No two things go together quite like professional wrestling and Valentine's Day, am I right?
Nevertheless, WWE — then WWF — hosted one of their "In Your House" pay-per-view events on Valentine's Day back in 1999, dubbing the event "St. Valentine's Day Massacre". The show was main evented by a steel cage match between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon, and that match gave us one of the biggest WWE debuts ever... literally! Paul Wight, who would eventually become known as "Big Show", made his official WWE debut at the end of the main event match.
Big Show had just made jump from WCW to WWE, and in an series of events that can only happen in pro wrestling, Show cut his way through the mat of the ring to interfere in the cage match here. Big Show meant to come to the aide of McMahon, but in a comedy of errors, Big Show actually threw Austin into the side of the cage, which opened up and allowed Austin to escape and win the match.
Austin secured the No. 1 contendership to the WWF Championship by winning the match, and he would eventually go on to face The Rock in the main event of WrestleMania XV. Austin went on to defeat The Rock to win the title.
As for Big Show, the debut was the start of what has proven to be a very enduring career with WWE. Since joining WWE, Show has won five world championships, one Intercontinental Champional, and eight tag team championships.
Big Show also gave us one of the best moments in WWE television history when he and Brock Lesnar once imploded the ring on a taping of SmackDown.
Big Show has since admitted it was all a planned stunt, and it has since been recreated a couple of times, most recently with Braun Strowman.
Big Show is currently on hiatus from WWE television to nurse a hip injury, but it doesn't appear that he has retired just yet. The big man keeps hinting on Instagram that a "giant return" is in the future, possibly at WrestleMania 34 in New Orleans.
