This was before AEW so I mostly remembered him from the attitude era when I was a kid and I don't remember him looking really out of place from the rest of the roster back then.
That's because Vince still favored physically large wrestlers, so he wasn't significantly larger than the rest of the roster. Whereas AEW has a ton of smaller wrestlers so he looks much larger by comparison.
I seriously thought Crash Holly was like 5'4" because he was so much shorter than everyone else, but it turns out he is average height and was just surrounded by giants all the time.
Yup. I saw a pic of Road Dawg meeting friend of mine a few years ago and realized how big he really was and things kinda feel into place about Billy's size
Shaemus has this effect too.V line,you watch him on TV and know he's big, but Jesus Christ that's one of the most densely muscled people I've ever seen.
I saw him at a diner in NJ the morning after Wrestlemania 35 and he was clearly trying to be inconspicuous but he was so large that he was unmistakable
Always thought he came across strangely smaller on TV in a lot of circumatances, then you'd see him standing next to Steve Austin or The Rock in an angle and suddenly realise he was like two clear inches taller than them!
I saw Big Show in person and yeah he's the largest man I've ever seen in my life. I saw Rhyno at the same event and he was very stocky but quite small.
I saw him at a Sheetz once and he had to open both doors and bend over to get in. It's surreal seeing someone that huge just doing regular human things.
I’ve been lucky enough to hang out with Rhyno (we’re from the same area and have a common friend) and he is a VERY wide dude. I was at a ballgame and spotted him pretty easy in a crowd of people.
Okay speaking of Paul Wight, aka big show, I gotta tell this story. I had a layover in Atlanta in '06 of about an hour. I was bored so I started walking the concourse and ended up in the international flights area. I'm next to the Asian airlines and I see this massive figure walking down the concourse. It's Paul, and these Asian people, most of whom are around 5 foot nothing, are just scattering out of the way. I've never seen a man that large before or since, but you add in the fact that people that are literally two feet shorter are all around him and he looked even bigger. It looked like a scene straight out of Godzilla.
Rhyno is close to a human cube - he's almost as tall as he is wide. Left to right, front to back Rhyno is MASSIVE. Head to toe he's not much taller than my 5'5" frame.
Brian Cage is a similar body type to Rhyno. Short for a wrestler but has muscles on top of muscles. I saw him in a singles indie match against Stu Grayson. Stu is an average sized human but tiny next to Cage. I'm hoping to see a rematch in RoH or AEW. Those two put on a great match together.
Edge is a lot shorter than I thought, whereas Christian is taller than I thought.
Randy Orton is like a billion feet tall.
JBL is fucking HUGE. Hands like boulders.
The Edge/Christian phenomenon reminds me of Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter where people expect Andy to be shorter and fatter than he really is when he’s 6’1. It’s just Conan is 6’4+
I never thought of that but yeh Andy sits in a low comfy couch next to the tallest skinniest bloke you've ever seen who's always sitting forward or up and about. I love Andy but yeh I'd probably be surprised if I saw him in person too
Yeah, i never really noticed Orton’s size until he returned recently and stood in the ring with LA Knight and AJ and he looked like a giant standing in the ring with them.
I knew he was tall but i guess the camera work back then never made me realize his true size.
Vince's size fetish meant that all the huge guys he hired looked normal next to each other. Back in the Attitude Era, Billy Gunn looked like a normal guy compared to everyone else on the roster. In real life and on AEW, he looks a hell of a lot bigger.
> Randy Orton is like a billion feet tall.
I saw him up close at a house show a while ago.
I was really taken back with how huge that man is. Just ridiculously big.
Because Edge is taller than Christian, I had it in my head until quite recently that the difference was something like 8 inches.
It's only about 3 inches - Christian is about 6'2, not about 5'10 which is what I thought for years.
I remember when he was on the Real World/Road Rules challenges, he was so much bigger than everyone. Dude looked massive. Then he got to WWE and was barely average sized for the time.
Shinsuke Nakamura is a lot bigger (and muscular) than you’d think. Saw him at a house show in Dayton, front row. I’m about 6’4”, 230 lbs. He looked every bit of 6’1”-6’2”, 220 something. Very lean and toned too. Definitely more impressive physically in person than he is on tv. Makes me wonder why he wears that strange one piece gear but it might just be to standout.
I had a friend who met Shawn Michaels irl and he said the same thing. He always seemed like a smaller guy compared to everyone else but apparently he was huge
I met HBK in early 2000 and couldn’t believe his size. Not huge but much bigger than me and I’m 5’10’ 220. He looks very slender on TV wrestling these huge guys, but in person his chest is very thick and his arms were pretty jacked too, and that was during his first retirement.
My buddy tells a story of how he always saw HBK on tv in WWF and he always assumed he is a small guy cuz all the guys he worked with were massive. Hall, Nash, taker, etc.
Then he saw him guest star on Baywatch sometime in the 90s and he was just huge compared to everyone else.
People who have seen Punk in person say the same thing. Turns out, these guys are still huge, they just don't look like it next to less-than-natural physiques
I had the opposite experience with Punk!
I stood next to him at an event in 2022 and I was surprised that he was shorter and slighter than I expected. He's clearly an athlete and in good shape, but he's not particularly tall and he's pretty thin.
I remember watching his UFC documentary, and was *shocked* at how big he looked in some scenes.
Then there's the Miz on Fear Factor and Dancing With the Stars looking insanely big too.
Satnam Singh is absolutely **massive** in person, even more so than he looks on TV. Dude is eye level with the top rope while standing on the floor.
It's known that Shoko Nakajima is short, it's kinda her whole thing, but when I saw her live I was eye level with her while sitting down. She is fucking *ripped* though.
I had the same thing as Nakajima with Taiji Ishimori. I saw him outside the venue at the first Royal Quest and, even though you can tell he’s short from pictures and videos, he legit looked like a jacked child from behind. EXTREMELY jacked, though. He had the widest back I’ve ever seen.
The club was called Grandma's if I remember right and had two music stages (one main floor, one down) and a bar area, the bar was full of bikers, they were the problem. Their biggest use was outside at close to keep the bikers away from normal music lovers, I much appriecated them being there. I did see them get in the face of a biker outside one time
I didn't know who they were, but about 1 1/2 years later they were on AWA TV!!! I only went there about 10 times but I remembered those guys! I think Rick Rude was also a bouncer there as well pre wrestling, so I probably saw him as well.
I even gave Hawk some shit when he was at the door lol! Saying something like "You look like you must work out a bit", he liked that lol! He was jacked as hell
Scott Hall suffered by comparison from being the short one in the original nWo.
Mick Foley suffered for being Cactus Jack and Mankind for 15 years - his body is wrecked so standing up straight was definitely an issue for him, I suspect.
My buddy had dinner with him and I saw the pics, obviously I’m just a random ass person online but I know my friends height and Foley was much bigger than 6’2 lol
Saw Katana Chance at a house show in December and yeah, I knew she was short from her time on Ninja Warrior, but she barely cleared the top rope. She is *miniscule*.
I used to live right across from Full Sail, so I've met a lot of wrestlers just out in public.
I was an indie wrestler at the time, and they were all super cool and down to talk wrestling
I noticed how small she was a couple weeks ago. In one of the women's tag title matches vs the Kabuki Warriors, she was in the ring with Kairi who is only 5'1" and maybe 110lbs, and Katana looked small in comparison.
Got to meet him at the Manchester City-Liverpool preseason game years back when they went to MetLife Stadium. Was at the sort of midway of the fan zone they had set up when I saw him enter. Oh yeah, he definitely stood out.
Honestly, Roman. When he was still doing the Shield entrance at live events ... he came down the stairs and stopped right next to us and he seemed a lot bigger than he looks on TV. Usually, it's the other way around.
Like I stated in my post, a lot of those guys, TV does them no justice, and they look MUCH more massive when you see them in person. My brother said the same thing when he and our dad won “dream seats” for a Washington Redskins game years back, and saw football players up close.
The adage of “TV adds 5-10 pounds” or whatever does not hold to people who are huge to begin with.
I actually felt the opposite when I saw Roman live. Still in the Shield days, he walked past me and my brother (both of us are 6'3) and he did NOT look 6'3 to us. I would say closer to 6'0 maybe even 5'11. Moxley was the bigger one.
Also, met Booker T back in 2016 in a hotel. He was about the size they billed him at on tv. Very nice guy. We watched UFC at the bar and when he closed his tab he said he was going to take a "bubble bath" lol
Yes! I had the same experience in 2014 right before the Shield broke up. I was always a Dean and Seth guy but seeing Roman that close I was like yeeeesh that man is a tank.
Claudio/cesaro. I was at a dynamite taping last year, and he was sneaking through the crowd, for a run in. The security guards they had following him looked like children.
That's also when I realized how giant big bill is. It looked like the top rope was about even with his belt line.
Met him at an ROH show back during his peak run there. Dude would show up fully suited up to sell merch before the show…even in a full suit (which is usually slimming) you could tell he was jacked.
Rhino
He occupies a lot of space.
It's like upping the font size but on a human. He's not super tall. He's not all muscles. He just takes up more space.
Its hard to explain.
Met Erick Rowan at a show, I knew he was huge but GOD DAMN
I'm 5'11 and was about 198 pounds at the time which was me at my strongest/thickest and he had to be about 6'7, I asked him how much he legitimately weighs and he said about 330 pounds. His actual voice was really strange, it was as if English is his second language, also when I was at the back of the line to meet him I could still see the top of his head over everyone in the line 😂
Dude was a really nice guy though, after his match he did a speech and mentioned how hard the last three years have been and how people call this fake but he's seen guys have their careers ended.
Not in real life, but there was that semi viral video of I believe Vinci, Damo and Ricochet doing tug of war with a lion, and Ricochet, who is the smallest of all of them, is still massive compared to literally everyone else in the crowd.
I saw him at an indy show in like...2015 and immediately thought he was going to be huge. Between him and Brian Cage(who was at the show as well) everyone else was just Tokyo to their godzillas.
I’ve always been curious about him. I don’t watch much aew but i saw a match one time where he crushed jericho and i was like damn this guy is a beast. Just wide and solid like a tank. Looks like he should be on somebody’s nfl team.
He is menacing in person. I was on the Jericho Cruise and even in his hangout clothes on deck trying to blend in he looks like a rapper's securirty guard.
I was at a Dynamite and the BCC walked right by me when they made their way to the ring through the crowd.
They actually seemed smaller than I expected for some reason.
Not sure, bro. But between a 6'0 person and a 5'9 person there is a great impression. It's such a weird experience when a guy of Kenny Omega size (muscle wise) is shorter than yourself.
Ran into Jericho once at an airport. He wasn't on TV at the time and I didn't immediately recognize him because he was SO much smaller than I would've expected him to be.
Later I learned he wrestles with lifts in his boots.
Chris Hero. He is at least 6’2 and a broad dude.
Mick Foley is also a lot taller than you’d think too if you watched the Attitude Era regularly.
Drew McIntyre is the largest adult man I have ever seen though. He is just a tall block of muscle.
Ishii - After meet n greets with other wrestlers, surprised how much shorter he is
Lance Archer - 6'8" his height just intimidates me, I'm a shorty
Jeff Cobb - that is a washer and dryer set in a mansuit
I met Dave Bautista at a con a few years ago, and I remember when I first approached his table and he was sitting down, I thought to myself that he didn't seem that much taller than me. I figured it was all camera tricks that make him look 'larger than life' on TV and in movies. Then he stood up, and it was like that gag in *Back to the Future* where Marty's just barely peeking over Biff's shoulder. Big Dave is **big.**
Still no idea how big his dick is, though.
I am tall and was a tall kid. I walked into Kevin Nash’s thigh/waist area when I was about 9 outside a house show as he was coming through a door and I wasn’t paying attention turning around. The fact I was as tall as I was as a 9 year old and only barely reached his waist always stuck with me. Dude is a giant.
Jeff Cobb. Like yeah, we all know he's a big dude, but I was surprised at how wide he was when I saw him. My first thought was how much it would suck to be next to the guy on a coach flight, the guy looked like he could fit in two seats!
I ran into Matt Cardona outside of a LI tanning salon around 2016-17. Dude legit looked like an action figure.
Made me wonder how he was that jacked and still made to look weak on TV.
Went to college with Omos. Passed him in hallway once. He's absolutely massive in height and width. I'm 6'5" 300 lbs. That was the first and only time I've ever felt small.
Yeah, Waltman really surprised me - met him at the airport in Philly a few years back and this 'tiny' guy, who always looked miniscule on TV, was a solid 6'1" and built.
[here](https://twitter.com/BruceVilletti/status/742890233759293441?t=C2xNGn2JdeFvZ3LvWqZ4Pg&s=19) is a pic of Cody Rhodes and me from 2016, less than a week after he left WWE. I'm 5'8" and probably 175lbs in that pic. He was definitely bigger than I thought he'd be.
Alternatively I’m always surprised by how tiny the women are in real life! WWE does wonders with making them look “larger than life.” Shelly Martinez (aka Ariel the ECW vampire) is one of the smallest adults I’ve ever met in my entire life.
Saw Drew Galloway against Will Osprey in Newcastle pre-covid and I was shocked at how big the dude was. He’s like a giant and much bigger in person than in tv.
Only pro wrestler I've met was Matt Hardy, about 12 years ago while he was in rehab, honestly. Even he was huge in person. If you want my estimate, I would say he was probably 6'1" or so at the time, and with no reason to have lifts in his shoes.
Charlotte Flair. I was in a hotel elevator with her and she is really tall and way more toned/muscular than she looks on TV. I'm 6'0" even, but I found myself looking way up at her (to be fair, she was wearing some really tall high heels).
What's really weird is that I've also met Lisa Leslie, but she didn't seem nearly as tall. I don't know if it was because of the way Charlotte carried herself, but she just had an aura of "tall", if that makes sense?
As in a lot of taller people tend to have disproportionately long arms and/or legs. Drew is just huge, but doesn’t look it as much on TV because his body is better proportioned. Randy Orton falls into this category too. They’re both jacked, obviously.
> Drew is just huge, but doesn't look it as much on TV
Again, in what world? Lol I think you need to get your eyes checked, homie
Doesn't matter how he's "proportioned", dude looks like a walking tank
Claudio is tall and looks tall (was standing right behind him at an old roh show). Darby is a legit 5’8-5’9. Keith Lee is definitely 6’2ish and massive (pwg parking lot). Walter/Gunther is definitely 6’2-6’4 ish.
met 'taker and big show back in 04, fucking _massive_ specimens each. and absolute gents.
a young me actually couldn't comprehend fellas that big but they were right there with me in the flesh.
_massive_.
I was fortunate to be backstage for a whole day sometime around 2010 / 2011 so these are gonna a bit dated.
Pat Patterson, in my mind's eye, was one of the stooges, small and elderly. In person he was clearly a former pro athlete. Bulkier, taller, and with more presence than you'd have ever thought.
The most surprising, though, was John Cena. I'm about the same height but each of his arms seemed like the width of my body. He was the strangest proportioned person I'd ever seen.
Randy Orton was surprisingly normal, though taller than he seems on TV, which was weird. I was also DEEPLY surprised that for all of my years seeing him through ROH and such, that I did not recognize Bryan Danielson in street clothes, even a foot away from him.
Saw Jake the Snake up close at his speaking tour 10-15 years ago. As a kid you can't appreciate the size of these men, but even with me at 6'1 the guy looked otherworldly. Just an overall huge human
This isn’t a real life example but I didn’t realise how tall Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre were until they left WWE and bulked up. I think seeing them outside of WWE (land of giants) put into perspective how tall they are and reframed how I see them ever since
Same with Dustin Rhodes, actually. I never really thought of Goldust as tall until I saw him elsewhere, next to more normal sized men
Sat on the floor for the 2021 Boston Dynamite and had Jon Moxley walk right past me both times. Dude is BIG. He’s pretty tall, and even at the time was just jacked.
That’s who I came here to say. He’s an absurdly built human being. Straight up weirdly short for his body type. I remember on Lucha underground he looked like a beast, then I saw him at a show and he was like this roided up meatball of a man.
I ran into Roddy Piper in 2008ish at a Subway. He was my childhood hero and I always saw him as larger than life, but I was surprised how much larger I was than him. I was 6'1" 215 at the time and I was significantly bigger than him. Was the kindest guy.
To be fair Piper would have been like 54 years old then and already had cancer I believe, he looked his best in the movie They Live, he was actually a good looking guy.
Only event I ever attended was a WCW house show, and the main event was Giant v Nash. They were freaking huge. I remember being surprised how muscular Malenko was.
A coworker told me said she ran into Goldust at a hotel and he was massive.
I saw Andrade at World’s End and was shocked that he wasn’t really much bigger than I am (height wise, obviously he’s got crazy muscles). I am not a particularly tall guy either which shocked me, I thought he’d at least be 6 foot.
Tony Halme aka Ludwig Borga during his WWE run. I am 5'10", 245 lbs, powerlifter build, and I felt like a kid next to him.
Moose from TNA is a big guy in person, as is Kross. Both are more athletic, but, are impressive.
Wheeler Yuta.
I was at an AEW show and ran to grab a beer and walked right past him in the hall like "holy shit, Yuta, whatsup". Dudes billed at 6 foot but there's no way. I am 6 foot 3 and I was towering over him. I knew he wasn't tall, but he looked so small I was shocked.
Same with FTR when I met them at a signing.
I’ve always wondered how big guys like giant gonzales and andre the giant really were. That and when great khali first debut was freaking massive. They seemed larger than life big.
I was at a Raw taping once up in the upper tier and when Big Show came down to the ring he *still* looked massive even from that distance - he towered over the crowd, the referee, and especially Rey Mysterio.
Paul Wight is the largest human I have ever seen. WCW did an outdoor show in our minor league ballpark and you could see him towering over the crowd as he walked out. The night before he threw out a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game and I swear he was the size of three infielders combined.
Triple H and Chyna stopped off the Thruway late night for some diner food in our town and Triple H was not overly tall but he was very wide. Chyna was more impressive. She might have been the most jacked female I have ever seen. Her arms were huge. And so were her thighs and calves.
I went to a raw show once when Roman was still doing his entrances from the crowd. I decided to leave and catch where Roman was going to enter the arena from and by god when he walked by, the crowd following him and wwe security looked so small compared to the giant Reigns.
Roman's a big boy
when wwe came to sweden for the first time, the main event was randy orton vs jinder mahal, vs aj styles, and seeeing Randy Orton walk pass me i dropped my jaw, he is a giant
I met King Kong Bundy at a local show in the late 90s. , when I was probably about 17. Shook his hand. My hand just disappeared within his completely. That was a big, big dude.
I met a bunch of the guys during WM23 weekend. The guys that surprised me the most were Kane & Randy Orton. For context, I’m 6’2” and they both towered over me. Kane was just a massive man. Randy was slender but way taller than I expected him to be.
I also sat front rom at a Raw in 2002 (July, 22nd). Big Show & Brock were on the show and I expected them to be a lot taller than they were, especially Brock & Show. Both guys were still enormous humans but shorter than I expected them to be. Granted, they were still about 6-10 feet away from where I was sitting (corner at the end of the ramp) where as I was standing next to Kane & Orton so that could be why they felt shorter.
I’ve got a few
Wrestlers who look big on tv that doesn’t do them justice
Kane, self explanatory he is a tall and muscular
Hobbs, that dude is jacked
Big Bill, same as Kane
Wrestlers who you didn’t expect to be as big as they are
Claudio, saw him here in Phoenix and he’s a lot bigger than what you’d expect on tv
Orton, saw him in person and he’s bigger than you think
Wrestlers who look small on tv and are somehow smaller
Zelina Vega, Lela hirsch, Alexa bliss, kitana chance, they are tiny and you don’t realize it watching them on tv
Sammy Guevara, was expecting him to be bigger than he was
For me it's always, *always* Tomohiro Ishii. The dude carries himself and wrestles like a 6'4" 300-pound brick shithouse of a wrestler and it always shocks me when I find out he's 5'7", 220.
I met Billy Gunn backstage at an indy show, and he was legit the biggest human I've ever seen in person.
He has always looked jacked and he is pretty tall on tv.
This was before AEW so I mostly remembered him from the attitude era when I was a kid and I don't remember him looking really out of place from the rest of the roster back then.
That's because Vince still favored physically large wrestlers, so he wasn't significantly larger than the rest of the roster. Whereas AEW has a ton of smaller wrestlers so he looks much larger by comparison.
I seriously thought Crash Holly was like 5'4" because he was so much shorter than everyone else, but it turns out he is average height and was just surrounded by giants all the time.
Yeah, AEW was where I realised how big he is. I suppose he was in there with dudes like ‘Taker and Kane who are even bigger.
Yup. I saw a pic of Road Dawg meeting friend of mine a few years ago and realized how big he really was and things kinda feel into place about Billy's size
Growing up watching 90s WWE made me think that 6 foot 7 was a slightly above average height and 250lbs was a pretty average weight.
Same. I’m 6’2” and Billy Gunn was fucking massive when I met him face to face
This is who I came here to say. I "worked security" at an indy show he was on and couldn't get over how tall the guy is
Shaemus has this effect too.V line,you watch him on TV and know he's big, but Jesus Christ that's one of the most densely muscled people I've ever seen.
I saw him at a diner in NJ the morning after Wrestlemania 35 and he was clearly trying to be inconspicuous but he was so large that he was unmistakable
His intense whiteness doesn't help. It's all washed out by the lights.
Always thought he came across strangely smaller on TV in a lot of circumatances, then you'd see him standing next to Steve Austin or The Rock in an angle and suddenly realise he was like two clear inches taller than them!
This is always the answer. The man is so unexpectedly massive
Billy. The true giant lol. He's so gigantic
I saw Big Show in person and yeah he's the largest man I've ever seen in my life. I saw Rhyno at the same event and he was very stocky but quite small.
I saw him at a Sheetz once and he had to open both doors and bend over to get in. It's surreal seeing someone that huge just doing regular human things.
I’ve been lucky enough to hang out with Rhyno (we’re from the same area and have a common friend) and he is a VERY wide dude. I was at a ballgame and spotted him pretty easy in a crowd of people.
Okay speaking of Paul Wight, aka big show, I gotta tell this story. I had a layover in Atlanta in '06 of about an hour. I was bored so I started walking the concourse and ended up in the international flights area. I'm next to the Asian airlines and I see this massive figure walking down the concourse. It's Paul, and these Asian people, most of whom are around 5 foot nothing, are just scattering out of the way. I've never seen a man that large before or since, but you add in the fact that people that are literally two feet shorter are all around him and he looked even bigger. It looked like a scene straight out of Godzilla.
Really? Rhyno seems very wide. I thought he’d be big.
I came here to say that Rhyno was the widest mf I've seen in person.
Rhyno is close to a human cube - he's almost as tall as he is wide. Left to right, front to back Rhyno is MASSIVE. Head to toe he's not much taller than my 5'5" frame. Brian Cage is a similar body type to Rhyno. Short for a wrestler but has muscles on top of muscles. I saw him in a singles indie match against Stu Grayson. Stu is an average sized human but tiny next to Cage. I'm hoping to see a rematch in RoH or AEW. Those two put on a great match together.
Rhyno's 5'10, so slightly taller than the average American man.
Edge is a lot shorter than I thought, whereas Christian is taller than I thought. Randy Orton is like a billion feet tall. JBL is fucking HUGE. Hands like boulders.
The Edge/Christian phenomenon reminds me of Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter where people expect Andy to be shorter and fatter than he really is when he’s 6’1. It’s just Conan is 6’4+
I have a pic with edge that you can see on my profile. I'm 5'8". I'd put edge at 6'2", 6'3" tops.
Tbf 6'2" is still bloody tall lol
6 toot is already top 10% 6'2 is like top 3%
Yeah, even my height (5'11") is 2" above average in Australia haha
Similar effect on Taskmaster with six-foot-nine Greg Davies and his assistant, Little Alex Horne. Who's six feet two.
He says he's over six foot but he's five foot four LITTLLLLLE ALEEEEX HOOORRRRNNNNEEEEEE!!!
Greg Davies is fucking massive.
Yeah there was one season where he was next to the contests and he looked huge. Then Greg stands up and looks like big show
I never thought of that but yeh Andy sits in a low comfy couch next to the tallest skinniest bloke you've ever seen who's always sitting forward or up and about. I love Andy but yeh I'd probably be surprised if I saw him in person too
Same thing with Penn and Teller. Teller is actually a pretty average height guy, but he's usually seen standing next to Penn who's 6' 6".
Yeah, i never really noticed Orton’s size until he returned recently and stood in the ring with LA Knight and AJ and he looked like a giant standing in the ring with them. I knew he was tall but i guess the camera work back then never made me realize his true size.
Also, he came up at a time where there were way more “monsters”
Vince's size fetish meant that all the huge guys he hired looked normal next to each other. Back in the Attitude Era, Billy Gunn looked like a normal guy compared to everyone else on the roster. In real life and on AEW, he looks a hell of a lot bigger.
I walked by Orton coming out of a restaurant (he was walking in), dude is gigantic. Taller than he appears and crazy jacked
> Randy Orton is like a billion feet tall. I saw him up close at a house show a while ago. I was really taken back with how huge that man is. Just ridiculously big.
Because Edge is taller than Christian, I had it in my head until quite recently that the difference was something like 8 inches. It's only about 3 inches - Christian is about 6'2, not about 5'10 which is what I thought for years.
Christian also debuted as a light-heavyweight which I think caused people to think he was much smaller than he actually is.
Ok, how tall are you? Because I've seen Edge up close and dude is massive!
Randy's legs are also just ducking enormous.
Miz always plays the coward heel role, but I saw him live and the mf looks like an NFL quarterback lol, is just that everyone else is even bigger
I remember when he was on the Real World/Road Rules challenges, he was so much bigger than everyone. Dude looked massive. Then he got to WWE and was barely average sized for the time.
Miz is the perfect example. He is a big man.
Met him at a show in Glasgow, even sitting down you could tell he was a unit.
Shinsuke Nakamura is a lot bigger (and muscular) than you’d think. Saw him at a house show in Dayton, front row. I’m about 6’4”, 230 lbs. He looked every bit of 6’1”-6’2”, 220 something. Very lean and toned too. Definitely more impressive physically in person than he is on tv. Makes me wonder why he wears that strange one piece gear but it might just be to standout.
I had a friend who met Shawn Michaels irl and he said the same thing. He always seemed like a smaller guy compared to everyone else but apparently he was huge
I watch early 90s stuff and I can't believe how jacked he's been at times.
I met HBK in early 2000 and couldn’t believe his size. Not huge but much bigger than me and I’m 5’10’ 220. He looks very slender on TV wrestling these huge guys, but in person his chest is very thick and his arms were pretty jacked too, and that was during his first retirement.
Back then Shawn was pretty buff. He was much leaner from 2004 and onwards.
That’s a true statement.
My buddy tells a story of how he always saw HBK on tv in WWF and he always assumed he is a small guy cuz all the guys he worked with were massive. Hall, Nash, taker, etc. Then he saw him guest star on Baywatch sometime in the 90s and he was just huge compared to everyone else.
People who have seen Punk in person say the same thing. Turns out, these guys are still huge, they just don't look like it next to less-than-natural physiques
I had the opposite experience with Punk! I stood next to him at an event in 2022 and I was surprised that he was shorter and slighter than I expected. He's clearly an athlete and in good shape, but he's not particularly tall and he's pretty thin.
I think the giant 20x20 rings also contribute to making them look shorter than they are.
I remember watching his UFC documentary, and was *shocked* at how big he looked in some scenes. Then there's the Miz on Fear Factor and Dancing With the Stars looking insanely big too.
Yeah his gear makes him look deceptively slender, I think just his skin tone isn't conducive to looking toned under the lights either.
Satnam Singh is absolutely **massive** in person, even more so than he looks on TV. Dude is eye level with the top rope while standing on the floor. It's known that Shoko Nakajima is short, it's kinda her whole thing, but when I saw her live I was eye level with her while sitting down. She is fucking *ripped* though.
I mean he was an NBA player so it makes sense. Like he was big for basketball
I had the same thing as Nakajima with Taiji Ishimori. I saw him outside the venue at the first Royal Quest and, even though you can tell he’s short from pictures and videos, he legit looked like a jacked child from behind. EXTREMELY jacked, though. He had the widest back I’ve ever seen.
Saw the Road Warriors pre wrestlers bouncing at a music club in MPLS, they were HUGE!!!
Did you ever see them throw anyone out?
The club was called Grandma's if I remember right and had two music stages (one main floor, one down) and a bar area, the bar was full of bikers, they were the problem. Their biggest use was outside at close to keep the bikers away from normal music lovers, I much appriecated them being there. I did see them get in the face of a biker outside one time
This is one of the best comments I've read. What a cool experience to have.
I didn't know who they were, but about 1 1/2 years later they were on AWA TV!!! I only went there about 10 times but I remembered those guys! I think Rick Rude was also a bouncer there as well pre wrestling, so I probably saw him as well. I even gave Hawk some shit when he was at the door lol! Saying something like "You look like you must work out a bit", he liked that lol! He was jacked as hell
Scott Norton was also a bouncer there, so definitely not the club to start shit at
Scott Hall and Mick Foley They're a lot bigger in person
Scott Hall suffered by comparison from being the short one in the original nWo. Mick Foley suffered for being Cactus Jack and Mankind for 15 years - his body is wrecked so standing up straight was definitely an issue for him, I suspect.
Yeah it was more noticeable when he was Razor Ramon. His opponents looked tiny trying to do submission moves on him.
You should watch his AWA segments. He was even more huge lol.
Mick Foley has the biggest head I've ever seen.
Bigger than JD Mcdonagh?
😂 his head really is so disproportionately large
Foley is the only wrestler whose height is understated than overstated, he’s billed at 6’2 but is an actual 6’4.
I've seen him mention this, was this legit? Is there any confirmation Foley was a legit 6"4 because that one really surprised me.
My buddy had dinner with him and I saw the pics, obviously I’m just a random ass person online but I know my friends height and Foley was much bigger than 6’2 lol
Thanks for sharing, that's crazy to hear, I do believe it, but I never would have predicted that!
Saw Katana Chance at a house show in December and yeah, I knew she was short from her time on Ninja Warrior, but she barely cleared the top rope. She is *miniscule*.
Carter (icr her full ring name lol) is a regular at my gym, and is also tiny.
Kayden Carter
I used to go to the gym with them (and a bunch of other wrestlers), Katana had to stand up on the lat pulldown seat to reach the bar
central florida native? lots of nxt people and some random main roster people go to mine. always a trip lol
I used to live right across from Full Sail, so I've met a lot of wrestlers just out in public. I was an indie wrestler at the time, and they were all super cool and down to talk wrestling
I noticed how small she was a couple weeks ago. In one of the women's tag title matches vs the Kabuki Warriors, she was in the ring with Kairi who is only 5'1" and maybe 110lbs, and Katana looked small in comparison.
Sheamus is a fuckin hoss
Got to meet him at the Manchester City-Liverpool preseason game years back when they went to MetLife Stadium. Was at the sort of midway of the fan zone they had set up when I saw him enter. Oh yeah, he definitely stood out.
Honestly, Roman. When he was still doing the Shield entrance at live events ... he came down the stairs and stopped right next to us and he seemed a lot bigger than he looks on TV. Usually, it's the other way around.
Like I stated in my post, a lot of those guys, TV does them no justice, and they look MUCH more massive when you see them in person. My brother said the same thing when he and our dad won “dream seats” for a Washington Redskins game years back, and saw football players up close. The adage of “TV adds 5-10 pounds” or whatever does not hold to people who are huge to begin with.
Samoans and Polynesians in general sizes are usually hard to judge on tv. They are usually a lot bigger and strong looking in person.
I actually felt the opposite when I saw Roman live. Still in the Shield days, he walked past me and my brother (both of us are 6'3) and he did NOT look 6'3 to us. I would say closer to 6'0 maybe even 5'11. Moxley was the bigger one. Also, met Booker T back in 2016 in a hotel. He was about the size they billed him at on tv. Very nice guy. We watched UFC at the bar and when he closed his tab he said he was going to take a "bubble bath" lol
Roman was in the NFL. His height is well documented at 6'3.
Yes! I had the same experience in 2014 right before the Shield broke up. I was always a Dean and Seth guy but seeing Roman that close I was like yeeeesh that man is a tank.
Claudio/cesaro. I was at a dynamite taping last year, and he was sneaking through the crowd, for a run in. The security guards they had following him looked like children. That's also when I realized how giant big bill is. It looked like the top rope was about even with his belt line.
yep ive made claudio coffee several times. I'm 6'3 and 220+ and i look up to him.
Met him at an ROH show back during his peak run there. Dude would show up fully suited up to sell merch before the show…even in a full suit (which is usually slimming) you could tell he was jacked.
Rhino He occupies a lot of space. It's like upping the font size but on a human. He's not super tall. He's not all muscles. He just takes up more space. Its hard to explain.
Super nice fella too.
Yes, he’s very wide looking on tv.
Now stand next to him in not a Wrestling situation. Not ringside for example. He's f'n massive.
That's why they call him the Man Beast.
Met Erick Rowan at a show, I knew he was huge but GOD DAMN I'm 5'11 and was about 198 pounds at the time which was me at my strongest/thickest and he had to be about 6'7, I asked him how much he legitimately weighs and he said about 330 pounds. His actual voice was really strange, it was as if English is his second language, also when I was at the back of the line to meet him I could still see the top of his head over everyone in the line 😂 Dude was a really nice guy though, after his match he did a speech and mentioned how hard the last three years have been and how people call this fake but he's seen guys have their careers ended.
" His actual voice was really strange, it was as if English is his second language " Its probably thick Minnesota accent.
He did look big on tv. He could be a good monster on somebody’s roster.
Not in real life, but there was that semi viral video of I believe Vinci, Damo and Ricochet doing tug of war with a lion, and Ricochet, who is the smallest of all of them, is still massive compared to literally everyone else in the crowd.
I went to an AEW show last year and Powerhouse Hobbs looked even more massive in person than he does on TV.
My brother saw a Team Taz promo with Hobbs and Cage standing side by side and he couldn't stop talking about how massive Hobbs is.
I saw him at an indy show in like...2015 and immediately thought he was going to be huge. Between him and Brian Cage(who was at the show as well) everyone else was just Tokyo to their godzillas.
I’ve always been curious about him. I don’t watch much aew but i saw a match one time where he crushed jericho and i was like damn this guy is a beast. Just wide and solid like a tank. Looks like he should be on somebody’s nfl team.
He’s fucking huge, when he was here in Phoenix, I was shocked with how wide and muscular he actually is
He is menacing in person. I was on the Jericho Cruise and even in his hangout clothes on deck trying to blend in he looks like a rapper's securirty guard.
I saw him walking out of a show in Minneapolis. It looks like he was about to explode out of his clothes. He's crazy jacked
I was at a Dynamite and the BCC walked right by me when they made their way to the ring through the crowd. They actually seemed smaller than I expected for some reason.
Kenny Omega. Bro looks like 6'0 on TV, but only 5,9-5'10 in person.
I mean 2 inches is not a ton.
Not sure, bro. But between a 6'0 person and a 5'9 person there is a great impression. It's such a weird experience when a guy of Kenny Omega size (muscle wise) is shorter than yourself.
I think Kenny is maybe 5’11? But uses lifts or big boots.
If he wears lifts in the ring, then it's even more impressive he wrestles the way he does.
Ran into Jericho once at an airport. He wasn't on TV at the time and I didn't immediately recognize him because he was SO much smaller than I would've expected him to be. Later I learned he wrestles with lifts in his boots.
Jericho himself admits he was 5’10 at his peak, probably around 5’8 now, not a big guy at all.
Chris Hero. He is at least 6’2 and a broad dude. Mick Foley is also a lot taller than you’d think too if you watched the Attitude Era regularly. Drew McIntyre is the largest adult man I have ever seen though. He is just a tall block of muscle.
[удалено]
Really? Never thought about Chavo. Eddie was freaking huge and shredded for his size though.
Ooooooh Chavoooooo
Ishii - After meet n greets with other wrestlers, surprised how much shorter he is Lance Archer - 6'8" his height just intimidates me, I'm a shorty Jeff Cobb - that is a washer and dryer set in a mansuit
I met Dave Bautista at a con a few years ago, and I remember when I first approached his table and he was sitting down, I thought to myself that he didn't seem that much taller than me. I figured it was all camera tricks that make him look 'larger than life' on TV and in movies. Then he stood up, and it was like that gag in *Back to the Future* where Marty's just barely peeking over Biff's shoulder. Big Dave is **big.** Still no idea how big his dick is, though.
I am tall and was a tall kid. I walked into Kevin Nash’s thigh/waist area when I was about 9 outside a house show as he was coming through a door and I wasn’t paying attention turning around. The fact I was as tall as I was as a 9 year old and only barely reached his waist always stuck with me. Dude is a giant.
Yeah Nash looks huge on tv.
Jeff Cobb. Like yeah, we all know he's a big dude, but I was surprised at how wide he was when I saw him. My first thought was how much it would suck to be next to the guy on a coach flight, the guy looked like he could fit in two seats!
[удалено]
Felt this way about Mark Henry. It's stunning that a human being can be so wide.
I ran into Matt Cardona outside of a LI tanning salon around 2016-17. Dude legit looked like an action figure. Made me wonder how he was that jacked and still made to look weak on TV.
I walked by him at Disneyland once - action figure is very accurate. He looks even bigger on the indies with smaller opponents.
A lot of the Joshis are shorter than I assumed. I was shocked meeting Starlight Kid and especially Ram Kaichow who I don't even think is five foot
Met Sanada backstage during his TNA run. Dude is a UNIT, didn’t even seem real.
Mr. Brodie Lee/Luke Harper was way bigger than I imagined. He posed on the bottom turnbuckle and looked like an absolute giant.
Went to college with Omos. Passed him in hallway once. He's absolutely massive in height and width. I'm 6'5" 300 lbs. That was the first and only time I've ever felt small.
Billy Gunn and Xpac. I didn't expect xpac to be as tall as I am, and I didn't expect Billy gunn to tower over me as much as he did. Gunn is enormous.
Yeah, Waltman really surprised me - met him at the airport in Philly a few years back and this 'tiny' guy, who always looked miniscule on TV, was a solid 6'1" and built.
[here](https://twitter.com/BruceVilletti/status/742890233759293441?t=C2xNGn2JdeFvZ3LvWqZ4Pg&s=19) is a pic of Cody Rhodes and me from 2016, less than a week after he left WWE. I'm 5'8" and probably 175lbs in that pic. He was definitely bigger than I thought he'd be.
I met Ted Dibiase about seven or eight years ago and was shocked how big he was. Tall and wide just a big big guy.
I went to a ton of WWF house shows and TV tapings in the 80's and Dibiase is definitely a guy that looked way bigger in person than on TV..
Yeah agreed. Next to Hogan and Andre he looks like a regular sized guy but get him away from them and you realize how big he is.
Dude, Drew McIntyre is gigantic
Yeah he looks huge on tv. I saw the segment he did with LA Knight on SmackDown this past Friday and he made LA Knight look small.
On Sheamus's YT channel, Drew says that he is "legit 6'5"
Alternatively I’m always surprised by how tiny the women are in real life! WWE does wonders with making them look “larger than life.” Shelly Martinez (aka Ariel the ECW vampire) is one of the smallest adults I’ve ever met in my entire life.
You’re right. This makes me wonder just how tiny zelina vega really is. She looks hella small on tv.
The women being so small is why Rhea looks so big. Don't get me wrong, she is big for a woman, but she's only about 5'8" 160lbs which isn't that big.
Airport test is real
It’s not in the sense that it correlates to drawing power, but the “woah!” is a thing.
Saw Drew Galloway against Will Osprey in Newcastle pre-covid and I was shocked at how big the dude was. He’s like a giant and much bigger in person than in tv.
Only pro wrestler I've met was Matt Hardy, about 12 years ago while he was in rehab, honestly. Even he was huge in person. If you want my estimate, I would say he was probably 6'1" or so at the time, and with no reason to have lifts in his shoes.
u/RealDDP was way taller than I imagined him to be. Super nice guy though.
Charlotte Flair. I was in a hotel elevator with her and she is really tall and way more toned/muscular than she looks on TV. I'm 6'0" even, but I found myself looking way up at her (to be fair, she was wearing some really tall high heels). What's really weird is that I've also met Lisa Leslie, but she didn't seem nearly as tall. I don't know if it was because of the way Charlotte carried herself, but she just had an aura of "tall", if that makes sense?
PAC. Dude is small.
He looks shredded on tv.
He totally has a Superman / Clark Kent thing going where he wears normal clothes and glasses and you’d never know he was shredded and a wrestler
I don't know, I saw him in person and the dude looked straight shredded through a hoodie, it was impressive.
Drew McIntyre looks like a normally-proportioned, although ripped human being. He’s gigantic in person.
in what world does Drew look "normally proportioned" dude's got canonball delts and traps that start at his ears lol
As in a lot of taller people tend to have disproportionately long arms and/or legs. Drew is just huge, but doesn’t look it as much on TV because his body is better proportioned. Randy Orton falls into this category too. They’re both jacked, obviously.
> Drew is just huge, but doesn't look it as much on TV Again, in what world? Lol I think you need to get your eyes checked, homie Doesn't matter how he's "proportioned", dude looks like a walking tank
This. I saw Drew up close on a Defiant wrestling show and he just massive. Terrifying too.
Claudio is tall and looks tall (was standing right behind him at an old roh show). Darby is a legit 5’8-5’9. Keith Lee is definitely 6’2ish and massive (pwg parking lot). Walter/Gunther is definitely 6’2-6’4 ish.
met 'taker and big show back in 04, fucking _massive_ specimens each. and absolute gents. a young me actually couldn't comprehend fellas that big but they were right there with me in the flesh. _massive_.
For me it was seeing Booker T at a con I am 6 foot 1 inch around 240 pounds he legit made me look like a boy. He's so damn wide and tall.
I was fortunate to be backstage for a whole day sometime around 2010 / 2011 so these are gonna a bit dated. Pat Patterson, in my mind's eye, was one of the stooges, small and elderly. In person he was clearly a former pro athlete. Bulkier, taller, and with more presence than you'd have ever thought. The most surprising, though, was John Cena. I'm about the same height but each of his arms seemed like the width of my body. He was the strangest proportioned person I'd ever seen. Randy Orton was surprisingly normal, though taller than he seems on TV, which was weird. I was also DEEPLY surprised that for all of my years seeing him through ROH and such, that I did not recognize Bryan Danielson in street clothes, even a foot away from him.
Saw Jake the Snake up close at his speaking tour 10-15 years ago. As a kid you can't appreciate the size of these men, but even with me at 6'1 the guy looked otherworldly. Just an overall huge human
I met Jinder Mihal, I am 6’3 and he towered over me
Met Cena in 2002, huge huge human
Big Bill, after he faced Wardlow he exited through the crowd, mans was ducking but he still looked massive, nightmare fuel.
This isn’t a real life example but I didn’t realise how tall Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre were until they left WWE and bulked up. I think seeing them outside of WWE (land of giants) put into perspective how tall they are and reframed how I see them ever since Same with Dustin Rhodes, actually. I never really thought of Goldust as tall until I saw him elsewhere, next to more normal sized men
Randy and Jinder are both waaaay taller than I thought. Jinder looked like he was 7 feet tall when I first saw him live. Did someone teach him that?
2008 Batista. He walked by us at the end of Monday night raw. The camera does not do him justice - Dave looked like a Thanos-level threat.
Sat on the floor for the 2021 Boston Dynamite and had Jon Moxley walk right past me both times. Dude is BIG. He’s pretty tall, and even at the time was just jacked.
Seeing Brian Cage in person is crazy. It's the only person that has really shocked me in person.
How tall is he? He seems jacked but looks like 5’7 5’8 ish
Yeah, he's short, but he's still an absolute unit. He doesn't seem real looking at him in person.
That’s who I came here to say. He’s an absurdly built human being. Straight up weirdly short for his body type. I remember on Lucha underground he looked like a beast, then I saw him at a show and he was like this roided up meatball of a man.
I ran into Roddy Piper in 2008ish at a Subway. He was my childhood hero and I always saw him as larger than life, but I was surprised how much larger I was than him. I was 6'1" 215 at the time and I was significantly bigger than him. Was the kindest guy.
To be fair Piper would have been like 54 years old then and already had cancer I believe, he looked his best in the movie They Live, he was actually a good looking guy.
Only event I ever attended was a WCW house show, and the main event was Giant v Nash. They were freaking huge. I remember being surprised how muscular Malenko was. A coworker told me said she ran into Goldust at a hotel and he was massive.
I saw Andrade at World’s End and was shocked that he wasn’t really much bigger than I am (height wise, obviously he’s got crazy muscles). I am not a particularly tall guy either which shocked me, I thought he’d at least be 6 foot.
Tony Halme aka Ludwig Borga during his WWE run. I am 5'10", 245 lbs, powerlifter build, and I felt like a kid next to him. Moose from TNA is a big guy in person, as is Kross. Both are more athletic, but, are impressive.
Wheeler Yuta. I was at an AEW show and ran to grab a beer and walked right past him in the hall like "holy shit, Yuta, whatsup". Dudes billed at 6 foot but there's no way. I am 6 foot 3 and I was towering over him. I knew he wasn't tall, but he looked so small I was shocked. Same with FTR when I met them at a signing.
I’ve always wondered how big guys like giant gonzales and andre the giant really were. That and when great khali first debut was freaking massive. They seemed larger than life big.
I was at a Raw taping once up in the upper tier and when Big Show came down to the ring he *still* looked massive even from that distance - he towered over the crowd, the referee, and especially Rey Mysterio.
Paul Wight is the largest human I have ever seen. WCW did an outdoor show in our minor league ballpark and you could see him towering over the crowd as he walked out. The night before he threw out a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game and I swear he was the size of three infielders combined. Triple H and Chyna stopped off the Thruway late night for some diner food in our town and Triple H was not overly tall but he was very wide. Chyna was more impressive. She might have been the most jacked female I have ever seen. Her arms were huge. And so were her thighs and calves.
I went to a raw show once when Roman was still doing his entrances from the crowd. I decided to leave and catch where Roman was going to enter the arena from and by god when he walked by, the crowd following him and wwe security looked so small compared to the giant Reigns. Roman's a big boy
When I, 5’10” on a good day, looked down on Shawn Michaels as I shook his hand at a house show in 05.
when wwe came to sweden for the first time, the main event was randy orton vs jinder mahal, vs aj styles, and seeeing Randy Orton walk pass me i dropped my jaw, he is a giant
Kane between 99/early '02 before the bicep tear is one of the best wrestling physiques ever.
I met King Kong Bundy at a local show in the late 90s. , when I was probably about 17. Shook his hand. My hand just disappeared within his completely. That was a big, big dude.
I met a bunch of the guys during WM23 weekend. The guys that surprised me the most were Kane & Randy Orton. For context, I’m 6’2” and they both towered over me. Kane was just a massive man. Randy was slender but way taller than I expected him to be. I also sat front rom at a Raw in 2002 (July, 22nd). Big Show & Brock were on the show and I expected them to be a lot taller than they were, especially Brock & Show. Both guys were still enormous humans but shorter than I expected them to be. Granted, they were still about 6-10 feet away from where I was sitting (corner at the end of the ramp) where as I was standing next to Kane & Orton so that could be why they felt shorter.
I’ve got a few Wrestlers who look big on tv that doesn’t do them justice Kane, self explanatory he is a tall and muscular Hobbs, that dude is jacked Big Bill, same as Kane Wrestlers who you didn’t expect to be as big as they are Claudio, saw him here in Phoenix and he’s a lot bigger than what you’d expect on tv Orton, saw him in person and he’s bigger than you think Wrestlers who look small on tv and are somehow smaller Zelina Vega, Lela hirsch, Alexa bliss, kitana chance, they are tiny and you don’t realize it watching them on tv Sammy Guevara, was expecting him to be bigger than he was
For me it's always, *always* Tomohiro Ishii. The dude carries himself and wrestles like a 6'4" 300-pound brick shithouse of a wrestler and it always shocks me when I find out he's 5'7", 220.