10 Legitimate Fighters Who Competed In WWE

10. Akebono

Crossovers between the worlds of professional wrestling and sumo wrestling is rare, partly because few exponents of the former are actually large enough to make it anything more than a formality, and partly because exponents of the latter would probably have great difficulty performing a springboard dive to the outside of the ring.

Big Show, however, is one of those rare WWE employees who - at a purported 500lbs (this was probably greatly exaggerated, but there's no denying that he's a pretty substantial guy) - was well capable of standing toe to toe with a legitimate sumo supremo. Namely Akebono, who he fought at WrestleMania 21.

More than a decade later, it's still not entirely clear why Vince McMahon and co were so keen on this idea. It's not like Akebono - who had also competed in kick-boxing and MMA - was a household name or anything; in fact, he had much less of a profile than Show himself.

The feud also lacked any kind of story beyond the fact that both men, being very large, had a yearning to have a big, manly cuddle in the middle of the ring. Needless to say, the resulting spectacle was a pretty poor for those watching in the audience (though, mercifully, it only lasted about a minute).