Big Show On Steve Austin Shoot Punching Him, Apologizing To Vince McMahon On First Night With WWE
Recently on WWE Network's Table For 3, The Big Show told some funny stories from his early days in WWE, as he sat down to chat with fellow WWE veterans, Kane and Mark Henry. According to 'The Giant', he truly learned how to be himself when he feuded with 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin upon entering WWE in 1999. Also, 'The World's Largest Athlete' talked about getting caught smoking in Vince McMahon's office the night of his WWE debut at St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House (1999).
The Big Show suggested that Austin would work stiff with him early on in their feud, but the situation ultimately helped him learn how to be a giant.
"Steve used to yell at me all the time. I remember I got stuck with Steve on a Europe tour. He's the man [and] every night, beats the crap out of me for seven minutes. Bam! Stunner! [He] drinks beer and salutes the crowd for another 10 [minutes]. I go to the back and Fit [Finlay]'s looking at me like, 'why do you let him do that to you?' I'm like, 'well, he's Steve Austin. What am I supposed to do?' He says, 'be a giant!' and he walks off. 'Be a giant,' that's insightful. Very helpful. Thank you very much. What does 'be a giant' mean? So every night, Steve's beating the crap out of me and we get to London. I worked Steve that night. Something happened and I knocked Steve to the floor. I got out [of the ring]. I throw him back in. Well, I threw him in by his trunks. He had one pair of trunks. He rinsed them out every night. They're his lucky trunks. He had one pair of trunks. We'll I hauled them up his ass and he got mad, so I got in the ring and he's [punching me] three times on the chin hard has hell. He goes, 'off the tights you son of a b—h!' I got mad, so I grabbed him by the face and picked him up, and ran him across the ring and bent him over the turnbuckle. And I was like, 'hey, you motherf–ker!' I got pretty [heated] and he goes, 'here you go, kid. Way to fire up.'"
The Big Show added, "but I learned something that night. And I finally got the epiphany of who you are because I am a giant. That's when it all clicked that night."
'The Greatest Giant Of All Time' claimed that he smoked cigarettes with Jack Lanza and Pat Patterson in McMahon's office the night his WWE debut, but the two put out their cigarettes before 'The Chairman' arrived, making The Big Show look bad in the eyes of the boss.
"[St.] Valentine's Day Massacre, right? We're in Memphis [Tennessee]. So I'm sitting there with Jack Lanza and Pat, first day. I had a t-shirt with a pocket and my Marlboro Lights were in it. Jack goes, 'oh, you smoke?' Pat goes, 'oh, you smoke!' I'm like, 'yeah, oh yeah.' I said, 'have a cigarette.' Yeah, so they light up and I'm just sitting there, puffing away, thinking, and we're talking. And Lanza's talking to me and Pat takes a couple of puffs, goes over to the toilet and flushes it, sits down. Pat starts talking to me. Jack takes a couple of puffs, goes over to the toilet, throws it in the water, and flushes it. I'm puffing away and Vince walks in a whole room full of smoke [and] I'm the only one smoking."
The Big Show continued, "I didn't want to be a stooge and tell on them because I'm not a stooge. I went, 'I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know.' At the time, I'm like, 'I'm not going to rat my buddies out.' And then, later, I was like, 'them sons of b—–s set me up!'"
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