Monday, June 8, 2009

Paul Wight, The Giant


Paul Donald Wight, Jr. was born on February 8, 1972 in Aiken, South Carolina.
Before he was known as The Big Show in the WWE, he was known as The Giant in WCW.
Paul debuted on WCW during the Bash at the Beach in 1995.
Paul called himself The Giant and claimed to be the son of André the Giant.
He said he blamed Hulk Hogan for the death of his "father", joined the Dungeon of Doom, and began a heated feud with Hogan.

The Giant was in one of the most unusual wrestling matches I have ever seen, the "Monster Truck Battle" at Halloween Havoc.
The "match"took place on top of Cobo Hall, with each man driving a monster truck and trying to force the other truck out of a circle, as in a sumo wrestling.
Hogan won the match when the Giant got out of his vehicle and appeared to fall from the roof.
(This all started because the Giant ran over Hogan's Harley-Davidson Motorcycle with a monster truck)

Amazingly, not only was the Giant not dead, but he showed up later that night and challenged Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
The Giant got the win by disqualification after Jimmy Hart (Hogan's manager) interfered.
The "swerve" came when Hart said Hogan had signed the contract for the match, not knowing there was a "title changes hands by disqualification clause" in it.
So The Giant became the champion.
It didn't really matter anyway, because of the controversial finish of the match, the title was held up.

Another amazing (to me at least) match in the WCW was an episode of WCW Monday Nitro when Goldberg faced the Giant in a no disqualification match.
Goldberg gave him the delayed vertical suplex and then hit the Jackhammer on The Giant.

The Giant's contract expired on February 8, 1999, and he went to the then WWF.

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