4. Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Big Show - WrestleMania 24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0hJcBXu9G0 Floyd "Money" Mayweather has "heel" written all over him. He oozes charisma and carries himself with a swagger that could compare with old school Ric Flair (1980s Nature Boy and Mayweather could go back and forth about their watches, clothes, shoes and cars for a half-hour). So naturally, he was cast as a hero saving Rey Mysterio from a beatdown by the bully Big Show. And of course, the fans played right along, right? Right??? Now, put all of that aside and watch the WrestleMania match on its own Mayweather the undersized but dangerous boxer with a brass knucks-toting, steel chair-swinging entourage against the Big Show, the largest athlete in the world. The match played out completely counter to the build-up. Mayweather was the cocky heel who stopped to take a swig from his pimp chalice, only to have Big Show knock one of Floyd's handlers silly for showing disrespect. Show combated some liberal interference and laid in a pretty good beating. (Mayweather, to his credit, sold the beating pretty well. We'll forgive the crappy sleeper.) Yeah, the match isn't that great. There's a lot of extracurriculars to hold it together and protect both guys (it took five guys, a steel chair and brass knuckles to put Show down), but this isn't too bad on the celebrity scale, especially when you discount the original booking leading up to Mania.
Scott Carlson
Contributor
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
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