Jim Ross on How Hot the McMahons Were to Sign Big Show in 1999, Meeting With Show to Recruit Him

– On the latest Grilling Jr, Jim Ross recalled recruiting Paul Wight, aka The Big Show, from WCW in 1999. Wight started his career in WCW as The Giant and was prominent in the company’s storylines, winning the WCW World Heavyweight Title and having a run as part of the nWo. But he was one of many who jumped ship to WWE and helped the company complete its turn of the tables on WCW that was jump-started by Steve Austin and the Attitude Era.

JR recalled that Vince McMahon, and Shane McMahon in particular, were both very big on signing Wight, and shared a memory of going down to meet with Wight to recruit him. You can see highlights and listen to the full podcast below:

On how hot Vince McMahon was to sign Show: “Very hot. Shane was probably hotter. Shane, when I started talking to Paul Wight, aka The Big Show, or The Giant, creatively named … Shane asked me every day how things were going. And I said, ‘Shane, I told you the other day I’m gonna meet him on Friday. Today’s Wednesday. Things are going exactly the same as the last time you asked me yesterday afternoon. So everybody was motivated to get him.”

On making the pitch to recruit Show: “I remember going down and recruiting him, and I think Jerry Brisco was with me in Tampa. Because Jerry knew his way around, and there wasn’t no Uber at that point. And we went to Big Show’s condo on the water. Beautiful place. And he was eating protein, like unbelievable amounts of protein. Like beans and meat. Beans and meat. I told him, I said, ‘Man, I wouldn’t want to go on any long car trips with you with all those damn beans. Because your farts could contain methane and could shatter glass.’

“And then we found out that his junior college basketball coach at Northern Oklahoma Junior College was the guy that I officiated basketball for when I was working the [junior college] circuit. And Paul played for him at Northern Oklahoma JuCo in Tonkawa, Oklahoma before he went to Wichita State. So we had a little common ground there, but he was a big get for us, no pun intended. But we really, really wanted Paul Wight in the company. And it was a good hire, because even though he wasn’t always booked strategically. Even though I thought he was drastically overexposed.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Grilling JR with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.