For the last two weeks, there have been hints that the WrestleMania 33 match between Big Show and Shaquille O’Neal was in danger. Big Show said that Shaq had gotten fat and wasn’t even training to fight in the WWE match. Shaq came out and said that it wasn’t his fault that the match was now in danger, seemingly blaming the WWE.
On Monday Night Raw tonight, The New Day had a segment where they brought out Big Show for an interview and announced that Big Show will have a chance at WrestleMania 33 to become the first WWE superstar to win two Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal events.
This clearly means that the Big Show vs. Shaq match for WrestleMania 33 is now off and the WWE sent out a press release after this Monday Night Raw segment to officially announce that Big Show is in the Andre the Giant Battle Royal.
What does @WWETheBigShow have in store for #OrbitCity in “The Jetsons & @WWE : Robo-WrestleMania”? #RAW #NewDayTalks pic.twitter.com/mIfo4CJSEf
— WWE (@WWE) March 14, 2017
This has to be disappointing for Big Show. The WrestleMania 33 match was set up at last year’s WrestleMania event in Dallas. At that WWE event, Big Show was in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal when Shaquille O’Neal was a surprise entrant. The two giants went face-to-face at that time before the other wrestlers eliminated both men.
After that, Big Show went to the ESPY Awards and found Shaquille O’Neal on the red carpet where he challenged him to wrestle him at WrestleMania 33 . Shaq accepted the challenge and the WWE match was set. It was the very first match announced for WrestleMania 33.
It won’t happen now.
In an interview with Yahoo Sports , Big Show said that he was ready for the match . He even threw some shade at Shaquille O’Neal by saying that he is more scared of Shaq’s mother than he is of the former NBA star.
“I’m ready to go. It’s a situation that Shaq and the WWE have to work out. I don’t know if he chickened out, has other commitments … I don’t know. That’s above my pay grade. I like to think personally that Shaq got scared. He saw the six-pack and realized if he faced me at WrestleMania, he was going to be Fat Shaq.”
That aligns a little with what Shaquille O’Neal said as well outside of the fear and claims of getting fat. Cageside Seats reported that Shaq admitted the WrestleMania 33 match with Big Show was in danger but he said that it was the situation with the WWE that was endangering the match .
“It’s not my fault, that’s all you need to know. It ain’t my fault… Oh, it ain’t my fault. It don’t matter what they say. It has nothing to do with the Diesel and his management. That’s what I got to say.”
One has to wonder if it is about the money. Big Show wrestled Floyd Mayweather at WrestleMania 24 and the reports are that the WWE paid Mayweather $25 million for the appearance. That ended up as one of the most successful matches in WrestleMania history.
Big Show has said that he was interested in wrestling Shaquille O’Neal and called it a favor for Shaq. However, he also said that it might be his final WrestleMania appearance because his contract expires next year. He said that this is his life and he would only do this if Shaq took it seriously.
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It sounds like Shaquille O’Neal didn’t take it seriously or the money with the WWE wasn’t right because Big Show won’t be in the high-profile WrestleMania 33 match.
[Featured Image by WWE]