At his biggest, Paul Donald Wight II, better known as WWE legend Big Show, tipped the scales at 537 pounds. This time last year, he’d settled in at a comfortable to a 463. And now, after melting fat like he used to melt cheese, he’s all the way down to 373.
If you’re bad at math, that’s 90 pounds. As he revealed on Conan last night, dropping all that weight has led to a discovery: He has abs.
Big Show has previously credited his dramatic weight loss to a combination of diet and exercise. He’s training like crazy and focusing on high energy, high-rep movements that keep his metabolism going.
And he’s eating better than he has in decades. No more pizza. No more ice cream. No more meatball subs.
The lifestyle change was about more than getting a beach body or creating a storyline for the WWE. Last summer, as a 463-pound, 44-year-old, Big Show was falling apart.
“I wasn’t feeling good at all. I was complaining and complaining. I had been a tremendous athlete, but it was a difficult time,” he recently told ESPN.com. His hips, knees and giant feet hurt constantly.
Of all people, Big Show credits fellow WWE superstar John Cena with opening his eyes. As he recalls, the bearded giant was bitching to Cena about how his body was falling apart.
Then the wrestler-turned-actor asked a question that would stick with Big Show: “A giant with abs? Who’d want to see that?”
Turns out, a lot of people.