However, something very unexpected ended up happening when a press conference was held announcing the new match happened. A reporter used the name, Big Show, when calling out to Wight to ask a question, which was kind of expected since he has been publicly known as Big Show since 1999. Wight snapped, “don’t refer to me by my slave name”. Instead call me, “The Great” Paul Wight. Up to that point, Wight had not made any disparaging remarks about his WWE run and essentially referring to his time in the company that it was a plantation, and he was just a slave there, obviously pissed McMahon and other executives off. As a result, WWE pulled any talent that they were originally going to allow to appear Memphis Wrestling shows for Maclin. The Boogeyman, Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin were all forced to cancel their scheduled appearances at the April 13, 2007, Memphis Wrestling show in Tunica, Mississippi. Robert Gibson was to team with his longtime Rock ‘n’ Roll Express partner Ricky Morton to face Too Cool, however WWE pulled Gibson from the event as well, since he was WWE producer. Gibson would be replaced by Kid Kash, and Bobby Eaton filled Kash’s original spot as Koko B. Ware’s tag team partner against Bill Dundee and Dutch Mantel.
So, as you can see on April 27, 2007, the Hogan and Wight match took place in Memphis drawing just a reported 2,200 fans in a 18,119-seat venue and drawing a reported gate of $104,500. The match featured the signature spots that essentially recreated iconic Hogan vs Andre moments, with the same results of Hogan going over.
Final Thoughts:
It is no surprise that Hogan would prefer fans forget about this ever happening as the show was a flop. WWE doesn’t want fans remembering Big Show referring to WWE as a plantation. To the surprise of no one both men would eventually return to WWE. Hogan is pretty much retired these days except an occasional appearance in WWE and Big Show left WWE in 2021 to join AEW as a commentator and occasionally wrestles. Maclin and Hogan took a gamble thinking fans would be interested enough in nostalgia to watch a recreation of a match that took place 20-years prior, and they were clearly dead wrong.
Maclin would sue WWE in 2008 for pulling Lawler and claiming they violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, but unfortunately, I was unable to find out the results of the lawsuit. Lawler and Maclin were soon in a lawsuit over the Memphis Wrestling name that Lawler claimed he owned and not Maclin. I was unable to find the results of that lawsuit either. Maclin would tragically die in 2013 in a car accident at only 43 years old.
This would not be Hogan’s only unsuccessful promoted event that he would like the fans to forget as he would try again two years later with Flair in Australia, which I will cover in a future article.
Photo Credits – Ringside News, The Sun, Bleacher Report & WWE
