10 World Champions Who Bombed TWICE
6. The Giant/The Big Show
The Big Show was blessing to pro wrestling before the two most successful promoters of the 1990s made him a curse.
As debutants go, he was relatively amazing in his 1995 debut against Hulk Hogan. Laughably promoted as the "son of Andre", The Giant was nonetheless supremely athletic for a man his size. As size which, by definition, was supreme in and of itself. Perhaps not "win the World Championship on Night One" supreme, but WCW went there anyway. Just another Hogan rival in the Hogan-vanquishes-rivals times, The Giant progressed rapidly but failed to generate the returns he'd later lay claim to as a member of the New World Order.
Across the divide, Vince McMahon was heard to muse that his opposition simply didn't know what to do with such a talent. Four years later and he'd get the opportunity to prove he had no f*cking clue either. Signing in February 1999, Big Show was Champion by November but he'd turned three times by that point and was nowhere near a main event scene occupied by Triple H and McMahon himself.
Years after that and he was the biggest guy ever to basically serve as a plug-in champion. Reigns in 2002, 2011 and 2012 were transitional, as the former Chairman continued to fire ever so slightly wide with the industry's biggest ever "can't miss".