Bam Bam Bigelow dead at 45

[bamanut_aj]

Bam Bam Bigelow

He was one of my favs.

 

[DiamondDust]

Agreed. Bam Bam will go down as one of the all-time greatest "big men" in wrestling. For someone his size, he could move like a cruiserweight. People also forget that when he first joined the WWF around 1987 or so, he was getting INSANE reactions. He'd pull off a cartwheel or something like that, and the crowd would just lose it.

Plus, no one could ever top the flames tattooed on his skull. Talk about an intimidation factor.

He's been "off the grid" for the past couple of years as he was basically forced to retire due to some burns he had gotten helping out a kid stuck in a fire.

I have a fond memory of Bam Bam:

I was at ECW's first show in Birmingham at the Boutwell Auditorium - October, 1998. Bam Bam is in the ring, and the crowd is pretty silent. I stand up and cheer for Bam Bam (The heel in the match), and he looks up square at me and says "I DON'T NEED YOU!" - Coolest part of the night. It even topped the near riot that Tommy "Wildfire" Rich (Guaranteed entertainment every time he has a microphone) started when he came out in a Houndstooth hat (I'm pretty sure this was on the same day as the Alabama/Tennessee game that year), and he starts talking good about Alabama. Well, at the end, he said "Every time I come to Birmingham... I THANK GOD BEAR BRYANT'S DEAD!"

Wow... the crowd lost it at that point. Even my dad, who rarely got sucked in to things, was like "He better watch it."
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[tru2thaduce]

I was lucky enough to have had my picture taken with Bam Bam in 1995 in Pittsburgh.He was one of the best big men in wrestling history.His in ring work for a man of his size was second to none.RIP Bam Bam.Another wrestler lost way too early.

 

[TommyMac]

Geez, you guys act like you believe that crap is real.

 

[The Duke]

Geez, you guys act like you believe that crap is real.

Haha, dem fightin words der Tommy!!

 

[DiamondDust]

Geez, you guys act like you believe that crap is real.

Scripted? - Yes

Fake? - No

As someone who has been around several independent promotions in the Birmingham/Tuscaloosa area (Basically helping on ring crew and setting things up), I can assure you there is nothing fake about the contact and impact. When you are slammed down in the ring, there is nothing seperating you from a bunch of plywood and steel beams except a thin mat.

Do they protect themselves? Of course. They are trained to take a fall and minimize the potential for injury. The basis of wrestling training is taking falls - over and over again. When you are done falling on your back hundreds of times, well, you get to do it some more. Then you get to run the ropes, which are nothing but steel cables protected by plastic/rubber. Then you get to fall some more. After that, maybe you learn how to take other "bumps" - bodyslams and things like that.

Sometimes, however, the people in the ring will decide to work "stiff" - meaning the punches, kicks, etc. are coming at you full force. Working stiff is more acceptable in Japan as the audience likes the hyper-realism style. A wrestler by the name of Vader was working with Stan Hansen in a match. Both were known to be extremely stiff, and both were huge stars in Japan. Hansen, who was pretty much legally blind, hit Vader so hard with his punches... one of Vader's eyes popped out of its socket during the match, only to have Vader put it back into place. The stiffness of the match is dependent on the two workers. Sometimes they agree to beat the snot out of each other in the hopes of getting a good reaction, sometimes people that don't like each other in real life (Typical co-worker problems, ego problems, etc.) will be in together and one will give the other a stiff shot, sometimes it is used to put someone else in line or teach a rookie a thing or two.

Still, the concept of everything being "fake" is insane. A large portion of wrestling fans know everything is scripted, but they still watch for the entertainment aspect, just like a movie or television show. Over the past decade or so, the major promotions have even gone away from trying to present things as being real and unscripted.

 

[derek4tide]

RIP, big man.

 

[Newt]

Are you saying that wrestleing is fake???