Big Show
Paul Donald Wight II is an American professional wrestler and actor. He is signed to All Elite Wrestling under his real name. He is best known for his tenure with World Championship Wrestling from 1995 to 1999 as Giant and his tenure with the World Wrestling Federation/WWE from 1999 to 2021 under the ring name Big Show.
Wight played college basketball at Wichita State University before transferring to other schools. He began his wrestling career in 1994. In 1995, he signed with WCW, where, due to his great height and large frame, he was known by the ring name The Giant and initially introduced as "the son of André the Giant". In early 1999, he left WCW to join the World Wrestling Federation.
Between WWF/WWE and WCW, he has held 23 total championships - including being a seven-time world champion, having held the WCW World Heavyweight Championship twice, the WWF/WWE Championship twice, WWE's World Heavyweight Championship twice and the ECW World Heavyweight Championship once,, and an 11-time world tag team champion, holding the WWF/World, WWE and WCW World Tag Team Championships multiple times with various partners. Having also won the Intercontinental, United States and Hardcore championships, he is the 24th Triple Crown and 12th Grand Slam winner in WWE history. He also won the 60-man battle royal at World War 3 and the 30-man André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 31. He has headlined multiple pay-per-view events for WCW and WWF/WWE since 1995, including the 16th edition of WWE's premier annual event, WrestleMania.
Outside of professional wrestling, Wight has appeared in feature films and television series such as Jingle All the Way, The Waterboy, Star Trek: Enterprise, and two USA Network's comedy-dramas Royal Pains, Psych and the action-drama Burn Notice. He had lead roles in the WWE Studios comedy film Knucklehead and the Netflix sitcom The Big Show Show.
Early life
Wight was born February 8, 1972, in Aiken, South Carolina. He was born with acromegaly, a disease of the endocrine system that causes accelerated growth. By the age of twelve, he was tall, weighed, and had chest hair. In 1991, as a member of the Wichita State University basketball team at age 19, he was listed at. He underwent successful surgery in the early 1990s on his pituitary gland, which halted the growth. His shoe size is 22 5E, his ring size is 22, and his chest is in circumference. In 2005, he leased a bus and hired a bus driver because of the practical problems his size presents to air travel and car rental.Wight played basketball and American football in high school at W. Wyman King Academy in Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina. He was a standout center for the basketball team and a tight end for the football team. He quit football after his freshman year because of disputes with the coach. He continued to support the team by joining the cheerleading squad as a sophomore, partly from spite. He later called it "the greatest experience of my life... Everybody else was riding a bus with sweaty equipment, and I'm in a van with seven cheerleaders who are all learning about life". The van was driven by "a mom who was deaf in her right ear and chain-smoked".
After leaving high school, Wight attended Northern Oklahoma Junior College in Tonkawa, Oklahoma, where his basketball averages of 14 points and 6.5 rebounds earned him all-conference honors and helped the team win the Western Division of the Oklahoma Bi-State Conference. He went on to attend Wichita State University, where in 1991-1992 he played for the Wichita State Shockers. Wight subsequently attended Southern Illinois University Edwardsville from 1992 to 1993, where he was a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II Cougars basketball team and scored 39 points for the Cougars in limited action; he joined the Xi Beta chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.
After graduating, Wight worked various jobs including bouncing, bounty hunting, and answering phone calls.
Professional wrestling career
Training and early career (1994–1995)
Wight paid $5,000 to train at Larry Sharpe's Monster Factory, but due to Sharpe's gout at the time, he was only very minimally trained. Wight wrestled the first match of his career on December 3, 1994, at a World Wrestling Association show in Clementon, New Jersey; he lost by count-out to WWA Heavyweight Champion Frank Finnegan.Wight attempted to inquire about joining the World Wrestling Federation during an autograph session at the Rosemont Horizon. Promoter and scout Bob Collins turned him away after he admitted he had no experience. While attending the Monster Factory, Wight made an audition tape and gave it to Mike Chioda, whom he had met in a Philadelphia bar. Chioda forwarded it to Pat Patterson, who did not bother watching it because he assumed Wight was another wrestler, Kurrgan. Only when he later saw The Giant debut in World Championship Wrestling did Patterson realize his mistake, much to Vince McMahon's displeasure.
While answering phones for a karaoke company, Wight met Danny Bonaduce in a live microphone amateur contest on his morning radio show. Bonaduce introduced Wight to his friend, WCW wrestler Hulk Hogan. They had an informal basketball game, as part of a WCW promotion for an upcoming show at the Rosemont Horizon. Hogan liked how Wight worked the crowd and recommended him to WCW's vice president, Eric Bischoff. Wight went to the Horizon show, and was invited into the locker room, where he met Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and Paul Orndorff. He later met Bischoff there and came to a deal.
World Championship Wrestling (1995–1999)
WCW World Heavyweight Champion (1995–1996)
In 1995, Wight signed with WCW. He debuted on May 21 at Slamboree, where he was billed as the son of André the Giant and accordingly used the ring name "the Giant" as a member of Kevin Sullivan's Dungeon of Doom stable. Wight made his WCW in-ring debut at the Halloween Havoc pay-per-view in October 1995, challenging Hulk Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. He won the match after Hogan's manager, Jimmy Hart, purposely got Hogan disqualified and then turned on him. The following night, the Giant appeared on WCW Monday Nitro wearing the championship belt; Hart, who became The Giant's manager, revealed that he had put a stipulation in the contract for the match that if Hogan lost via disqualification, he would lose his championship. WCW responded by nullifying the title change due to the circumstances surrounding it and the championship was vacated.The Giant then entered the sixty-man battle royal contested for the vacant championship at World War 3 on November 26. He was one of the final six combatants, being eliminated simultaneously with Sting and Lex Luger by Hogan. The Giant did not leave the ring upon being eliminated and pulled Hogan underneath the ropes while Randy Savage was eliminating the One Man Gang from the match. The referee did not see the Giant's actions, only that Hogan was on the floor, and thus awarded the match and the title to Savage. The Giant teamed with Ric Flair to defeat Hogan and Savage at Clash of the Champions XXXII in January 1996, but was defeated by Hogan in a cage match at SuperBrawl VI the following month. A grudge between the Giant and fellow Dungeon of Doom member Loch Ness soon developed over who was the only true giant of WCW, with Giant defeating Loch Ness at Uncensored in March 1996.
On the April 22, 1996 episode of WCW Monday Nitro, the Giant teamed with WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair to face WCW World Tag Team Champions Sting and Lex Luger in a match with all three titles on the line. The match ended in a disqualification when Flair accidentally threw hot coffee in the Giant's eyes, leading the Giant to issue a challenge to Flair. Later that night, the Giant pinned Flair following a chokeslam to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship for a second time. At Slamboree in May 1996, he successfully defended the title against Sting. At The Great American Bash in June 1996, he successfully defended the title against Lex Luger. At Bash at the Beach in July 1996, the Giant teamed with Kevin Sullivan to defeat Arn Anderson and Chris Benoit. After Hulk Hogan formed the New World Order, he defeated the Giant for the title at Hog Wild on August 10, 1996 following interference from Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.
New World Order (1996–1999)
The Giant joined the nWo in September 1996, citing Ted DiBiase's money as his primary motivation. At Fall Brawl '96: War Games later that month, he defeated Randy Savage with the assistance of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. He went on to feud with Lex Luger and the Four Horsemen. At Halloween Havoc in October 1996, he defeated aspiring Four Horsemen member Jeff Jarrett by disqualification after Four Horsemen leader Ric Flair gave him a low blow.After winning the World War 3 match at World War 3 in November 1996, the Giant asked Hogan for a World Heavyweight Championship title match. For this, he was thrown out of the nWo on December 30. He fought against the nWo along with Sting and Luger, winning the WCW World Tag Team Championship twice. The Giant began a feud with nWo member Kevin Nash, who constantly dodged the Giant, including no-showing their scheduled match at Starrcade in December 1997. At Souled Out in January 1998, the two finally met in the ring, with Nash accidentally injuring the Giant's neck when he botched his signature jackknife powerbomb. The botch was worked into a storyline, according to which Nash had intentionally dropped the Giant on his head in order to break his neck.
When Nash left the nWo and formed his own stable, the nWo Wolfpac, the Giant re-joined the original nWo to oppose Nash and his allies. While back with the nWo, the Giant won two more WCW World Tag Team Championships, once with Sting as an unwilling partner and once with Scott Hall. In the interim between those two reigns, he lost his half of the titles to Sting in a singles match where only the winner would remain champion and could choose a new partner. On the October 12, 1998 episode of Nitro, Bill Goldberg defeated the Giant in a no-disqualification match. In a show of strength, Goldberg executed a delayed vertical suplex before executing the Jackhammer on the Giant. After the nWo Hollywood and nWo Wolfpac stables merged again in January 1999, Hogan declared that there was only room for one "giant" in the group, forcing Giant and Nash to wrestle for that spot. On the January 11, 1999 episode of WCW Monday Nitro, Nash defeated Giant following a run-in by Scott Hall and Eric Bischoff. The Giant was then attacked by the entire nWo; this marked Wight's final appearance in WCW. On the "Building An Army" episode of the Monday Night War feature from the WWE Network, Wight stated that he was making a fraction of what the main eventers were making and his salary was not increased after he requested it be by Eric Bischoff; as a result, Wight allowed his WCW contract to expire on February 8, 1999, his 27th birthday.