Bam Bam Bigelow

[Jingus]

Some discussion about the Beast from the East began cluttering up an unrelated thread, so, here's a dedicated one.

 

"Whatever" match of the night : Bam Bam Bigelow vs Goldberg. I'm afraid this project will confirm my underwhelming impression of Bigelow. As good as he was during the ladder match, here he's not shining at all, and he's pretty boring on offense, working on Goldie's knee in the most yawn inducing fashion. This feud doesn't work, it doesn't comes off as anything special or important. And the rose was clearly off the bloom with Goldie, he doesn't get that huge of a reaction. His explosives stretches of offense do, but it's obvious the guy is damaged goods already. Goldberg should have squashed Bigelow like a bug.

I've never understood the "Bigelow is up there with Vader" thing some people throw around. I can't think of anything Bigelow has done that would threaten Vader's top 30, to be conservative and kind.

 

Granted, I'm a giant Vader mark.

If only Bam Bam had been satisfied making $600 a week and stayed in Memphis then we could be talking about him like an all time great. Unfortunately he had to go and wrestle with people other than Jerry Lawler and be exposed as a guy who has all the physical tools but never seems to actually have a good match with them.

Bigelow had a good 1993. A bunch of Hart matches, some fun things against the Steiners. The Jannetty match on Raw. The Quebecers match.

A couple good matches isn't much to hang your hat on. Bigelow's best year would maybe be on par with a lesser Vader year like '98, but the lack of depth and lack of true standout matches really hurts. Albert/Tensai probably has a better body of work than Bigelow at this point and nobody touts him as a great big-man. Bigelow is only good relative to other 350+ pounders who tended to be total slobs.

I don't want to come off as anti-Bigelow, or act like I think he was "bad" but I don't think he was particularly good or one of the "best big men ever" either. He's a guy who had a great look, was a great athlete and could do some really impressive things but never actually seemed to put it all together. The best matches I've ever seen him in were from what's probably his first year in the business when he's having a Texas Death Match with Lawler or teaming with Lawler in what were essentially hardcore tags against Austin Idol & Tommy Rich. That's what I mean with my "staying in Memphis" line. In Memphis he was going to stay near the top working with guys who were more apt to work around his strengths, and probably more importantly, he'd have a lot more out of control brawling matches. That was his strength and it wasn't something he could really do once he got to the WWF.

 

*I'm hoping a mod can break off the Bigelow discussion and put it into a Microscope thread.*

 

What's the current consensus on Bigelow's ECW tenure? I remember it pretty fondly, with Bam Bam carrying guys like RVD and Taz to long competitive matches which didn't suck. Also thought that the November 2 Remember match against Douglas was an underrated gem, which really had the proper Big Epic Battle feel.

 

But everywhere else, yeah, BBB never seemed to accomplish much. He could occasionally pull out a miracle like the Lawrence Taylor match, but most of the time he seemed like a plodding dude with lots of rest holds and light offense and the worst moonsault in all of wrestling. I don't remember if he had a single good match in WCW, despite facing a fairly dizzying array of different "dream" opponents.

[goc]

I will say that while I said Bigelow didn't have very many good matches, I have seen almost none of his ECW work. If I were to guess I would say he probably WAS putting out better matches in ECW than anywhere else because his style was much more suited to ECW, because I said earlier I thought his strength was hardcore brawls.

[goodhelmet]

His best matches were early on in his career in Memphis.

[goc]

His best matches were early on in his career in Memphis.

That's the same thing I said. And until anyone comes along, as far as I'm concerned the best match of his career was the Texas Death Match with Jerry Lawler. Either of the tags with Lawler against Idol/Rich are acceptable substitutions.

 

If anyone disagrees, for the sake of comparison here is Texas Death Match w/Jerry Lawler:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnaGaZSbTno Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1P5fRcgVfA Part 2

 

I couldn't find the two tags on youtube.

[Dylan Waco]

Maybe the biggest over all waste in the history of wrestling. The guy had an excellent look, was obviously a great athlete and had tons of hype behind him originally and he never reached half of his potential. If anything I think his ECW stuff is overrated. Yes his best matches from there were really good and still hold up. But he was the single most disappointing guy coming out of the fancams. Anyone who complains about Bret halfassing it on house shows, needs to go back and watch those handhelds like I did - Bam Bam is the all time "ain't gonna do shit" guy on house shows.

 

For a guy with the rep of being a "great" big man he is short on the matches or even moments.

[Dylan Waco]

I would note that Bam Bam had a very good match with Sandman in WCW, so he does have that.

[goc]

Maybe the biggest over all waste in the history of wrestling. The guy had an excellent look, was obviously a great athlete and had tons of hype behind him originally and he never reached half of his potential. If anything I think his ECW stuff is overrated. Yes his best matches from there were really good and still hold up. But he was the single most disappointing guy coming out of the fancams. Anyone who complains about Bret halfassing it on house shows, needs to go back and watch those handhelds like I did - Bam Bam is the all time "ain't gonna do shit" guy on house shows.

 

For a guy with the rep of being a "great" big man he is short on the matches or even moments.

Dylan have you seen the Memphis set? I might put the two tags with Lawler up on youtube if you haven't seen them so you can see a kind "what could have been" on Bam Bam.

[Dylan Waco]

I've seen them.

[shoe]

He's a hit or miss guy for me. I loved his stuff with Lawler. I really liked his stuff with Taz in ECW. He had good matches with Bret. I did like his Starcade match with Windham. Then he would have some unmotivated snooze fests.

[anarchistxx]

The match with Van Dam in ECW was incredible, fuck knows who was responsible for that being so good. It was sort of a perfect storm type situation where the guys were somehow perfectly matched physically and stylistically, RVDs schtick worked really nice with Bigelow as a base. The crowd dives still look amazing to this day.

 

Guess I'd need to see more of his Memphis and WCW stuff, I certainly never rated Bam Bam on his WWF work. The ECW matches I've seen have been better as a general rule, or maybe they were just worked looser.

[goc]

Bam Bam might be the only wrestler that had a long career whose best matches were in their rookie year. According to wikipedia he debuted in CWA (Memphis) in the summer of 86, the latest of the 3 Memphis matches that I pimped was in March of 87. I can't think of any other "name" wrestler where I think you could argue the same thing.

[Dylan Waco]

Bam Bam might be the only wrestler that had a long career whose best matches were in their rookie year. According to wikipedia he debuted in CWA (Memphis) in the summer of 86, the latest of the 3 Memphis matches that I pimped was in March of 87. I can't think of any other "name" wrestler where I think you could argue the same thing.

Kurt Angle is close

[Matt D]

Michaels' best year might be 86

 

cept for that shitty cage match.

[goodhelmet]

What cage match? The Brawl in St. Paul from 12/25/86?

 

EDIT: Nevermind. Saw your thoughts over at DVDVR and um... yeah.

[KrisZ]

Bigelow's bad attitude after he got big killed him....he had good pushes in WWF & NWA but walked out of both.

[Ditch]

I was there for the MLW debut where he walked rather than lose to Taiyo Kea. The same Kea who a month later beat TC champ Tenryu (non-title) in the main event at Budokan Hall. And by protecting himself from that career-threatening loss, Bigelow was able to follow up wiiiiiiiiith... zilch.

 

I will say that I think the RVD match holds up, but that and a handful of 'good' matches or 'great match he happened to be in' are not enough to put him in a top 300 pounders list. A really good demonstration is Bigelow's cup of coffee in '90 All Japan, where you get to see how he works with Kawada and Kobashi. And... neither match is good. Not BAD, just not-good. Kobashi follows the Bigelow match up with a really solid effort vs Williams.

 

In trying to think of similarly-sized, better wrestlers, I do have to stop and consider who should count. A *ton* of greats were in the 280-300 pound range, but the quality goes off a cliff after that. By the time we reach, say, 330 pounds, I think it might be hard to put together a list of 10 very good wrestlers. Maybe Bigelow *does* belong if you get to that size and up.

 

The obvious great superheavies are Andre and Vader. Big Show probably makes it in a top 10. Tenta. Blackwell. Don Leo Jonathan was billed at up to 340 pounds. Gary Albright. I'd slip 330 pound Yoshie on the low end. I'm sure a lot of people would vouch for Yokozuka. One Man Gang? Anyway, I guess it's hard to hit 10 without Bigelow... but pretty easy to hit 5. Albright certainly smokes Bigelow and he gets WAY less talk, even in places where Japan is heavily discussed.

[El-P]

My opinion of Bigelow began to sour when I went through my ECW project. Until then, Bam Bam was "supposed" to be that great worker because, well he was supposed to, and I never had given any thought about it despite the obvious lack of great matches or performances. And then I watch all of ECW's footage I could find, and I was underwhelmed. I liked part of what I saw, but Bam Bam never went above a certain "solid" level of work at best. Yes, on occasion he would click with someone, or a gimmick would help his case, but for instance the long match with Shane Douglas demonstrate his inability to work as a true ass kicker and monster for a long stretch. And like Dylan said, he was often happy to just go by on rep and a few toke, highspots, and do nothing otherwise, especially on house show. When Mike Awesome showed up in ECW, despite being a limited worker himslef, he showed how much better he was at playing the monster role. That's why I'm curious to revisit Bam Bam's work from WCW. Thus far, the ladder match with Hall on Nitro is the only one that has been notable. The short Sandman match was nice enough too. I wouldn't say Bam Bam wasn't good, but I would never say Bam Bam was great or even close. Very underwhelming guy, and yes, he also probably ahd a bad attitude, and never came off like someone very smart either in interviews. Not that my expectations have been lowered, I may be able to enjoy his work more thought.

[CFTV]

Will and Naylor did a really fun retrospective podcast on Bam Bam's career that I just listened to this weekend and really enjoyed! http://archive.org/download/GoodwillWrestl...mBamBigelow.mp3

 

I'll go to YouTube to check out some of the Memphis footage. I really was stoked about him coming into the Fed after reading about him in the magazines and thought the hoopla to build him up with the managers vying for contract was fun but once he got there he never really made a splash. I don't blame him and mostly just blame the times that he just got caught up in the shuffle. If he came in looking the same way and Vince pushed guys on TV the way he does now compared to then Bammer would have been a much bigger star. During his stint I'd love to know how often Bigelow was featured on the syndicated shows. In my memory I don't remember him being featured all that much on Superstars, Spotlight, and Challenge. I didn't have cable all the time as a kid so maybe Bigelow featured was on the USA shows on Sunday Afternoon and Monday Nights. Of course if I"m wrong, this would be the place to set me in my place!

[El-P]

Bam Bam was all over Superstars from 92 to 95.

[Matt D]

Speaking of that, he has one of my favorite WWF squashes ever.

 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs Terry Zeller from 5/9/93 Wrestling Challenge. It's out there on dailymotion

 

There's a 30 second span in the match where he is the most amazing wrestler in the world, who does the most amazing things. Ultimately, though it's the sort of thing that just leads to the disappointing mantle, I suppose, since there aren't enough examples of him pulling that stuff together when it really mattered.

[ohtani's jacket]

Bam Bam was all over Superstars from 92 to 95.

I think he's talking about Bigelow's first stint in '87.

[CFTV]

Bam Bam was all over Superstars from 92 to 95.

I think he's talking about Bigelow's first stint in '87.

 

Indeed I was talking about Bam Bam's first run in the fed in 87 to 88.

[Matt D]

Looks like he had 7 Superstars matches in 87 between his debut in Sept and the end of the year and another 7 between January and June of 88, with five matches on Challenge in that time period in 87 and 6 in that time period in 88. 5 on PTW in 87. 6 in 88 (with #7 being the July match from MSG where Andre beats him).

[CFTV]

Looks like he had 7 Superstars matches in 87 between his debut in Sept and the end of the year and another 7 between January and June of 88, with five matches on Challenge in that time period in 87 and 6 in that time period in 88. 5 on PTW in 87. 6 in 88 (with #7 being the July match from MSG where Andre beats him).

Thanks for setting me straight with the actual stats. I stand corrected, Bam Bam was featured quite a bit during his stint with the Fed on the syndicated shows.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

I watched Bigelow v. RVD (not the one where they break through the canvas), and it's a really good match (*** 1/2). The match itself speaks for both wrestlers. I felt like RVD carried the match, in that his flashy offense and his continually feeding himself to Bigelow, who played the role of the big man, made Bigelow look far better than he deserved. Bigelow's offense is good, though it's clear that Bigelow just isn't able to put together a total package of sorts as a worker. RVD is good for what he is, though once one removes oneself from his flashy offense, his limitations become very apparent, namely that his style depends on high spots and that his psychology is very generic. But the match itself wasn't anything special to me, except in the minds of those who lived in that age, i.e. the match doesn't age that well.