Big Show Talks Getting Chewed Out By The Undertaker During His Early WWE Days
Two weeks ago, Big Show returned to RAW as the mystery partner for Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens' match against Seth Rollins and AOP. Big Show had been out of action since late 2018, and went through five surgeries before being able to make his in-ring return.
Since his comeback, Big Show spoke with Sports Illustrated about a wide range of topics, including how working in WCW compared to WWE. He also relived getting critiqued by The Undertaker on a nightly basis during his early years in WWE.
From 1995 until February 1999, Big Show?then known as The Giant?spent his days in WCW. That same month in 1999, he signed a ten-year contract with WWE, and quickly realized the worlds of WCW and WWE were wildly different.
"It was a lot different in WCW, which had guaranteed contracts," Big Show recalled. "WWE was a shark tank, it was competitive. It wasn't a locker room where everyone went to Chipotle after the show together. People legitimately didn't like each other.
"I was so young in WCW, I was 22, 23 years old at the beginning. The only other young guy was Alex Wright. Macho, Hulk, Flair, Paul Orndorff, they were all in their 40s or older. It was like I was everybody's kid brother. And I made a lot of mistakes back then. My real training happened when I got to work with Undertaker."
That training came in the form of Undertaker critiquing Big Show after each of his matches during WWE's live tours.
"I used to come through the Gorilla position after a match against Undertaker on our live tours, and Undertaker would be there waiting for me," Big Show said. "He'd wave me over with that crooked finger, and he'd chew out my ass for the next 15 minutes.
"This happened night after night. It seemed like I couldn't do anything right, no matter what I tried. And I'm a little more hard-headed than most, so it took me a while, but a lot of the lessons I learned from Undertaker put me in a position now where I can help a lot of people not make the same mistakes I made."