My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 72 - THE BIG SHOW

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

The Big Show joins Robbie and Jared three years after their first interview together to catch up, talk wrestling, talk quarantining, and more. 3Chi: Use code BASEMENT at checkout to receive 5% off at 3Chi.com My Mom's Basement Merch: https://store.barstoolsports.com/products/my-moms-basement-tie-dye-hoodieYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. This show is brought to you by 3Chi, as I reminded you before. 3Chi is the leader in hemp-derived cannabinoid products, and all products are made in the USA with USA-grown hemp. now what this is is delta 8 thc it is a federally legal version of thc derived from hemp so generally delta 9 thc is derived from marijuana and that's what gets you high that's what gets you you know the psychoactive effects going in your brain this is supposed to give you a similar buzz and all of the medicinal effects of delta 9 without any of the laziness, the anxiety, the paranoia, or the mental fogginess that Delta 9 comes with. And it really does work for me. I don't know if you hear it right now, but I'm on some 3C right now. I was hitting the vape this morning, a little wake and bake. I love it. It gets the day started for me. It gets the day finished for me. Little hits in between get the day going for me i absolutely love the edibles the vapes the

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if you're on the couch throughout all quarantine, watching TV shows, movies, stuff like that, blogging, this stuff is perfect for you, I promise. Now let's get into this interview with the legendary Big Show. Down here in sunny Florida, dealing with the heat and humidity, so it's a lot of fun. The clean shave look is throwing me off. I have to be honest with you.

You know, I just got sick of dealing with a beard. I mean, it gets to be like too much beard and trims. And it's hard to go to a barber now to get it trimmed, to get it care of and if it gets long i look like a woolly mammoth i just said you know we'll just uh we'll go for the egg the incredible edible egg that's what we'll go for yeah you're one of these guys that's had some stuff to do during this coronavirus thing though because you've got netflix right with the big show shows so i'm sure you've had stuff to promote with that and you've had the new mattel lines coming out you're're doing press with us. How has the Netflix thing been going? Cause I'm a guy that I remember when knucklehead came out and I bought that from red box to get it. You know, you've been acting for a while. Do you enjoy doing that stuff?

Absolutely. I mean, I think it's a natural transition, but the big show show has been a, a project that I've hunted for for a long time. Back when we did, I was fortunate enough to be on Saturday Night Live with The Rock. I got that bug for that live comedy interaction. And I grew up as a kid that was a fan of Laverne and Shirley and Happy Days and all the different shows, Growing Pains, all the different things when I was growing up. So I liked those type of shows. And me driving Vince McMahon nuts every opportunity.

Hey, if you get me one of these shows, I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. So finally, the partnership came up with Netflix and WWE, and I guess the squeaky wheel got the grease. So so far it's been a fantastic ride I can't remember my first day on set at Paramount um I got picked up in a golf cart with the big show show on the golf cart and that was like when it really hit like oh wow this is

really happening yes got your name on the title yeah it's awesome we just got my name on it's pretty cool we recently a lot of pressure though a lot of pressure, though. A lot of pressure. For sure. We recently interviewed The Miz, and we were talking to him about the cinematic matches that have been going on during the WWE in the coronavirus, right? Like the Boneyard match and the match that Bray Wyatt and John Cena had at WrestleMania. And his idea was that he would be jumping from sitcom to sitcom, including yours. He was like, I would love if I had a cinematic match to just show up in the big show show and be fighting the big show with the kids or something. You know, I love Miz. And I'll tell you one thing about Mike.

He's one of the hardest working individuals that's ever been around in my life. Like, I always make the joke, because I had Miz as a tag team partner. And Miz, I wanted to punch in the mouth. But Mike, I have the most most respect for he's one of the hardest working guys i've ever met in my life so uh we would love to have uh if we get season two we would love to have uh mike on season two ms as much mike yes yes the when we interviewed you

three years ago after we were done with the interview i was like i didn't ask him the question that i wanted to i'm to ask it to you this time. So I want to say when I was a kid, there was like a documentary or a special that was done on you. And I'm 99% sure that it mentioned that when you were little, you used to eat toothpaste sandwiches. Is that true or false? I wasn't little. That's like how those Bigfoot and Paul Bunyan rumors get started. I had gone through a really rough time.

I lost my dad, my grandfather, and my coach got fired all in the same year. Quit playing college basketball at Wichita State. Was kind of just lost in that miasma of life. You know, what am I going to do next to myself? You know, all those things that hit a young man pretty hard. And I had been working at a bar called The Cowboy in Wichita, Kansas as a bouncer. And I was selling cars during the day at a place called Rusty at Ford in Wichita, Kansas. And December had rolled around and I owed the lunch truck 12 and the bar that i was working at

had closed for remodeling and wouldn't be open to the first of the year so there was a period right around in december where i didn't have was nothing to do. I mean, I didn't go anywhere spending money to have any money to put in the gas in the car. It's just one of those circumstances that everything just kind of hit all at once. And now that you're older, you know how to prepare for those. But as a young man, I didn't know how to prepare for it. So I remember I had a little bit of a little bit of toothpaste left. And I had the heel of the butt of the bread was all I had left in the house. I didn't have mustard.

I didn't have ketchup. I didn't have mayo. I didn't have anything. Literally, I had nothing in my house. And I had a toothpaste sandwich. And then I had another one with WWE with Michael Cole. And because Michael Cole hadn't heard about the story. So in my lifetime, I've had two, it's not like it's a recurring thing. Oh my God, I love this toothpaste stuff.

No, it was just one of those types of, of I look back now at that low point in my life and that struggle. And it makes me appreciative. Like sometimes I just open the door in my pantry and just look at all the food that gives me peace. Right? Yeah. And I think like, because whenever I whenever I heard that story, I didn't understand or even know the negative connotation with it. I just thought that it was like, No, he just ate toothpaste sandwiches. So as a kid, I just started eating toothpaste sandwiches, because I was like, this is it. This is the key.

Like, if you want to grow up to be big and strong, if you want to be seven feet tall, you're going to have to make yourself a toothpaste sandwich. So it was my mistake. I misread the situation. That's all right. Well, it was funny when I was a kid, you remember the honeycomb commercials with Andre?

Yeah. You guys are probably too young to remember it, but you can go on YouTube. I've seen them on YouTube, yeah. Well, I was a kid when those commercials were coming out, and I drove my mom nuts. You've got to get me Honeycomb. You've got to get me Honeycomb.

I want to be big like Andre. I want to be big like Andre. Wish granted. Yeah, for real. If only you knew. And then years later, I got to do a promotion with Honeycomb where I was on the box of Honeycomb here last year, so it was pretty cool. I don't know if you can see this, I'm going to do my best.

I'm going to show you a video. This right here. There's me with my little tights. Can you see I'll, I'll run it back again, but behind you, someone's going to raise their arm with a, with Mr. Socko on it. Did you see that? That's me. So that was the night that you chokeslammed the Undertaker through the ring in Boston.

If you could go back in time and give that version of the big show advice from your brain cabinet right now, what would you tell that guy? First thing I would tell him is to invest in some knee pads. Because at that time in my career is to invest in some knee pads. Because at that time of my career, I wouldn't wear knee pads. Giants don't wear knee pads. I was young. I was dumb.

That's crazy. I would say invest in some knee pads and probably definitely have a pull on the side. Tell them to work a little bit more on his cardio. Get some sleep at night. Quit going out and raising hell. Get sleep so i mean it was the attitude error i'm sure you had to be raising it was the attitude i believe me uh i ran really hard in the attitude error believe me i was uh i was definitely a real life viking raider back then so uh you know now my big excitement is you know like 11 p.m rolls around i'm looking for you know, now my big excitement is, you know, like 11 p.m. rolls around. I'm looking for, you know, like sleep. Yeah, I'm sure.

So you've got this new Mattel Decade of Domination elite figure coming out. And I think it's interesting. I mean, you've been an action figure for the majority of your adult life, I think. What has it been like watching yourself, like, evolve from the early, I'm sure, not moving very much action figures to now, where it's like, holy shit, I have a miniature version of the big show with me? You know, it's pretty amazing. I actually didn't really pay attention to a lot of it when they first came out. I did.

But you get involved in the work. It's hard to keep track of everything that's going on around you and what's being made of you and stuff like that. I've never been a guy that's focused on that, but you know, some of the guys, you know, Matt, who used to be, you know, Zach Ryder and Curt Hawkins, those guys are really into action figures, you know, and we had a discussion one afternoon about action figures. I told him the story about one of the craziest ones I'd ever seen was an action figure of the giant, but he had a little red button on his ribs. And when you press the button, it vibrated.

And I said, well, what is this? They go, oh, you're shaking because you're angry. I said, I don't think so. I don't think so. So needless to say, that was one of those marketing ideas. I think that they made that. I mean, I could get the fists long or the boot kicked out. I mean, we, you know, but just sit there and go pinpoint stress massager for behind my ear.

Yeah. But you've seen a lot of ones some of them look like you some of them the heads are seem like they're interchangeable everybody has the same facial expression just depending on when they cut the hair right over the years the technology has gotten pretty incredible what we go through now to get the facials for those action figures is we're to sign a non-disclosure agreement but i can tell you it's they get every single angle of your face possible it's unreal they get one of those like circular cameras and just do the full scan uh there's hundreds of cameras it's amazing it's amazing when you sit there and look at it you're like wow i feel like you know i'm an astronaut here i'm in

a space shuttle or something it's pretty crazy so. So you're not collecting all the action figures over the years, but what type of memorabilia are you keeping as mementos from your career? Do you have replicas or the original copies of titles that you've won or anything like that? I have one title that Paul Heyman gave me when I beat Brock Lesnar in the garden. Paul Heyman put that in a nice case and sent that as a picture to me. I have that. I have one picture of myself, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, and John Cena after WrestleMania in Phoenix. We were

all pretty relaxed. It was a good night. I have a bunch of stuff. Do you remember the WWE All-Star video games that came out? Yeah. It was like an arcade style game.

They had made these seven-foot-tall cutout cardboard posters for WWE All-Stars. And there's one of me. I have about three of them in a box. And they take up one whole side of a wall in my storage area. They're just these giant cutouts of that cartoon Big Show character, which is pretty cool. Although, to me, it looks more like Wilson Fisk. But, you know, I like that for motivation going to the gym. Like, yeah, that's where we need to keep working towards that.

I have some little things here and there. I've never been much of a collector for stuff because I've never been a what happened yesterday kind of a guy. I'm what's today, what's tomorrow. I think personally for me to sit down and put all that stuff up and bask in it, it's not how my mind works. I mean, I like to move forward with today and tomorrow. I think at one time in my career stops and I'm done doing whatever. Sure, it might be nice my career stops and I'm done doing whatever, sure, it might be nice to put all that stuff up. They always send you the stuff, so it's in boxes and put

away and some of it's in storage. One day I'll go through it and hang some stuff up. I keep some things. I got a pair of boots. It's got, apparently, John Cena and I somewhere over the years, I forget where it was, we both busted each other open somewhere. But I kept those boots because there's his blood, my blood's on it.

I had a lot of fun working with him. That's awesome. I don't think I busted him open. At least I hope I didn't. Yeah, yeah. Anything else? No, and John, he probably busted himself open because he's that hard-headed. Right.

But some little stuff like that. If you're not like the big momentum or memento guy now do you think like knowing what you have uh is there one piece that you'll look back on later on where it's like this like if you say you have 20 pieces right and 19 of them you're like ah well whatever if it goes up it goes up if it doesn't it doesn't but there's one where it's like don't touch this. Like I need this for eventually like what, what's going to bring back the best memories for you.

Um, that's a, that's a really great question. Um, there's a couple of things I have that are pretty personal. Um, that one picture of, like I said, there's a picture of a taker Sina and Sean Michaels and I and Shawn Michaels and I that I don't think I'd ever part with. There's a picture of Vince McMahon, Mark Henry, and myself that I will never give up. And there's a good one of Vince and I over in Afghanistan and Iraq when we're doing tribute for the troops.

I think pictures is more of my thing. I'll never give up the title belt that Paul Heyman gave me. Yeah. Because that's just – I don't keep titles. I've won them all, but I'm not a guy that's going to put every title I've won up on the wall. Nice humble brag. I've won them all.

Yeah, yeah. Slide that in there real humble and a sneak tip. But it's weird. I've never been a guy that likes to show off those kind of accolades. I mean, even when I was a kid in high school and won all these all-conference and all-state and MVPs and all these different trophies, I didn't, you know. My mom put them up, but I didn't. Once I'd won it, I moved on to the next thing.

So I don't know. I think for me it's just like pictures and maybe that title I'll never part with. Anything else, I don't develop attachment to stuff like that. I wish I could. Like some people get into collecting stamps and coins and stuff. It's never been my thing. That match where you won the title against Brock Lesnar is one of Kevin Owens' favorite matches.

I don't know if we told you that last time, but when he was on our podcast, he made a point to bring that up as one of his personal favorite matches. Yeah. That was a heck of a match because no one saw that coming because Brock was built like Brock was built. No one saw that coming. And then Heyman doing the turn was pretty cool. It was a good moment in time, but yeah, it's funny i wrestled brock every night for like a year and a half it felt like um you've seen so many different incarnations of the locker room right throughout your years in the wwe and uh we we asked the ms about this just since his time how has the locker room changed so i want to ask you since you came into the WWE, how has the locker room culture evolved until now? Well, it's evolved differently.

I mean, you know, when I first started, the locker room was an inner sanctum, but it was also an inner sanctum of sharks. I mean, everybody was fighting for a position there. It was a very fun environment, but one of extreme competitiveness. You didn't want to go out and have a bad match and come back in that locker room. You didn't. You wanted to go out and have the best match on the card. If the houses weren't doing well, if we had a 75% house, instead of house means size of the arena,

if we only had sold 75% or 80% of the tickets, guys were mad. Guys didn't talk. Guys didn't play dominoes. Guys didn't play cards. I mean, because it was very much business and money driven back then because the better business we did, the more money the guys made, the position on the card we were, you made more money. So guys were very much business oriented money wise then it was all about the fans putting on the best matches and

tearing down arenas like we did in the amateur era I think some of that still carries over the day guys are very competitive but I think it's a little bit looser more positive environment I think that's one thing because looser, more positive environment. I think that's one thing because, you know, the environment back in the old days, there was a lot of men in the locker room, so to speak, and they weren't going to give you a Band-Aid and a cookie if you skinned your knee. You got your ass up and you went to work. Today, I think it's a little bit more of a supportive group, which is fine.

There's a lot more. It's still competitive, but the guys are different, are competitive in different ways. Like it's okay for them to be competitive and joke and laugh, and that's how they push each other. They push each other that way. I mean, sometimes back in the old days, we'd have fistfights in the parking lot. So maybe the new guys are a little bit better at communicating.

I don't know. But I think it's a better environment than it used to be for sure. I think it's a better work environment for working together as a brand. You know, what worked for us back in the old days, everybody was fighting so hard to get to the top that the brand grew with us. I think now everybody kind of understands they're okay if they're not on the last match. They're okay if they're on the brand grew with us. I think now everybody kind of understands that they're okay. If they're not on the last match, they're okay.

If they're on the match after intermission, you know, back in the day, if you were, you know, not in certain places in the card, you got mad because you didn't want to be on that card in that spot. Again,

you wanted to move up. So I think that's the difference that I see with, you know, our business has shifted. It's more TV business. You know, when I started, it was more live see with, you know, our business has shifted. It's more TV business. You know, when I started, it was more live event business. You know, now it's more TV and network buys. Like we were concentrating on filling arenas and doing pay-per-view buys.

That's where we made our money. So now the guys, you know, are a little bit more lax about live events. You know, I don't think it's, I think it's just because their their business is ingrained different they're into social media and communicating with fans and doing videos back when i first started you didn't communicate with fans you kayfabed yeah nobody saw behind the curtain so that's just how the business evolves and it has to evolve with the times you know the talent has to evolve with the fan base right Right. And throughout your whole career, like, you know, you as an individual have done a lot of promotional stuff, whether it's, you know,

morning shows, radio shows, you're going out and throwing out first pitches. So who in your entire life, who has been your favorite non-professional wrestling big man that you've met because you're the big show. So obviously we have to put the big show next to our big guy too. Who's that guy? And you can't say Shaq. Yeah. Well, you know, Shaq's an instant go-to. Honestly, there's two guys that I've met over the years.

One's Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold was just an incredible, charismatic, wonderful human being. His sense of humor is legendary. And another guy that's a big guy that I've actually gotten to know and become pretty good friends with that there's a lot more depth to him than I think that people know is Joe Magniello. Okay.

Oh yeah. I mean, this guy is just, you know, he's a big guy. You remember from true blood. He's a, he's a tall athletic guy.

Good looking A to Z, but you know, he's a good actor. He does his homework. He went to Carnegie Mellon, you know, so he's, he's a lot deeper than I think a lot of people know with him and then once you

get to know him he's he's a really fun smart dude to hang out with like i've i've picked up a lot of things from him he's one of those people that i've met that i haven't been let down by meeting them instead my uh my value of them has gone up so i would say definitely arnold and joe are probably uh the two top that come to mind right now. There's some other people that I've met that were just completely wonderful, wonderful people to meet. You know, you're just blessed to meet people in life and do stuff like that and run across people that enhance your life by meeting them. Have you met Bill Russell before?

What's that? Have you ever met Bill Russell? Bill Russell, basketball player? No, I have not. You know, I did meet Julius Irving. That's another one. I met Julius Irving at a trade show one time, and I was really impressed at how just completely chill Dr. J was. Yeah. I met Michael Jordan one time in Miami at the Forge,

and it was a really crazy night. It was like one of those nights that the most amazing thing and the craziest thing all happened within five to ten minutes of each other. Like I'm sitting at a table with some people, and Michael Jordan comes in, and like the some people and Michael Jordan comes in and like the restaurant stops. Michael Jordan comes in and Michael Jordan was speaking to one of the guys who was at the table that I was with. They knew each other. And then, you know, Michael said, hello, big show. Like Michael knew who I was. So, OK, I'm on cloud nine.

I stood right up like, you know, shook his hand like I'm like, oh, my God, Michael Jordan knows who I am. Like, I mean, like I am fangirling like no tomorrow yeah and uh jordan went back to another private dining area you know with his group and and i'm still sitting there and i'm thinking like wow michael jordan knows who i am like you know and then i hear big show and i'm like what and i look over and then there's this guy this you know very big black gentleman coming through who's pushing chairs and people are trying to eat and their tables are getting bumped and he comes over and it's OJ. So I went from meeting Michael Jordan to now I'm meeting OJ and I'm like,

Oh, okay. So obviously, you know, I shake OJ's hand. And OJ's hands were massive. And he shakes my hand, you know. How will you do just such a, you know, like he's shaking my hand really aggressively. And now I'm like, okay, I just met Michael Jordan. And I just met OJ. Okay, I need to go get some air.

So I go outside the restaurant to get some air. And then I'm outside 45 seconds. And somebody slaps me on the back so hard. They about separate two vertebrae in my neck. I got slapped so hard. I turn around. It's Dennis Rodman. Oh, no.

The worm? Yeah. So the worm. And then Dennis wants me to – this is years ago. He wanted me to go to China and meet this friend of his in China. And I'm like, I'm good, man. I don't do overseas very well. He says, no, man, it'd be great.

You'll have a lot of fun. They'll treat you like guests. I'm good, man. Hey, man, give me your number. And it was like – it was the first time I felt like maybe a girl that was getting pressured by a guy to give up her number. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Because it was just like he was, let me have your number, man. Let me have your number. You give Rodman a fake number? We worked together before, and I knew Rodman, so it wasn't that big a deal. But I also know Rodman likes to go buck wild and have fun. Yeah. I'm on a different plane of existence now. I'm not ready to go to the stratosphere like with Rodman.

So I give Rodman my number says this is real number right i said yeah man i'm not giving you a fake number so then he's all right man well i'm gonna call you we're gonna go to china okay but in my mind i'm like i'm not going to china i'm good you know i'm gonna stay in the u.s i'm you know wwe takes a trip i'll go work but i'm not gonna go over there by myself and get left all i could think of of was like, you know, some kind of, you know, midnight express run or something. I wake up chained without a kidney or something. So then the phone rings three minutes later.

He goes, Hey, it's Dennis. Just want to make sure you gave me the right number. I'm like, yeah, I gave you the right number, man. That was it. So that was my wild night in Miami where I met Michael Jordan. And these are just random encounters that, you know, you couldn't put together. So that's my, that's my bizarro world story.

Whatever came of the Dennis Rodman number exchange? Yeah, did he ever call? Follow up on China? No, he never did. He never did. It's funny. I just think, you know, because, you know, here's the thing. Dennis, if you get to know him, he's one, he is super eccentric.

We all know that. But he is a smart individual. but he likes to have fun. You know what I mean? And he's one of those type of guys that, you know, he could have fun in a prison camp. You know what I mean? His attitude is one of, you know, he likes to have adventure. He likes to laugh.

He likes to be with friends, you know. But he's non-stop if you go party with rodman you might not come back for seven or eight days you know what i mean i can't afford to take seven or eight days out of my life right now just to go disappear so i i knew from years ago um you better have your big boy party pants on if you're gonna go with rodman so uh i've retired my big boy party pants i got dad pants now so i make sure i go home seems like you made the right call smart move yeah i was gonna say i was getting anxiety for you thinking about going to china and then just being abandoned by dennis

rodman like there's there's no way if you went to china with dennis rodman that you would have stuck around with him the entire time like he's he's gone like you're probably going to bed at 11 o'clock like you said i'd have been left somewhere then like national geographic would have found me like 20 years later living in the mountains and they think they found the yeti but it was actually a big show that got abandoned by dennis rodman in china so there you go yeah with that long beard the big skullet. My hair all grew out, the old gray. And they think they found, oh, that's. So that's what happened to Big Show. Rodman abandoned him. So there you go.

I don't think we could beat that story. I mean, that was phenomenal. Big Show, thank you so much. This was fun. I hope we get together before, you know, three years passes again. I hope so, man. Hey, by the way, congratulations on everything, man. You guys are

really kicking butt and taking names. Congratulations. This is such a good show and thank you for having me on it. Thank you. I really appreciate it. We're going to get the big show three-peat at some point. We're going to have three-time guest big show. Three-time guest. Hopefully after Corona, we could do it in person finally. Yes. Oh, I'd love to. Yeah, man. Yeah, definitely. Stay safe and hopefully all this stuff will pass and we can all get back to normal. Yeah, you as well. All right. Thank you very much.

Stay safe. The Big Show, ladies and gentlemen. Bye, guys. You bet. I want to thank The Big Show for joining us once again. That was a great time and I cannot wait for the next time. The three-peat. The Big Show three-peat.

All right, everybody. As a reminder, you can go to 3chi.com and type in promo code basement at checkout or see 5% off your order. You must be 21 or older to purchase. And if you're interested, I've been streaming a ton of Jedi Fallen Order on twitch.tv slash that Robbie Fox. And I'll be doing a giveaway of some Star Wars toys once I reach a thousand followers on that page. So follow me on Twitter and on Twitch for more details there.