By the time British wrestling legend Giant Haystacks arrived in WCW in January 1996, The former British Heavyweight Champion was a long time removed from his 1980’s hey day.
Haystacks had enjoyed a great deal of success in Britain during the 1970’s and 80’s appearing opposite stars such as Big Daddy and Kendo Nagasaki.
Though the giant Brit wrestled all over the world during his career, he didn’t appear for a major American promotion until getting the call from WCW in early 1996. Haystacks would debut in WCW in January joining forces with The Dungeon of Doom.
Speaking on a recent episode of his ARN podcast, one quarter of the legendary Four Horseman Arn Anderson, has recalled Haystacks brief time in the Atlanta promotion.
During the podcast Anderson broke down WCW’s UnCensored 1996, where Haystacks took on The Giant, also known as The Big Show. Breaking down the match, Anderson commented that Haystacks was comfortably past his prime and wasn’t capable of doing a great deal.
“He had a big career in Europe supposedly. I got a feeling there was a little water went under the bridge from the time he was a star ‘til he had this match. If Big Show, or the Giant, he was called at the time, took a great bump that’s who he is – he’d tried and pull something out of nothing, and if it was involuntary, so what?. You don’t have two giants in a match with the same gimmick – that can get really really boring, quickly. So if it went two minutes, that’s too long. He [Loch Ness Monster] could only probably fall down one time. Not being a smart-ass, that age, that size, one bump is probably all he had in him so get to it, in 20 seconds.”
Haystacks would leave WCW shortly after this appearance, returning to Britain following being diagnosed with cancer.
Giant Haystacks, real name Martin Austin Ruane, passed away on November 29th 1998 from lymphoma. He was 52 years old.