new "giant's" that are being pushed now but will fall away like nothing when they physically can't perform in ring.
When he was in WCW he looked so much taller than Andra the giant. Like way taller than does in his last WWE match’s. I’m thinking he had to lost some height coming up to his 50’s
The reason that he won the title on a DQ, was a week or so before Haloween Havoc, Hogan and Hart accepted a stipulation from the DOD that the title could change on a DQ. That was Hart's way of turning heel. That, and Hogan could dispute the title change later.
Halloween Havoc 95 was one of the most entertaining PPV from a Wrestlecrap perspective. Schiavone did a podcast watch along to that PPV and it was hilarious how bad it was. The terrible monster truck match, Brutus the F'n Beefcake wrestling Savage on PPV, the Giant falling off the building then coming back without a hair out of place, the Yeti and Giant "double teaming" Hogan at the end😂🤣
I don't think it was that weird that WCW chose Luger to win the title from Hogan over the Giant. When Luger won the title, he'd been No.1 contender for about 4 months because Hogan kept ducking him. Luger even won a No.1 contender's match at Spring Stampede '97 because the Giant had the match won but decided to tag in Luger and give him the win. Luger had also had an incredible redemption arc in which he had gone from mistrusting Sting's allegiance to WCW at Fall Brawl '96 to becoming the biggest babyface for WCW by the time he became champion. Although, I get Marky's point that the Giant never got to beat Hogan after being kicked out of the NWO.
Yeah the problem with that initial nWo run for other faces is it was always set up for Sting to be the guy to ultimately take down Hogan so guys like Piper, Giant and Lex could get small victories here and there to keep the story moving along but it was always ultimately about getting to that Sting/Hogan match at Starcade…. That they botched epically. lol
agreed, thing is, giant was also quite over as babyface, so picking one was going to slight the other regardless. what would have made sense normally would have been a gradual heel turn by the one who didn't get to be champion. problem is, becoming heel meant joining the nwo and relinquish any title aspirations as hogan's toady. perhaps giant could have been a lone wolf tweener who didn't clearly side with nwo or wcw, hard to pull off but would have been interesting. even then... he was not going to get the hogan or nash wins back.
The guy who made this video doesn't know shit. Luger was on fire in 1997. He was definitely the biggest face in Sting's absence and way more over than the Giant, who was over in his own right.
I remember watching his matches with Ric Flair as a kid and he looked like an invincible monster! Yet he was so agile for being so huge. Seeing such a enormous man do a kip up was mindblowing. His promos were really good too. An absolute spectacle of a man and a legendary wrestler for sure. Somewhat mismanaged by the production but he was good!
*Paul Wight was very agile when he was, first, booked in WCW. He was underbooked and unappreciated. He was their champion and only received $100,000 a year, while overbooked Hogan and Savage were receiving millions.* *7:27** "A Wild SlapNutts Appears".... Strutting....*
On the subject about backstage people not letting him to drop kicks and other moves like that... I understand the logic behind it, however, instead of telling him to stop doing them, I would tell him to limit them to PPVs or PPV Title matches. That way, it not only does feel special when he does it, it's less wear and tear on his body. Also, it may be an incentive for him to keep in shape since he seemed to have weight issues after he came to the WWF.
If WCW ever trained him, he would have run into the same problem as the WWF did with Andre: if you make him the champion, how do you get it off of him while still making it believable? Maybe that's why the WWF made Andre a special attraction while keeping him away from title contention.
As THE GIANT in WCW he was VERY GOOD!! It was the backstage politics, greed and mismanagement by Eric Bischoff that made him leave. We should talk about how disrespectful the WWF/WWE treated him.
As some one that was there watching at the time in pretty sure luger was getting the bigger pop. I always felt lik luger had the better story consider his long ass history with hogan since the first nitro but I could be wrong
Towards the end of his WWE run, they should have had Show turn heel and face on the same night just to give a wink to the smarks who complained about all his turns.
Big Show is one of those wrestlers who should have been top tier in WCW and WWE, but because guys like Hogan or Nash and later HHH politiced against that he was always overshadowed by not getting the booking he deserves. He also said at some point that he was able to do a moonsault and would like to bust out moves like that, but he can't because nobody would take those moves which is another sign of him being a great wrestler who was held back by the people surrounding him.
He was in his prime while in WCW! ALMOST had a 6 pack! the giant was in his physically best prowess at this time and he was very agile and super strong
This might be unpopular, but I feel like when he was in WCW, he was more of a threat and made a bigger deal of. It always took multiple people to take him on and if anyone picked him up it was a huge deal. Don't get me wrong, he had some shit booking but he felt more special there.
The WWE doesnt have the greatest track record of protecting talented WCW guys who jumped over, he definitely felt like a bigger deal and a bigger attraction/threat in WCW even if they didn’t always know how to use him either.
@@ethanhunt3242 he was supposed to be mordecai according to a shoot interview from kevin pritchard and vince thought he was "too big"
Yeah, in WWF, maybe Kane or even Viscera should’ve been the only ones that could’ve given him a challenge story wise, everyone else beating him just didn’t make sense other than they just had more baby face superpowers
Agree, He was made to look unstoppable in WCW, WWE turned him into a cartoon character.
He was in the main event from day one.
Big Show doing a missile drop kick is incredibly impressive yet terrifying at the same time.
He could even do a moonsault, he was an amazing athlete .
It's like Kevin Nash doing a suicide dive and landing outside the ring.
I wouldn’t even take the move, I would run and hide.
It sucks that WCW never let him hit anyone with that dropkick.
Supposedly he’d even do a moonsault too
I think what gave him such longevity is that not only is he freakin' yuge, he can also talk if he isn't made to read a script. The guy has some charisma to him if you let him play the monster badass.
Every promotion have script and pointers or it would be chaos even for some people who are really great at promo usually at least have pointers to help them. Script are given to people unable to ''improv'' or look good doing ''improv'' with pointers. The Giant/Paul Wight said he had trouble playing a giant... he truly wanted to be a funny guy which he was able to be at time
Being yuge doesn't usually lead to a 24 year career. Guys his size don't have runs as long as he did and if they do you can tell how broken their knees and backs are. Yeah 2020 show was aged, but he had some of his better matches the last 4 years of his run.
@@jdackeretdackeret4039 he took care of is health way more in the end of is career too but i dont think is best matches was later to is career.
@@jdackeretdackeret4039 Kahli floated around for a decade and the guy's body was falling apart. But the main point I was trying to make is that Giant/Show is actually really good on the mic and with storytelling if allowed to work.
He was bloody terrible on the mic.
Big Show is a beast, but was unreal when he was younger. I'm sure many have said, but he came off the top rope more than once(that drop kick was nuts) He was so fast, and still huge!
Big Show looked great at the beginning of his career. And near the end when he was putting on entertaining matches with guys like Sheamus, Mark Henry, Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, etc.
His weight and physical condition in the middle of his career however, tended to fluctuate wildly.
Man could pull off a fucking moonsault from the top rope, his athletic prowess is unreal given his size.
Big Show's athleticism was really impressive for a guy his size especially in the early days of his career
Then he just got lazy an became a comedy act in WWE 😂
Paul Wight had all the potential in the world, but he was surrounded by people who didn't give a shit and. I think he was young and impressionable enough that a lot of the main eventers' bad habits rubbed off on him. It also didn't help that he was grossly underpaid during the latter part of his run, so he started phoning it in. I'm curious how his career would have gone had he started in WWF and had people like Bret Hart and The Undertaker as his mentors.
I agree with you my brother
Maybe a taller less athletic Brock. Brock has legit grappling training and talent so not an even transition
Precisely
Agree
Yeah, he was so amazing in WWF..................You would have thought that they would have booked him like Andre.
Big Show is arguably one of the most accomplished wrestlers in the history of the industry but his career will always be overshadowed by the amount of heel and face turns he has had in his career.
I always just considered him a heel who pretended to be a babyface every few months.
I just consider him to be a normal person who does what he thinks is in his best interest.
He also just wasn’t very good at any one thing. He wasn’t awful by any stretch of the imagination but he never really developed much of a character (which is why he had so many heel and face turns) and his in ring skills were also kind of whatever.
@@MossB87 naah he was pretty good especially compared to the monkey-flipping pygmies that are running around today...
@@MossB87 You gotta compare him to other giants though. He was the best of the bunch.
Wight looked scary with long hair. Shaving his head made him look more like a comedy act.
The Giant's chockeslam looked so good in WCW
Have you seen the one he does to Stevie Ray where the guy just does not jump and Big Show has to lift him up mostly with just his own strength? It's botchy but awesome
@@chocobros1 he was so sick strong. I saw it. Impressive. Best Greetings from Germany
Main problem of his time there: Six and a half words.
"That doesn't work for me, brother."
Huge fan of Paul and his WCW work as The Giant. He was only in his 20s at the time and worked like a vet. Look at the Goldberg Jackhammer and see how professionally Paul helps Goldberg get over and by helping Goldberg Jackhammer him. He knew when it was time to leave WCW and jumped ship and the rest is history. Paul Wight along with Taker and Kane etc are the most durable big men in the business. I've never heard of Paul Wight injuring an opponent and that's a huge plus.
When are we gonna get that Eddie Guerrero in ecw run. Now that should be a fun watch. Give me if his WCW was any good. I mean we already know the answer but damn it. It's fun to rewatch
I love the Giants Chokeslam. That one really looks like it could tear the ring apart on impact.
Kane one handed chokeslam is the best
@@SandMan1998 nope...
Probably because he dropped down with his opponent putting his weight in it.
@@harsha1989able apparently 3 people agreed with me
The fact he got to be champion in his rookie year, feud with the big boys (Sting, Luger, Macho Man, Hulkster, etc) and was an imposing presence on TV (he made the chokeslam one of the most over wrestling moves), still makes his WCW run infinitely better than his WWE career. His merchandise was also in demand and he got to be the poster boy for the early WCW games (WCW vs nWo World Tour, WCW Nitro).
So he made the chokeslam over and not The Undertaker?????????????????
@@jamaaldagreatest2748 Giant's chokeslam was his finisher and he made it look deadly the amount of height and force he used. I always credit the Tombstone Piledriver to Taker.
You missed a lot of awesome stuff that happened on Thunder. He beat the entire NWO while still in that neck brace, and I swear he lifted the ring by himself once, but I can't find a clip of it anywhere so maybe it was just a really cool hallucination or something.
Edit: I found the clip, he didn't lift the ring, he pushed the pole over to make it collapse.
Scott Hall did some incredible selling in that match lol. I remember all like it was yesterday
This video is a real gem. It's my first time seeing the emporer, Jeff Jarrett, in his glammed out attire looking like a drug free member of KISS.
Allegedly, during WCW house shows early in his run, Giant/Big Show was during kip-ups, dropkicks and, one time, a moonsault.
Although this is still considered lost media in wrestling and no footage of it exists (although he did do a kip-up at Armageddon 1999)
He was told to stop doing that stuff....there was no need for a Giant to be that athletic.
If only they knew he probly be way more famous if he did
@@trappestarrgaming3422 No, let me help you here "If only they knew he would fuck over every luchadore who HAS to do that stuff to get over, so they RIGHTLY kept him acting like a big unstoppable man"
@@handsolo1209 it's no different then brian cage doing shooting star presses or keith lee and dijakovic doing there thing. It's not lik he was gonna be doing 630 leg drops on ppl. Maybe have him pull it out for bug matches or special moments but I'm never a fan of stunting somebody moveset ever unless it's a finsher type situation
@@trappestarrgaming3422 No, there is a reason that small guys did high flying, medium to large sized guys did grappling, big guys did power moves and giants did slow beatdowns. When you let the big guys do little guy stuff, then who gives a shit when Juventud Guerrera does something because 6'6" Sean O'Haire did the same thing and he looks much more impressive. If Andre ever, and I mean EVER did a Tito Santana move it would have killed his gimmick dead. The giants are the immovable objects who takes a true hero to topple or takes a real piece of shit villain to screw over to defeat.
Apply it to a movie. Arnold is The Terminator, but he doesn't slowly chase with a foreboding "We can't get away", but he does backflips to chase after Sarah Connor and does the splits in front of her. after a shooting star press through the police station He doesn't punch through the windshield, he does a swanton on it instead and then kips up and does The Worm. Styles were applied based on size in wrestling for a reason and they losing that concept has lead to the shit show that most wrestling is today.
"A bunch of bad matches and angles" well, you summed up WCW in that statement! 👍😃👍
man... Big Paul White..... he was such a victim of Wrestling POLITICS.. in WcW he had to deal w/Hogan being over booked and just overall brain dead programing and in the WWF/E..... well..... IT's THE WWF/E LMAO
And in AEW…. well, I think he’s a commentator every 6 months.
No love for Paul Wight, where ever he goes, even from his fan calling him Paul “White.”
But he got a 2 seasons Netflix show.
Even with his outstanding athleticism for his size, no one knew how to book him. all the creative teams said "we need a giant" and that was that. terribly booked and under utilized consistently being passed over for new talent then used as a jobber. It was truly amazing to watch Lesnar superplex Show and break the ring. It was awesome when Cena give him the FU, but then McMahon started using other people to lift up Show constantly and it became a standard modus operandi. WWE did him dirty for almost 20 years.
One of the most memorable Big Show runs was his stint tagging with Kane, they had great chemistry in ring but the Big Red Machine with The Big Show just didnt work for long term story telling.
@@mrdude88 Tony Khan bending over and giving him money like a good little money mark.
I think it was fine at first, because he only had to deal with Hogan, who was a fan of his and still made him look as good as he could. The problem was when the rest of the nWo came along. Too many cooks spoiled the food, and he couldn't deal with three backstage politicians at once.
Yeah. His second career match headlined a ppv for the belt. He won the belt in his 5th match. Was paid as a headliner his whole career. Terrible for Paul
I remember the announcers explaining that when The Giant fell off the roof, he landed in the river right next to the arena... Ok, but his hair isn't even wet! How hard would it have been to just spray him down with water before he went down to the ring? A horrible angle and a horrible match... But overall I liked Giant in WCW, they seemed to use him better than WWE did, at least early on.
I was 10 or 8 when that happened early WWF/WWE was great but it went tits up and went to a shit show even though he was one of few pro wrestlers who looked legitimately like he could knock your block off
WCW wasn't that good but it was awesome even if awful at times
Why not just have a quick shot of his hand rising out of the water or something?
The other issue was he was nowhere near the water
@@jayharv285 And that even if he hit the water, he still would be dead because he fell off the roof of a tall building.
No. Heenan was asking if he fell in the river to which Bischoff answered 'You got the river on one side and parking lot on the other. What difference does it make?'.
Although nobody in WCW made it 100% clear, the idea was that the Giant 'rose from the dead' becuse the Dungeon Of Doom was cartoonish faction.
That missile dropkick was awesome! Big Show was pretty agile in his younger years.
World War 3, he eliminated HIMSELF by leaping over the top rope to chase after Randy Savage. They had a pretty heated feud for a minute.
It's sad how WCW wasted Paul's potential, and WWE turned him into a joke wrestler who would sometimes be a reused threat randomly after he was sent back to lose weight. Two companies wasted Show's talent.
No, he wasted his own WCW career by getting fat and lazy. Had he have kept himself in shape he would have been in the picture with Hogan, Goldberg, etc. The fat bastard literally came to the ring smoking a cigarette in one of his last WCW appearances. He was unprofessional and that is what Vince first saw when he signed him, hence being sent to OWV to lose weight.
update: AEW is also wasting show and barely involving him in the shows. Man companies don't know what thye had
I think The Giant leaving WCW was probably the best thing for him especially for him to learn the business better in the WWF. Imagine if he stayed in WCW all the way to the end would there have been any coming back for him? Say what you will though hes the only one to be WWE, WCW, ECW and World Heavyweight Champion and nobody else can say that
@@coleveeder117 Shane Douglas was WWE champ?
Shane wasn't WCW or WWF champion. And you can't even really count that ECW title Show had as a world title since it was under the WWE banner.
I have very fond memories The Giant in WCW. He scared me when I was a kid when he first showed up. And when he turned babyface he became one of my favs. I do remember being so upset with him going back to the NWO. And now being older, that still doesn’t seem right.
For all of you wondering why The Giant joined the New World Order, it was revealed in “The Death Of WCW” by RD Reynolds & Bryan Alvarez that The British Bulldog was supposed to defect from the WWF and join the group. However, Bulldog unexpectedly renewed his contract, so they had Giant turn instead.
I heard bischoff on a podcast debunk that rumour. Bulldog was never to have joined wcw back in 96 BUT imagine if he had it would have worked well
Anything you read in that crappy book is 100% bullshit. It has been debunked by EVERYBODY who was actually there at the time, from Bischoff to Sullivan, JJ Dillon to Russo.
That books full of crap
Love the old vis theme playing in the back. Once again great work!
His early months really show he was stifled as he was trying to wrestle like Andre in WrestleMania III instead of Andre in the late 70's/early 80's.
No way somebody that young could wrestle that slow.
No, his early months show he was booked perfectly for a green rookie and treated as something special. His later days in WCW and all of his WWE run showed they treated him like just another guy and made him not special at all.
You must didn't watch 1995 WCW? They only booked him as the son of Andre, that's it.
Jeff Jarrett makes every video. I love it lol
Both power bombs Nash delivered to Wight were extremely dangerous.
I just figured the Giant was immortal, and that's why he survived the fall off the top of the building.
My theory is that he survived because he is a giant, so to him a fall seems less high.
It's ridiculous no wonder wcw went away and stayed away they actually thought this was a good stroyline
He was the ring announcer when the NWO took over Nitro, that was very entertaining and probably one of my favorite Nitros. I think The Giant was underutilized in WCW, and after he took off was even more misused in WWF/E
12:09 That's exactly what was wrong with WCW as far as storylines go, nWo always had to get the last laugh and the same guys had to be the main focus of every show. If I'm not mistaken, this card stagnation was another reason that he jumped ship before WCW went under. I know that Hogan got him in the business, and that he's grateful for it, but based on interviews it wasn't until he got to the WWF that anybody started to really help him instead of just telling him what he was doing for the night's show.
Yeah, Hogan spoke about how they never really trained him and would just coach him during the matches. That's why he looked not as good when facing guys like Nash because he didn't want to put him over.
Luger was really over in 1997.
Do Khali before he got in WWE. Apparently he was quite athletic before his run in that potential-killer company!
I don't think you realize how much hearing "a wild slapnuts appears" makes my day.
Probably built over the years, Goldberg vs The Giant should have been a massive money maker.
He won his first world title in his first televised match, several months before HBK, who was several years older, won HIS first world title.
I was working security once at a WCW show. I was standing in the isle they come down. I was facing the crowd. Big show music hits, he comes out. I'm watching the crowd. I feel his presence behind me as he walked out. I turn my head as I almost shit myself when he was behind me! Fucking hell dude IS a GIANT!! Just scary.
As a WCW fan I always thought of him as The Giant. I remember him as more of a star than most people seem to.
It only took WCW and WWF awful booking to make a man close to 7 feet over 400 pounds who moves well for size to a midcard talent at best. Instead of a guy you build as your top star.
@@andrebryant5081 Kane and Big Show were the 2 biggest failures in booking. Both should have been attractions who rarely lost.
He was essentially a jobber to the stars his last year with WCW.
i was watchi=ing the coach episode and i checked back on your channel and you already uploaded something... Stay on the grind man
A young Paul Wight was a true human colossus!... those hands are just downright frightening.
Hey Hawkster have you ever thought about doing a "was it any good" on Jeff Hardy's first run in TNA?
Yea I have. I did cover his run ages ago though so it might feel repetitive
@@Markyd123 Could be, but i think you could potentially make a video on the feud that he and Abyss had between 2004/2005.
Honestly, I thought the Giant was pretty impressive in WCW. To be green, he came in really good! He could wrestle well, especially for a big man. He could talk, which is rare for a newcomer. And he just looked really impressive! The NWO was his downfall, just like it pretty much was for the entire company. Yeah, it started really awesome, but it hung around too long and the constant beat downs and DQ's ruined a lot of people. And got fans to changing the channels. I know that worked for me. When you tune in and can automatically know that it's going to be an hour of NWO music and talking, a bunch of run-ins, and Sting coming down and beating everyone up, WWE starts to look pretty solid. I was watching some old WCW matches the other night and I still have to say I love the match where Ric Flair won control of the company and the Macho Man comes in the ring when the Giant is beating on Ric, shows Giant his NWO shirt, and when the Giant turns around Macho wrecks him. That has always cracked me up and it still does! One of the most underrated funny moments in WCW! I was disappointed when he went to WWE and became the Big Show. They just couldn't seem to come up with anything for him to do and just made him an eternal mid-card guy, which was a shame since he had rocked the WCW title scene in his early days. Talk about career mismanagement...
Flair becoming president in '99 doesn't get talked about enough. The match neither because he was soooo stiff against Bischoff. He beat the hell out of Easy E lol.
I'm 32 I was a wcw kid growing up. This was a cool flash back for me. I remember my older brother explaining to me who andre the giant was. I truly believed he was his son till he went to the wwf
Nice touch throwing in the very obscure "unholy alliance" theme song
Wight's WCW career was officially ruined when he lost to Nash and almost broke his neck @ Souled Out. He never got the win back and then unthinkably turned heel to rejoin the nWo, which made no sense.
He did join Hogan's NWO which made sense Giant and Hogan both hated Nash.
The Giant was menacing, athletic, and awesome. I thought the Big Show character was more of a parody. But I'm glad Paul got paid in WWE.
god wtf that kevin nash powerbomb bump was scary
They should have made Nash stop doing the powerbomb after that. Maybe it was muscle and fat in Paul neck that save his career.
Your videos are the best things that i watched from RUclips this year
Thanks my friend
Paul Wight was an AMAZING athlete for his size. I'm astonished watching some of the stuff he was doing.
The giant and bischoff were the first couple nails in the NdubyaO coffin
Paul winning the wcw title against Ric was awesome. I remember watching it live and the crowd went crazy 🦅😎.
Paul and I trained together briefly back before he signed with WCW. I wasn't a WCW fan but I started watching it now and then around the time he beat Flair for the belt. I honestly preferred his run in WCW over what he did in WWE. Not to mention his chokeslam just seemed like such a devasting thing back in WCW. Maybe because the WCW rings were louder I don't know. But they seemed weak in WWE.
If he would've just stayed in shape, he'd be viewed as the best big man ever.
That's one way to look at it. The other is, despite his size his heart has not given way and he is still healthy enough to walk.
Lex was just as popular during the Giants face run in 1997. So it made sense for him to get the title too, just not for a 6 day run.
Yea, anyone that actually watched during that time knows that Luger was OVER at that point.
@@jscott6no ur wrong no stop no no no
Nash did not get pinned or submitted in a televised singles match during his second WCW run until the Fingerpoke of Doom, two and a half years after his debut.
Wow
Nash was the booker for most of his time and a part time wrestler who had full freedom to do what he wants one of the reasons the company died
I loved The Giant. He just seemed to have such a presence, so much talent and charisma and character...
I never liked The Big Show... he just seemed like a knock off of the real thing. And I _never_ got over that WWF never once brought up who he was, or how big of a deal him jumping ship from WCW was... *especially* after they freaking owned WCW!
I was too young to know the big show as anything else, but seeing his athleticism shows me that I missed an important part of his career. Top rope moves and dropkicks, it’s crazy how people like rey mysterio can keep going and you can barely tell he’s slowed down, but with the giant/ big show you could easily tell. Insane
I would like to see a was it any good video on Goldberg's first WWE run.
Thank God life isn't linear..he was made a joke here. I feel bad for the new "giant's" that are being pushed now but will fall away like nothing when they physically can't perform in ring.
When he was in WCW he looked so much taller than Andra the giant. Like way taller than does in his last WWE match’s. I’m thinking he had to lost some height coming up to his 50’s
The reason that he won the title on a DQ, was a week or so before Haloween Havoc, Hogan and Hart accepted a stipulation from the DOD that the title could change on a DQ. That was Hart's way of turning heel. That, and Hogan could dispute the title change later.
Captain Insano shows no mercy.
The giant the big show Paul White had a great career that was a lot more athletic than a lot of big men
Halloween Havoc 95 was one of the most entertaining PPV from a Wrestlecrap perspective. Schiavone did a podcast watch along to that PPV and it was hilarious how bad it was.
The terrible monster truck match, Brutus the F'n Beefcake wrestling Savage on PPV, the Giant falling off the building then coming back without a hair out of place, the Yeti and Giant "double teaming" Hogan at the end😂🤣
The dreaded “double dry hump.”
The most devastating move in the business.
Honestly, it's one of my favorite PPVs. Totally insane!
Paul Wight (AKA "The Giant) kicked ass in WCW! The music with the Dungeon of Doom along with the green lights shining on him was perfecto!
I don't think it was that weird that WCW chose Luger to win the title from Hogan over the Giant. When Luger won the title, he'd been No.1 contender for about 4 months because Hogan kept ducking him. Luger even won a No.1 contender's match at Spring Stampede '97 because the Giant had the match won but decided to tag in Luger and give him the win. Luger had also had an incredible redemption arc in which he had gone from mistrusting Sting's allegiance to WCW at Fall Brawl '96 to becoming the biggest babyface for WCW by the time he became champion. Although, I get Marky's point that the Giant never got to beat Hogan after being kicked out of the NWO.
Yeah the problem with that initial nWo run for other faces is it was always set up for Sting to be the guy to ultimately take down Hogan so guys like Piper, Giant and Lex could get small victories here and there to keep the story moving along but it was always ultimately about getting to that Sting/Hogan match at Starcade…. That they botched epically. lol
agreed, thing is, giant was also quite over as babyface, so picking one was going to slight the other regardless. what would have made sense normally would have been a gradual heel turn by the one who didn't get to be champion. problem is, becoming heel meant joining the nwo and relinquish any title aspirations as hogan's toady. perhaps giant could have been a lone wolf tweener who didn't clearly side with nwo or wcw, hard to pull off but would have been interesting. even then... he was not going to get the hogan or nash wins back.
The guy who made this video doesn't know shit. Luger was on fire in 1997. He was definitely the biggest face in Sting's absence and way more over than the Giant, who was over in his own right.
Big Show flipped heel to face and back again and over and over in wcw too
Paul Wight from his debut and to this day always looks the same :)
I loved the big show in his younger years, he almost looked like a bodybuilder at some point, and his strangth was simply incredible
Omg Double J is in this too? Love the “wild slapnuts” part as always
In 1997 I saw Goldberg Jackhammer him at a house show... it was awesome
The Giant was on is best physically with WCW. With WWE he degraded a lot but he was better entertainer, mic skill with them.
Nash hitting a great Jackknife and Goldberg hitting a perfect Jackhammer were majority Giants doing.
Facts, same with him jumping for Brock Lesnars's suplexes and that top rope suplex.
@@gangstagummybear3432 he was an awesome athlete for his size. That dropkick from the top is awesome looking, should have been his finisher.
@@edwells4769 I liked his older chokeslams like up til 05 or 06, delayed, the biggest feats of WWE strength to me.
@@gangstagummybear3432 yeah those were great. Hed spin around with full extension on his arms. Looked devastating too.
@@edwells4769 My favorite wrestler probably followed by RVD
I remember watching his matches with Ric Flair as a kid and he looked like an invincible monster! Yet he was so agile for being so huge. Seeing such a enormous man do a kip up was mindblowing. His promos were really good too. An absolute spectacle of a man and a legendary wrestler for sure. Somewhat mismanaged by the production but he was good!
11:40 Wow, the fact that he didn't get injured from that is a goddamn miracle.
If I was Paul that would have been the last time I ever took a move base on someone strength to pick me up in the air
I always loved the way Show sold a belt to the face lol
Just waking up, see Markyd drops a new video 👀 let’s gooooo 🤘🏾😎🤼♂️
*Paul Wight was very agile when he was, first, booked in WCW. He was underbooked and unappreciated. He was their champion and only received $100,000 a year, while overbooked Hogan and Savage were receiving millions.*
*7:27** "A Wild SlapNutts Appears".... Strutting....*
Over 3k views in less than an hour your marking waves dude keep it up
Hopefully because my other videos this month haven’t 😂
Much Love Y'all!!
Ahhhh, the Dungeon of Doom. So many Shuv It Squad caliber jobbers in that faction.
And then there's Vader
@@jayharv285 And Meng
@@DeathSongoftheThreeStorms Meng is always hit or miss so that's why I didn't put him there.
Hawk if you liked the Giant vs Flair match you should see their extreme rules match in ECW, definitely worth a watch
9:19 holy fucking hell Kevin Nash was helllllllla strong to be able to do that. I haven’t ever seen anyone throw the big show up like that
Big Show was very athletic in WCW.
On the subject about backstage people not letting him to drop kicks and other moves like that... I understand the logic behind it, however, instead of telling him to stop doing them, I would tell him to limit them to PPVs or PPV Title matches. That way, it not only does feel special when he does it, it's less wear and tear on his body. Also, it may be an incentive for him to keep in shape since he seemed to have weight issues after he came to the WWF.
"They then reveal his ass and say it stinks for some reason" wrestlings so weird sometimes lmao
5:15 wow, the belt doesn't have "Ric Flair" in the name plate even though he's probably been champion for several weeks.
Giant was great in WCW IMO.
If WCW ever trained him, he would have run into the same problem as the WWF did with Andre: if you make him the champion, how do you get it off of him while still making it believable? Maybe that's why the WWF made Andre a special attraction while keeping him away from title contention.
As THE GIANT in WCW he was VERY GOOD!! It was the backstage politics, greed and mismanagement by Eric Bischoff that made him leave.
We should talk about how disrespectful the WWF/WWE treated him.
Was it any good, American Badass Undertaker?
As some one that was there watching at the time in pretty sure luger was getting the bigger pop. I always felt lik luger had the better story consider his long ass history with hogan since the first nitro but I could be wrong
Towards the end of his WWE run, they should have had Show turn heel and face on the same night just to give a wink to the smarks who complained about all his turns.
Skinny big show was a force to be reckoned with. So agile for a man that size.
Big Show is one of those wrestlers who should have been top tier in WCW and WWE, but because guys like Hogan or Nash and later HHH politiced against that he was always overshadowed by not getting the booking he deserves.
He also said at some point that he was able to do a moonsault and would like to bust out moves like that, but he can't because nobody would take those moves which is another sign of him being a great wrestler who was held back by the people surrounding him.
The master of the shuv
He was in his prime while in WCW! ALMOST had a 6 pack! the giant was in his physically best prowess at this time and he was very agile and super strong
Dayum this Big Show actually looks like a menace! Fuggin Bad Ass
Dude walking to the ring with a smoke is a goat move.