Floyd Mayweather a Knockout in the WWE
BY TIM SMITH
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Monday, February 18th 2008, 4:00 AM
Undefeated welterweight champion and Pay-Per-View revenue king Floyd Mayweather made a cameo pro wrestling appearance Sunday night in Las Vegas and set the stage for a possible larger role down the road. Mayweather came to the Thomas and Mack Arena in Las Vegas to support the WWE’s Rey Mysterio, a Mexican wrestler who was in a match with Edge.
Mayweather later got into an altercation of his own when he jumped into the ring and punched Big Show, a 7-foot, 400-pound wrestler, several times and broke his nose.
Mayweather is 5-8 and the heaviest he ever fought at was 154 pounds.
“He stepped into my ring and he punched me,” Big Show said. “He’s going to have to answer for that. One day we’re going to settle this. It may be David and Goliath. But I’m changing the script. David’s going to get his butt kicked.”
Stay tuned.
“Things just got out of hand,” said Mayweather’s adviser, Leonard Ellerbe. “But (Big Show) was talking a lot of trash and he got what he deserves. But things went too far.”
Shane McMahon, WWE executive vice president of global media, said his group has had had several celebrities attend wrestling shows, but none actually climb into the ring to mix it up with the wrestlers.
“There is always some type of interaction between the wrestlers and the celebrities, but you just don’t cross that barrier,” McMahon said. “Big Show did instigate it, but it got carried away.”
“Floyd’s one of the biggest names in entertainment,” Ellerbe said. “We’re using boxing as a platform to expand Floyd’s fan base. We want to think outside the box. He wants to generate revenue outside the sport. You can only become so big in boxing.”
Labels: floyd mayweather, the big show
