Big Show has been around across four decades, making his debut in WCW in 1995. During his career, Big Show has been a multi-time World Champion and shared the ring with every top star in wrestling from the 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and today.
When Big Show joined WWE in 1999, he worked with The Undertaker during his early years. And speaking to Sports Illustrated, Show recalled the lessons he learned working with Undertaker.
“I used to come through the Gorilla position after a match against Undertaker on our live tours, and Undertaker would be there waiting for me. He’d wave me over with that crooked finger, and he’d chew out my ass for the next 15 minutes. This happened night after night. It seemed like I couldn’t do anything right, no matter what I tried. And I’m a little more hard-headed than most, so it took me a while, but a lot of the lessons I learned from Undertaker put me in a position now where I can help a lot of people not make the same mistakes I made.”
He continued, “I was so young in WCW, I was 22, 23 years old at the beginning. The only other young guy was Alex Wright. Macho, Hulk, Flair, Paul Orndorff, they were all in their 40s or older. It was like I was everybody’s kid brother. And I made a lot of mistakes back then. My real training happened when I got to work with Undertaker.”
Like many veterans in wrestling, Big Show believes the locker room nowadays has a friendlier vibe than it did back during the Attitude Era and Monday Night Wars.
“The business isn’t quite as ruthless or individualistic as it used to be,” he said. “Now there’s a lot more of a team attitude in the dressing room. People are working hard together. We got it done back in the day, but that’s just because a lot of us were competitive and didn’t like each other. The work environment is a lot nicer now."
Big Show returned to WWE after a lengthy absence on the Jan. 6 episode of Raw, competing in a six-man tag team match alongside Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe. He then teamed up with Owens and Joe the following week in a fist fight against Seth Rollins & AOP.
Following his return, Show revealed he had five hip surgeries during his time away. You can view his full comments by clicking here.
