Paul Wight addresses “Big Show” t-shirt with an arrow pointing down from the WWE Attitude Era
While appearing on Going Ringside, Paul Wight talked about his merchandise when he jumped ship from WCW to WWE during the Attitude Era…
“When I first got there, the merchandise was all new to me because I really didn’t have that in WCW. So I saw these guys—Stone Cold and Rock—and, you know, all these guys had all these cool shirts. The guy that ran marketing at WWE at the time was a guy named Jimmy Miranda, who was a sweetheart of a guy, a wonderful human being.
I went to Jimmy Miranda one day—we had just wrestled in the, uh, it was the Arrowhead Pond then. I think it’s the Honda Center now in Anaheim. Roughly 19,000 people, sold out. I think we went two and a half years where every show was sold out during the Attitude Era. And we were at the Honda Center—19,000 people, sold out—for a house show. Just a regular live event show.
So I went to Jimmy Miranda afterward. I said, ‘Hey, how did my shirt do today?’
He goes, ‘Oh, you did really good. You sold about 300 shirts today.’
I walked away because he said I did really good. And I took about five steps and then said, ‘How many did The Rock sell?’
‘Oh boy,’ he says, ‘well, Rock sold about 9,000.’
‘How many did Stone Cold sell?’
‘I think Stone Cold sold right around 11,000.’
I’m like, wow… So out of a possible 19,000 people here, some people bought a Rock and a Stone Cold shirt—and a few people felt sorry and also bought a Big Nasty shirt.
So that’s the last time I ever asked about merchandise numbers. Anything.
You guys remember I had the t-shirt that said The Real Big Show with the arrow pointing down? Vince McMahon made that shirt and was hysterical about it.
‘I got this new merchandise idea for you: The Big Show. Get it?’
‘Thank you, sir.”
What do you say? ‘I hate it?’ No, it’s smart. It actually sold pretty well. It was one of my better-selling shirts.”