During a recent episode of “Monday Mailbag” on AdFreeShows.com, former WWE referee Mike Chioda told an interesting story about meeting The Big Show before he was signed with WCW. It turns out that WWE had a chance to sign him and Vince McMahon was furious when he found out that WCW signed him away.
Chioda said, “We were in North Carolina at the show. Of course, Vince and Pat would always watch the monitors to see what WCW was doing. They would be in Vince’s office and Kevin Dunn of course was in the truck monitoring the WCW Nitro shows. A little while back, I would say, 3-6 months prior to this show in North Carolina, we were doing Monday Night Raw. 3-6 months prior, I met Big Show. I was at a nightclub in Philadelphia. I lived in South Jersey and I was in a nightclub in Philadelphia. Who comes up to me? Big Show. He comes up to me. I turn around and this guy is huge and I’m like holy sh*t. I’m like, oh my God, this is another Andre. I talked to Show for a while at the club and he knew who I was. I mean, his hands, hair, great shape, the dude was huge. I got his name and his number. He gives it to me. I gave it to Pat Patterson at TV one day.
I said, “Pat, you have to check this guy out. Another Andre the Giant. Unbelievable. Great shape. Long hair. Huge hands just like Andre” I’m flipping out with Pat telling him he has to call this guy. A couple months go by and that’s when I’m walking past Vince’s office. All of a sudden I saw Big Show on the WCW monitor. Vince and Pat had their eyes on the monitor, like holy s**t. Who is this guy? I walked by and saw him on the monitor. Pat and Vince were sitting there and I said, “Hey Pat. What happened to that guy? He didn’t work out? Did you call him or he didn’t want to come over here because he was interested.” Vince looks at me, looks at Pat and Pat goes, “What do you mean?” I said “I gave you that guy’s phone number a few months ago. I told you I met him at a Philadelphia nightclub. He was a bouncer.” Vince went, “What the f**k Pat?” Pat goes, “Mike, this guy?” I’m like “Yes, that guy” I turned around and I got out of there because Vince said, “Excuse me Mike” and slammed the door. 5 minutes later Pat comes chasing me down saying, “What the f**k That was him?” I said “Yes.” He said “I thought you were talking about a guy that we already signed.” I said “No. I told you this guy looked like Andre the Giant.” He said, “Oh my God no.” I remember when Big Show came in, me and Pat were standing there and Big Show came to WWF and looked at me and said, “Thanks a lot for giving my number out.” I said, “This is the man to talk to right here, Pat Patterson.”
The entire episode, which includes tons of behind the scenes stories from WWE, is available to stream now on AdFreeShows.com.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “Mailbag Monday with Mike Chioda on AdFreeShows.com” with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
