The Big Show (real name Paul Wight) has enjoyed a storied wrestling career.
He’s shared the ring with legends of the wrestling world and celebrities such as Floyd Mayweather and Shaquille O’Neal.
He’s been world champion multiple times and has appeared in the main event of WrestleMania.
But there’s one moment he isn’t too proud of. In fact, he says it’s the most embarrassing of his career.
The WWE star was battling sickness on a tour of South Africa in the early 2000s, and his worst nightmare was soon realized when his body gave out inside the ring.
Simply put, the “world’s largest athlete” had an “accident” during a wrestling match, with a capacity crowd and the rest of the world watching.
“It happened in South Africa when I was wrestling Brock Lesnar,” The Big Show told Sam Roberts’ “Wrestling Podcast.”
Warning: Graphic language
“I started taking Germans [a German Suplex is a move in which a wrestler wraps their arms around the stomach of their opponent before lifting them overhead] in his comeback and that was all she wrote.”
The situation couldn’t have been any worse, given that The Big Show was in the ring with Lesnar, who was not sympathetic at all to the star’s plight.
“Just because I s–t myself, Brock thought it was hysterical. He’s laughing at me the whole time,” The Big Show said.
“I think it was two Germans and a belly-to-belly [suplex] and Brock just started laughing. He goes, ‘Huh, huh, huh, did you poop yourself?’ But he didn’t say poop. And I said, ‘Yeh, a–clown, can we just go home now? Can I get an F-5 and get the hell out of here?’”
Wrestling manager Paul Heyman had recently turned on Lesnar and had teamed with The Big Show.
Lesnar would routinely end his matches with The Big Show by leaving both him and Heyman lying in the ring before The Big Show would carry Heyman over his shoulder to the back.
But given the accident, that couldn’t happen. Only Heyman wasn’t aware of what had occurred, which forced the pair to scramble, all while the crowd watched.
“So I got to carry Pauly to the back, and he’s like, ‘You gonna carry me to the back?’ And I’m like, ‘I can’t,’” Big Show explained.
The Big Show went on to explain the back-and-forth he had with Heyman:
Heyman: You going to carry me to the back?
Big Show: I can’t.
Heyman: Why not?
Big Show: Because I pooped.
Heyman: What?
Big Show: I pooped my pants.
Heyman: What, I can’t hear you?
Big Show: Pauly, I s–t my pants.
Heyman: Oww, oww, are you OK?
Fortunately for fans sitting ringside, there wasn’t physical evidence of The Big Show’s mishap, as a recent costume change meant he was saved from further embarrassment.
“I had the long tights on and I had leather pants on over it, so thank God,” The Big Show said.
“The only part that sucked was standing out in the back of the arena with a hose trying to wash that stuff off. It’s not like I can go down to the store and buy some new gear. I had to rinse it out to get it clean. A lot of stuff we do takes all the glamour out of being a WWE superstar.”
But it seems The Big Show isn’t the only one to experience such a moment in the ring. Numerous wrestlers have revealed similar experiences over the years, thanks to the grueling nature of the job.
The Big Show even says the legendary Undertaker experienced it.
“I’ve seen the Undertaker do a match and afterwards they have to give him an IV because he went out there and had a 20-minute match with a fever,” The Big Show revealed.
“He’s had some kind of severe food poisoning where it’s come out of both ends for two days. He’s like knocking on death’s door — but that’s who he was. It’s a little different now. They don’t want to put guys in situations like that, but a lot of the old guys have ‘the show must go on’ mentality.”