10 Wrestlers Too Big To Fail (That Failed Anyway)

Paul Wight debuted for WCW amidst great fanfare in 1995, with people talking in hushed voices about the seven foot kid with the top rope backflip, the most impressive specimen the business had ever seen.

However, like many before him he’d found that WCW’s older main event talent weren’t willing to stand aside for new faces. Vince McMahon, on the other hand, dollar signs in his eyes and tongue unrolled like a cartoon wolf, had promised him the moon. After all, if anyone knew how to market a giant it was the WWF, home of Andre the Giant. The WWF poached him in 1999.

Six years later, it was clear that this promise was horse puckey: McMahon had no idea what to do with the Big Show, as the company had called him. Booked too often to be a special attraction and too inconsistently to be the main event, Wight was losing focus, gaining weight and slowing down.

It was clear that McMahon had dismissed him as a feature player, able to be slotted into any role his size required. By the time his contract expired in 2007, Wight had had enough. He’d ballooned to 500lbs, his back was failing and he was looking into an alternative career in boxing.

A year later however, boxing having proven not to be his thing, Show was back with a new attitude: healed up, slimmer and ready to work in the midcard, feature player role that WWE had earmarked for him.