Sigh, I swear Stan Hansen has the biggest rabble of ********ers in this tournament. He's like Edge, but there's about 5 OneBigWills. And Edge is actually good.
Hansen should win this for a number of reasons:
1) He took out Inoki and Baba for titles. Both very big and influential wrestlers who were legit draws.
In Japan. Philadelphia is not in Japan.
Big Show beat, as stated previously Hulk Hogan, the most famous wrestler of all time, and Ric Flair, the wrestling fan's wrestler.
2) He had a memorable feud in WWWF against the champ Bruno where he broke his neck.
Oh gee, sweet, he put Sammartino out of action for long enough that the company was left unable to finance the Ali vs Inoki telecast. Had it not been for Bruno Sammartino wrestling before he ought to, Hansen would have been partly responsible for the demise of WWF.
3) He has physically manhandled Andre the Giant while Andre was in his prime and one of the few to bodyslam Andre and even knock him out of the ring with his Lariat.
But he didn't beat him. He drew. Lots of people drew with Andre, but few beat him. Hansen did not.
4) He could go toe to toe with any big wrestler and would more often than not get the better of them.
Not really. He wrestled Gorilla Monsoon several times and never beat him, he wrestled Andre, but never beat him, he has a couple of wins against Vader, but after a hell of a lot of tries.
5) Hansen himself was arguably a more successful wrestler whether it be in tag teams or singles competition. In short Hansen takes a back seat to very few wrestlers and Big Show ain't one of them.
Big Show is the only person in history to have won the world championship of both major US companies and the biggest tertiary one, though obviously that was after the change. Hansen won a few triple crowns and the AWA title, but that's it.
Tag team titles are irrelevant, and even so, it's not as if Show is poor at that - he's won 9 world tag titles with 7 different partners.
This maybe in Philly but Hansen did very well for himself in the small amount of time he was there. Sure, it wasn't where he made home base but he certainly has the credentials to beat Big Show. He's powerful enough to where you believe he can beat him, he's beaten on much better than Big Show and even though Big Show has plenty of big wins in his resume his win/loss record isn't that great which is crazy considering how big the guy actually is.
If Hansen can handle Andre he can handle Big show.
Hansen wins.
He fought Andre to two draws, so I think it's fair to say Andre is his limit. Big Show has an extra arsenal that Andre never had though: agility.
It's time for this to make it's annual airing. If you can handle the size, you can't handle how quickly it comes at you.
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There's a video on the Stan Hansen HQ pages that shows him wrestling Andre the Giant to a no contest, which goes to show you how awesome Hansen was. NOBODY even had a draw on Andre in his prime. It was either a squash or a hard fought win.
Dick "Adrian Adonis' tag partner" Murdoch had a draw with Andre the Giant.
Show is dominant, but has also shown signs of clumsiness that Hansen would take full advantage of. Hansen was sound in the ring despite his stiff wrestling style and that would give Show fits.
This literally doesn't mean anything. Show has at some point or other in his career absolutely annihilated every type of wrestler there is.
Don't buy into the 'Showz biggerz and would beat Hanzens' argument. Hansen's fought giants all his career in Japan. And despite that being in a foreign land, it doesn't affect their size... and Giant Baba and Andre were two of the greatest big men that's ever wrestled and Hansen's beaten Baba clean and had a draw with Andre on numerous occasions. Mind you, this is Andre prior to his Wrestlemania 3 match when he was agile and could move as good as Show did in his prime.
Show me Andre the Giant doing a drop kick or coming off the top rope, and the last ridiculous point will be justified. As for the rest of it, Baba was 6'10" and 330lbs, much smaller than Show, who is about ten stone heavier and 4 inches taller.
Vote Hansen...after Hansen knocks Big Show into an oblivion with the Lariat and gets a count out or 3 count!
Floyd Mayweather, a world champion boxer, didn't knock Big Show out when he punched him square in the face. I'm pretty sure Show could handle the lariat just fine.
Hansen beat comparable competiton.
Hansen held his prestigious world titles far longer than Show did.
Is that the same prestigious AWA title that he refused to give back? Comparing reign length isn't always fair across eras, but what you can do is look how they compare to their contemporaries, and in both cases they are about par. I don't think this is a point for either wrestler.
Hansen didn't spend large chunks of his career jobbing in comedy matches to watered down midcarders. Hansen never lost a match to a boxer who he outweighed by nearly 400 pounds. Hansen was the guy who wrestled in Japan, yet Show was the one who lost to a sumo wrestler in front of over 20,000 people.
Hansen doesn't get to have cross over matches because he isn't popular enough.
Whatever way you want to look at this, Show would win. He has beaten more of wrestling's top names, he is a bigger name, he is physically more impressive and he is generally better.
There are arguments that can be made for Hansen reflecting his popularity in Japan, and there is some validity to them, but there's an elephant in the room with that. Stan Hansen was hugely popular in one niche of wrestling for about 15 years, from 1980-1995, and had little success outside of that niche.
Big Show started in 1995, when wrestling was still cartoony, wrestled throughout the nWo angle, through the Attitude Era (having been introduced into the Austin McMahon feud, this made him the only person with a central role in both of the 90's defining angles), and then on to the present day and remained popular throughout. How many wrestlers win world titles over a span of 17 years? Very few.