Rock 'n' Wrestling: Beast from the East

I first read about Bam Bam in the March
1987 issue of Wrestling Power.

I couldn’t get enough information about professional wrestling as a young fan, so I would pester any adult I knew to buy me the various magazines that littered newsstand shelves. WWF Magazine was cool, but I also needed to know what else was going on in the NWA, AWA, UWF, World Class, and other regional promotions around the country and in Puerto Rico. Plenty of magazines served their purpose, but Wrestling Power (edited by an upstart photographer named Paul Heyman) was particularly enjoyable because it featured the bloodiest photos in the business. My parents didn’t approve of the blood, but Wrestling Power was also the only magazine I read that actively profiled new grapplers making waves on the northeastern independent circuit. This was where I first read about a 25-year-old rookie with seemingly limitless potential called Bam Bam Bigelow.

Bam Bam looked like the real-life prototype for a

Bam Bam Bigelow makes the WWF
magazine cover in November of 1987.

cartoon schoolyard bully—a big kid with a mean baby face and a bald head with flames tattooed in place of hair! He was a New Jersey tough guy with no job skills and a bad reputation around town, so he found work as a bounty hunter. Wrestling Power wrote of one bounty that took him to Mexico and immediately went awry. Apparently, the woman he was pursuing had made connections with the local federales, which led to a shootout that claimed her life. Bigelow nearly died from a bullet wound in the back, which was enough to make him reconsider career choices. He became a product of the Monster Factory, an appropriately-named wrestling school in New Jersey run by onetime journeyman wrestler “Pretty Boy” Larry Sharpe. Bam Bam weighed nearly 400 pounds, but was capable of athletic feats in the ring seldom seen from men his size. When the tide was on his side, he would spring into a cartwheel to taunt his opponents just because he could. Wrestling Power wrote of “the Nuclear Splash,” his top rope dive that was said to get as much air as the legendary Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka. I had never seen a 400-pound man as much as THINK about climbing to the top rope, so I could not wait to see Bam Bam Bigelow deliver the Nuclear Splash on one of my local affiliate stations.

Bam Bam Bigelow delivers the Nuclear Splash!

I didn’t have to wait long. Bigelow came aboard the WWF about a year later after a strange run in World Class. Nobody was sure why Bigelow had suddenly become the evil Russian Crusher Yurkoff after Sports Illustrated had written about him in the September 1986 issue, but that was just one of a number of increasingly questionable WCCW promotional decisions. Bam Bam’s WWF arrival was a big deal. Everyone from Bobby “The Brain” Heenan to Slick wanted to manage his contract, each knowing that he could mold Bigelow into a potential threat to Hulk Hogan’s championship reign. However, the Beast from the East brought out Sir Oliver Humperdink, previously known for managing a number of misfit brawlers in the Florida and Mid-Atlantic territories. I was happy to see him and looked forward to his ascent to the top, but he disappeared less than a year later after stalling out in the mid-card.

 Andre the Giant teaches Bam Bam Bigelow a lesson in humility

before the Madison Square Garden faithful, June 1988.

Teaming with Hulk Hogan made a young Bam Bam Bigelow
a lot of money...and got him in hot water with Andre the Giant!

What I didn’t know was that Bam Bam almost immediately began teaming with Hulk Hogan on untelevised events, making more money on one paycheck than he probably ever had in his life. Some of the WWF locker room veterans took exception to the new kid’s attitude, deciding that he needed to learn a lesson or two in humility. Andre the Giant particularly disliked him, so he never reacted to Bigelow’s offense in the ring and apparently nearly killed him for real during a match one night at Madison Square Garden. That effectively ended Bigelow’s chances of a WWF main event push, so he resurfaced briefly in the NWA before finding more success in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Bam Bam Bigelow was a welcome addition when he returned to WWF television in the early ‘90s, but I never felt that he was used to his highest potential. I always wanted to see Bam Bam as the WWF’s unstoppable monster heel; the more athletic version of his former New Japan tag team partner Big Van Vader who was destroying everyone WCW threw his way during that time. Although Bigelow’s work in his WrestleMania XI match against former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor is highly regarded within the wrestling industry, I felt like his defeat made it hard for WWF-centric fans to take him seriously again.

Bigelow vs. Sabu on ECW Hardcore TV, November 1997

Bam Bam stalks Taz in their FTW death match,
ECW Heat Wave 1998.

Bam Bam’s 1997-98 run with Extreme Championship Wrestling was the best utilization of his talents; it made many of us forget about WrestleMania XI. He was able to be the biggest dog in the yard and his opponents looked like absolute beasts in the ring against him. Every later era ECW fan knows of his fantastic television championship clashes with Taz and Rob Van Dam respectively. Those moments are iconic in no small part thanks to Bigelow’s contributions. Somebody needed to crash through the ring with Taz and catch RVD on those insane 15-foot dives into the crowd and the Beast from the East was the perfect opponent on those occasions. I think it is safe to say that we would look at their careers differently without those matches. I also found it quite appropriate that Bigelow had gone from a feature in Paul Heyman’s magazine as a rookie to wrestling in his visionary promotion ten years later. He had even debuted in Heyman’s very first event as a promoter, defeating three men in a handicap match in front of an exclusive crowd at none other than Studio 54.

Bam Bam Bigelow was decades ahead of his time. I’m not sure that the True Sport of Kings

Bam Bam should have been inducted
into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019.

was ready for a high-flying 400-pounder in the ‘80s. I think of the matches he could have had with the current WWE roster or in AEW and there is no doubt in my mind that the Beast from the East would have been amazing in today’s environment. He would be as unique now as he was then. Fans would likely buy him as legit as they do with the likes of Brock Lesnar, Samoa Joe, or Braun Strowman. Many of us would have loved to see Bigelow posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019 when WrestleMania 35 took place in his home state of New Jersey. How appropriate would it have been—Scott “Bam Bam” Bigelow’s efforts recognized in the area where he first became the Beast from the East! Unfortunately, that did not happen. I hope that WWE will right that wrong someday.