10 Huge Pops WWE Fans Gave To Outsiders

5. Shaquille O'Neal

Big Show Shaq 2009
WWE.com

Good lord, imagine if Shaquille O’Neal’s competitive in-ring debut had been booked for this year? With no fans in attendance, the whole thing would have been a wash. The whole point of celebrity appearances in wrestling is to pop the crowd and get some attention. No crowd, no pop, no attention.

All of that wasn’t a problem at WrestleMania 32 when Shaq revealed himself as the final entrant in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. Shaq and Big Show had been teasing a WrestleMania showdown for years, but the cruel hands of time and stalling on both sides made it increasingly unlikely that such a match was going to happen.

With that in mind, the Arlington crowd wasn’t going to let this moment go to waste. The record-breaking crowd showed the 15-time All-Star plenty of love with a sustained pop that went on and on, increasing only when Demon Kane decided he should try and chokeslam the two giants.

And then Michael Cole ruined everything by shouting ‘boom shaka laka’. Is there anything that Michael Cole doesn’t ruin?

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.