10 Times WWE Tried Too Hard To Be REAL

For a short period of time, whenever a celebrity wanted to step into the ring at 'The Grandest Stage of Them All,' they had to go through The Big Show. Before he would go on to be knocked out by Floyd Mayweather or rumors of a match against Shaq started, 'The Giant' went toe-to-toe with Akebono Tarō in a sumo wrestling match.

Relatively unknown to the general WWE audience, Tarō was fairly popular in Hawaii as a pro-wrestler. Moreover, he was the first American-Japanese grappler to reach "yokozuna," the highest rank in sumo. To top it off, he was skilled in both kickboxing and mixed martial arts.

On the surface, it seemed as though WWE tried to toss in a little more "real sport" into 'Mania by featuring a shoot-style sumo match between the two big men. However, the execution left fans wondering if the bout simply took place so Vince McMahon could cackle at the sight of Big Show in the traditional sumo regalia.

Big Show might have been WWE's 'World's Largest Athlete,' but Tarō outweighed The Giant at well over 500 pounds, despite giving up a few inches of height. Additionally, Show had never participated in a sumo match before. Needlessly to say, he ended up looking ridiculous as he picked out a wedgie moments after Tarō made short work of him, tossing him out of the ropeless ring.