WRESTLER OF THE DAY: BAM BAM BIGELOW

[Raziel]

Yeah, but there's a question if Nash and Michaels torpedoed Bam Bam because he was friendly with two guys that hardly registered as a blip on their radar (well, except for Michaels fucking one guy's girlfriend), or if they torpedoed him because he was getting over and they were the top guys not named Bret Hart and didn't want another top tier face around.

[Jingus]

If you go back and watch Triple B's old LOL18Video shoot interview from '98, he buries the entire Kliq at great length.  So yeah, he didn't like those guys at all, except for maybe Justin Credible.  

 

Bam Bam also had some personal problems of his own.  Aside from the obvious drug issues, he was apparently one of those guys who had more of an ego than average for a wrestler.  And he really didn't like jobbing; Matt Borne told me that Bigelow got him fired from the WWF during his Doink run (stooging off Borne smoking a doobie in his hotel room with a couple other wrestlers, iirc) because BBB was working the house show circuit against Doink and losing every night and was really unhappy about that.  Also, you can tell from some of his matches with Andre that the Giant REALLY disliked Bigelow, he was stiffing the ever-living shit out of Bam Bam and not selling a damn thing and generally making BBB's life into a waking nightmare.  

 

Did he do anything really good during his last WCW run?  Those matches with Goldberg were fairly pedestrian, and I remember his character being so unprotected that even David Flair was knocking him unconscious.  Seemed like Bam Bam took the Bobby Heenan road of phoning it in and cashing his paycheck during his tenure with that company.  I remember him having a couple fun garbage matches in the hardcore division with guys like Sandman, but not much else comes to mind.  

 

 

 

And oh yeah, my favorite BBB matches are the following two.  Firstly, the awesome 1987 Survivor Series tag, where Bigelow lasts longer than team captain Hogan and finally puts up a Charge Of The Light Brigade-level "tragically doomed heroic last stand" against the scariest roster of tough heels ever collected together on one team.  It's a match that feels bizarrely Japanese in its psychology, with the babyfaces living in an unfair universe which can coldly destroy a good man for no good reason other than the twisted whims of fate, and leave the ice-blooded villains victorious (yet feeling oddly empty and unsatisfied) after their inevitable triumph over the doomed heroes:   

 

 

 

And I always thought the following match was always totally underrated and unfairly ignored.  Bigelow does his best-ever "big monster destroying a smaller opponent" against Shane Douglas, who puts on his best-ever "plucky devious Franchise pulls out every trick from his deep playbook to conquer a superior foe he should probably have no chance of defeating" epic sell-a-palooza underdog passion play.  People at the time seemed to HATE this match, and it's largely been forgotten since; why?  I figure mostly because Douglas was deep into his "least sympathetic piece-of-shit walking the planet Earth" heel Franchise gimmick, and this brief babyface run was an out-of-character blip on the radar that nobody except his hometown Pittsburgh fans were buying.  But this match took place IN Pittsburgh, and oh lord were those mutants RABIDLY cheering Shane throughout this entire bout:   

 

EDIT: motherfucker, I couldn't find anything even resembling a good online copy of that match.  It's the one from November To Remember 1997, if anyone else can find it I'd be grateful.  The only thing I could dig up was an official WWE.com clip of the finish, but it's only like two minutes long.  It's a match worth tracking down, even Francine puts in a rare and effective babyface performance (on crutches, no less) where for once the phrase "head cheerleader" is more than a cheap joke and she's like Mick screaming encouragement to Rocky (EDIT 2: that is, Mickey Goldmill and Rocky Balboa, not Mick Foley and Rocky Maivia).  

[cool arrow]

Bigelow en Mexico:

 

 

 

[Web Conn]

vs Honky Tonk Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsDhSDbgztw

w/Davey Boy Smith vs Terry Gordy and Steve Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRPGFj6v4u0

vs Kalama

w/Bastion Booger vs The Smoking Gunns

vs IRS

[Curt McGirt]

Man, DiBiase and IRS look so completely punchable in that screenshot. 

 

IIRC in the Bret book he said Bigelow had a huge ego initially, got shitcanned or left, and came back far more humble than in his initial run.

[J.T.]

I cannot see the Dailymotion vids at work so hopefully someone posted the Battle of the Bam Bam's (Bigelow vs. Terry Gordy on 5 Oct 1996) from ECW Extreme Warfare.

 

I think the complete match has been uploaded to Veoh.  WWE has video but the match is clipped.

[Mistah Na1m4rk]

Bam Bam and Big Van Steinering the shit out of the Steiners is the greatest thing.

 

 

 

I remember listening to an interview with Vader from a few years back where he said these tag matches with Bigelow against the Steiners were some of his favorite matches of all-time.

[Brian Fowler]

I cannot see the Dailymotion vids at work so hopefully someone posted the HistoricBattle of the Bam Bam's (Bigelow vs. Terry Gordy on 5 Oct 1996) from ECW Extreme Warfare.

 

I think the complete match has been uploaded to Veoh.  WWE has video but the match is clipped.

 

FTFY

[Curt McGirt]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ok12_ecw-04-04-1998-bam-bam-bigelow-vs-r_sport

 

Maybe the best Van Dam match ever. If Bigelow wasn't a good base in this match we might've never had a big RVD run at all. I suppose that's both a good and bad thing...