The Big Show on How WWE’s Attitude Era Superstars Would’ve Handled the Coronavirus Pandemic

The Big Show has seen his fair share of craziness in the WWE over the years. But when it comes to working during the coronavirus pandemic, even he is in uncharted waters. Since mid-March, the WWE has been forced to run every episode of Raw and SmackDown (as well as the monthly pay-per-views) from inside the WWE Performance Center with no fans in attendance. During that time Show has popped up on television multiple times — first to goad Drew McIntyre in an impromptu WWE Championship match, then to settle a dispute between The Street Profits and Viking Raiders and most recently get involved in the Randy Orton/Edge storyline. This week’s Raw saw him openly call out “The Viper,” indicating he’ll be competing inside the WWE PC for a while.

In recent years Show has talked in interviews about how different the environment in the current WWE locker room is compared to when he arrived in the WWF during The Attitude Era. In a new interview with ComicBook on Thursday, he pondered over how the wrestlers might have responded if the pandemic happened back then.

“[It’s] hard to say. I mean, back then, a lot of the guys were really incredibly talented and gifted and had worked hard from different territories and different experiences all over the world to get to WWF,” Show said. “So, a lot of them were very set in their ways. A lot of them were very independent as far as their characters and what they did, but like anything, this is a job. I think you make the agreement to do this job, you follow the rules that go along with the job. I think some of those guys back then have worked in crazier conditions from armories to state fairs, all these different types of things.”

He then pointed out how the entire situation could actually be a positive learning experience for the younger wrestlers.

“Our younger talent’s actually getting the opportunity to really isolate and work on their craft,” Show said. “There’s a lot of things you can hide in a match when you have, 10,000, 20,000, 100,000 people in the audience. You can hide a lot of things when it’s a situation that we have now with no live audience. Everything is exposed between the execution of your psychology, the execution of your moves. There isn’t any shortcuts that you can take. I think in the long run, this is going to be, I think it was difficult at first that I can personally see since this pandemic started how much better the matches are getting all the way around.

“I think it’s going be a good thing,” he added. “I think once we get over this hiccup, and started getting the in front of live crowds again, I think the talent is really going to appreciate that live crowd and really be able to use it better to their advantage.”