What’s the story?
While in talks with ESPN’s Matt Wilansky, WWE Superstar Big Show took a jibe at Shaquille O' Neal and blamed the NBA Hall of Famer’s ever increasing weight as the primary cause for their Wrestlemania 33 match falling through.
In case you didn’t know...
After a year of relentless promotion, Shaq announced on his podcast (The Big Podcast With Shaq) last week that the match might not happen after all. The news came out as an absolute shocker as the match was seemingly one of the biggest selling points of the show.
While Shaq claimed that the match was not completely scrapped, he asserted that the chances of it happening were pretty slim.
Also read: WWE News: Shaquille O' Neal says that his match against Big Show may not happen at WrestleMania 33
Shaq further insisted that it was due to no fault of his own, but failed to give a fair explanation for the annulment of the match. Furthermore, he added that he would continue with his training regime and would soon kick it up a notch by training heavy in case the match does happen.
Prior to this, Big Show had given an interview to WWE.com where he had urged Shaq to show some commitment on his part.
The heart of the matter
During the interview, a visibly annoyed Show criticised Shaq and insisted that it was indeed the weight of Shaq that was causing the match to fall through.
He joked that Shaq nowadays looked like Jabba the Hutt (a pudgy Star Wars character), which, according to Show, makes it hard to believe that he is one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
To further add to the insult Show said the following:
“He is too busy riding around singing karaoke with John Cena and going to Krispy Kreme and getting fatter every week. He’s got to be what, 440, 450 pounds? He's gotten pretty fat. Me on the other hand? I just weighed in this morning — 379 pounds.”
What’s next?
This could all turn out to be another tactic to promote the match.
If not, WWE is at the risk of losing one of the biggest selling points of this year’s Mania.
Sportskeeda’s take
With his contract ending by February next year, this could very well be Show’s last shot at glory on the biggest annual event of the company. And if Shaq is the reason that he is denied that, Show has every right to be upset about the situation.
We hope that it turns out to be just another publicity stunt and we finally get to see the two seven footers collide at the Show of Shows.
Send us news tips at [email protected]
What makes Sting special? His first AEW opponent opens up RIGHT HERE.
