Big Show was at a low point in his career in the middle of 2000 when he was sent to Ohio Valley Wrestling for conditioning. Show had just competed in the main event of WrestleMania 2000, but WWE officials felt he needed to lose weight and increase his cardio following a knee injury.
It was in OVW that Show linked up with Brock Lesnar and the young crop of future WWE stars.
“Brock is one of those guys, just like Kurt Angle, who really got our business, the nuts and bolts of it, immediately, right off the bat. And I owe a resurgence of my career to Brock Lesnar," Big Show told Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT.
Show went on to discuss the mistakes he made early in his WWE career and how it landed him in OVW.
“I put up the ring with Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton. We used to have to set up towns in Louisville. I remember I had been in the WrestleMania main event wrestling The Rock, Triple H and Mick Foley and five months later I’m signing autographs in a gas station in Kentucky because that was an appearance set up by OVW," he said. "I spent three hours on Saturday signing autographs in a Marathon gas station because I had to do what they told me to do. And these are experiences that were good for me to learn, but it was also good for me because I got to meet a lot of guys who were early in their career; Brock, Randy, John Cena and Dave Batista."
Big Show was back on the main roster at Royal Rumble 2001. Over a year later, Lesnar was called up to the main roster and given an immediate push. Lesnar won the Undisputed Title at SummerSlam 2002 and his run lasted through Survivor Series 2002, where he lost to Big Show.
“I remember whoever Brock was working with when he came up here – because Brock, right when he first came up, everybody knew he was going to be something right away – whoever it was missed a flight or whatever it was and Brock didn’t have an opponent for the main event that night," he said. "So Jack Lanza put me in the main event that night. He said ‘well, we’ll have Big Show wrestle Brock’. And Brock and I, because we trusted each other, we actually just went out there and tore the house down and had fun. And that was one of the first agent reports that went from the live events and went back to Vince. Vince said to me ‘so you work pretty well with Brock?’ And I said ‘yeah.’ And then it went a long and they asked Brock who he wanted to work with and he said me. He said ‘he’s a giant who can work.’ So that kind of endorsement, they were forced to take another look at me and I was able to make the best of that opportunity."
Show also recalled the stretcher match he had with Brock, where he was put on a forklift while Brock laughed as Show is terrified of heights.
Big Show and Brock are still going strong in 2020, competing in the co-main event and main event of WrestleMania 36 against Drew McIntyre.
