Jim Ross Reveals Big Show’s Place Among Wrestling’s Greatest Big Men

Jim Ross recently shared his thoughts on the legacy of Big Show and other legendary big men in professional wrestling during an episode of his podcast, Grilling JR. The veteran commentator also opened up about WWE’s handling of Vader and the struggles the former WCW Champion faced with weight management.

When discussing WWE’s approach to Vader, Ross clarified that the company was not trying to punish him for his weight but rather attempted to help him get in better shape. “Well, we tried to encourage Leon to lose weight. I sent him to the Duke Weight Loss Clinic. And you know, he ended up gaining weight while he was there, sneaking out and getting chicken. So I don’t think we were punishing anybody. We tried to explain, ‘You can’t do this. We’re weighing you every week now, and you’re gaining weight.’ So it showed no commitment, no discipline.”

Ross, who was a strong advocate for Vader’s talent, expressed his disappointment that the former WCW Champion was unable to maintain his conditioning. “Nobody was a bigger fan of Vader than me. He was one of the great attractions of all time. An athletic big man will draw money more often than not. But he showed no commitment to losing weight and getting himself in shape. And Leon was a great athlete. He came up through the ranks, he played for the Rams. He was under a lot of people’s wing as far as that’s concerned, and he worked himself into quite the shoot in that regard. So I don’t think we were picking on Leon. And Leon was well aware of what we needed, and the scales don’t lie. So that’s kind of where we left that situation. It’s just too bad because we didn’t get as much out of Leon in WWE as we could have if he had been a little bit more stringent on his diet and what he was eating, and how he was training. Because he was a great attraction without question.”

Ross also weighed in on where Big Show ranks among the greatest big men of all time, acknowledging his contributions but placing him below Andre the Giant. “In that conversation, the guys [Big Show, Vader, more] you mentioned [are] certainly underneath Andre. Nobody’s going to top Andre because of his longevity and his productivity. But [Big Show], he has a place. He never has quite lived up to it, but he’s close. He was an important cog in a couple of major companies, and always did good. He underdeveloped because of his overexposure, in my opinion. But I always enjoyed working with Paul. I enjoyed being around him. It’s just the fact that I wasn’t a very good salesman, apparently on weight loss issues. I wish we would have done better with him, because he could have been a lot more viable if he had followed our direction and our encouragement of losing weight, and if we had stuck by our guns on his weight loss and weighing him in and things of that nature.”

Ross recalled that Big Show was resistant to regular weigh-ins, feeling he could still perform at a high level despite his weight. “He was very offended when he had to weigh in. That’s the jock in him, the athleticism in him. You know, ‘I can still do these things at more weight because I’m special.’ And we never quite got that point made to him, and that was disturbing. That’s the only thing that kept him from being from topping Andre. He was a better athlete than Andre, but we just had an issue with his weight and his stamina and his health. And it was all for the betterment of him, you know, a million-dollar investment that was made for short-term success. We were looking for long-term, and that was a great thing about Andre. Andre’s career lasted decades. And at the end of the day, what got Andre? His weight, his size. Like I said about William ‘Refrigerator’ Perry, he ate himself out of a job, which was sad and unfortunate.”