The Big Show On What Is Lacking In Today's WWE, Female Talent Often Having More Drive Than The Men
The Big Show was a guest on the latest episode of After The Bell with Corey Graves. Big Show was there to promote his new Netflix Show, The Big Show Show, that he filmed last summer. Graves asked Show about his thoughts about WWE today, and he talked about the things that are lacking in today's WWE.
"I think the one thing I see a lot with the newer talent is I see drive, I see heart [and] I see passion but confidence is lacking because they haven't found themselves yet, and I know because I was there for years because I have confidence in myself as a talent. I think sometimes a more aggressive environment is beneficial to make it grow and weed out those that shouldn't be there," Big Show said. "I always hear people say, 'I love the business.' You've been here five minutes. Unless you make a dramatic change in yourself to create a new following, to create new interest and to create new eyes on you, this is where you are. It's not about settling. It's about finding a way to keep improving, to make yourself better [and] to reevaluate."
Big Show shared a story earlier this year about a time when The Undertaker chewed him out during his early days in WWE. He shared his admiration for The Undertaker for changing his style and look over the years to fit the ever-evolving wrestling landscape.
"Undertaker's amazing at that. For so many years, Undertaker was 'The Deadman'. He came out. His entrance was the most iconic entrance of all time, but then he reached about to where you know what I'm gonna change. Then you got to see Undertaker as 'The American Badass'. He had the bike. He started to put more MMA holds because he's an MMA fan so he started doing more shoot MMA-type holds and changed his style a little bit to evolve with the times," Big Show said. "I think that comes through pressure and having people around you push you to be better and people above you that you are trying to get after and you're trying to get better than them."
Big Show talked more about the dynamic of today's WWE and how wrestlers are slotted into certain positions. He says that wrestlers nowadays are both given everything but also not given enough to the point of being left to figure things out on their own.
"I don't really see that because everyone's slotted right now. That's the thing that saddens me a little bit. I think it's tough for some talent when they get put in a certain slot to get out of that slot especially when they're green and they're inexperienced because they don't know how, and they're not gonna be led that way," Big Show said. "In a lot of ways, everything is hand fed to them, and in a lot of ways, they're kind of on their own. It's a really weird dynamic to try to explain, but I've always tried to give an ear to anybody that asks."
Big Show continued on and said that he would much rather be a talent from his time when he was coming though rather than today. He talked about the importance of veteran leadership that was more present back then than it is today. He recently talked about the advice he received from WWE Hall of Famer Randy Savage.
"I would much rather be a talent from when I came through than a talent now. Just the environment was different. I think for it was better because a lot of the people I was working with were people I respected and kind of grew up with and there was leadership all the way around," Big Show stated. "I think that's one thing that maybe hurts a little bit. There's not enough real veteran leadership on the road and in the ring. There's a few guys, but when I started, everybody was a veteran."
Big Show shared praise for "The Four Horsewomen, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Bayley and Sasha Banks. He talked about how they have raised the level of WWE's women's division and says that the level of hunger they have shown is not being shown by the wrestlers of the men's division.
"What I'm trying to say is you only get better from the top down, and when the top down sets a high bar, everyone achieves to set that bar. The top guy has to be pushed from underneath too. It's a real hydrolic, fluid situation where people underneath on the lower card have to be pushing that division to get it going," Big Show said. "That's why you see an amazing transformation of our women's division. Look at the top talent we have in our women's division. You have Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Bayley and Sasha, and these girls just went out and changed the dynamic of women's wrestling. And what do you get? You get all these girls that come in behind them. They see, 'this is the opportunity. I want this opportunity.' The girls are more backstage and in the locker room for time, for having good matches [and] having quality matches. I see that hunger that I don't see in the guys sometimes. I think that's where the dynamic has shifted."
Graves asked Big Show what advice he would give if he were to start out in NXT today. Big Show talked about sitting back and learning and being ready to showcase your own abilities.
"Keep you mouth shut and observe. Don't run up and kiss everybody's ass, shake your hand and introduce yourself. Don't bother anyone," Big Show said. "Learn, and when the opportunity presents itself to showcase, go balls out because there's 1001 people that'll go up and shake your hand like, 'I'm so-and-so, and I'm really happy to be here. I've been a fan my whole life, and yada yada yada.' OK, show me what you can do. Show me you can put asses in seats. Show me you can have a match. Show me you can tell a story not you do your stuff and I do my stuff things."
You can listen to the full podcast by clicking here. If you use any quotes in this article, please credit WWE's After The Bell with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.