You only get one chance to make a good first impression, especially in Vince McMahon’s WWE.
WWE Superstars dream of that iconic debut to help launch their career. Attitude Era fans will fondly remember Kane ripping the door off of the Hell in a Cell hinges at Badd Blood 1997 and Chris Jericho interrupting The Rock.
Jim Ross Believes Former WWE Star The Big Show Was Not Kept Unique
Another memorable Attitude Era debut took place in the main event of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre pay-per-view in 1999. As “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was fighting Vince McMahon inside of a steel cage, a giant would emerge from under the ring, which would be a debuting Big Show.
Following the strong debut, the future WWE Champion appeared to be in line to be a featured star and predominant threat to the roster. However, due to a number of face and heel turns and overexposure, it could be argued that The Big Show was not presented as big of a star as first expected.
Speaking on the Grilling JR podcast [via Ad Free Shows], Jim Ross believes that the current AEW star should have been used more sparingly:
Well, I thought at the end of the day over the years that we didn’t do a great job of managing Big Show’s career. I thought we overexposed him, bottom line. He was an attraction. He was our Andre, that was the intended direction to go in. But I didn’t think we did an overall start to finish great job and how we utilised Big Show. I just, too much, we didn’t keep him special, we didn’t keep him unique, and I thought that was a big mistake at the end of the day. So, but it’s a calculated risk, and also says to a pay-per-view consumer, you never know what’s going to happen.
JR would continue, stating that the debut and the end of the match was executed well:
They had a surprise, they have Big Show come out there. Well, we didn’t know he was even going to be there. So that’s kind of the theory behind that is that when you watch a WWE pay-per-view, you just really never know what’s going to happen, who’s going to show up. That was the theory behind Big Show debuting that night. And it was a good out for Steve to win the match without climbing over the top of the cage with those bad knees and all that stuff. So I thought that was a decent finish actually.
If you use any of these quotes, please credit Grilling JR with a h/t to Inside The Ropes.