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Post by preferable on Feb 8, 2012 23:16:49 GMT -5
It seemed strange to me. Here's a guy who was, using the medical term, f****** obese, and they 'reward' him by making him their top heel, giving him the huge push. And really using his obesity to sell how 'awesome' he was. Comments would be made that he 'looked well over that 550lb mark now.'
Suddenly, 1995/6 - huge concern. Were they not watching before? Or is there a level when morbid obesity gets 'too much'? Oh NOW after making a buck out of how enormous this guy is, NOW you want to be concerned and send him away to 'lose weight'?
Nothing at all to do with the fact he was on a big (excuse the pun) contract and as business went down the pan they tried to get rid of him or at least stop him from getting appearance and live-event cuts. Someone who was brought in during a relatively 'good' (comparatively to 1996) time of the industry, he may have had a pretty decent contract worth paying up.
The whole 'sudden' concern for Yokozuna's weight surprises me. I know his weight DID balloon but a guy being in excess of 550lb when they're under 6ft is where you surely start the concern, isn't it?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2012 23:21:18 GMT -5
During his initial push, and they claimed he was well over 550 lbs. it was exaggerated. Once his weight became a concern, and he was legitimately well over that, his health came into more question.
You do raise a good point, though. His size was used to sell him as a monster. But the same was true for Andre. And Bundy. And tons of other guys.
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Post by preferable on Feb 8, 2012 23:23:47 GMT -5
What was his 'legit' weight during that period then?
1992-1994
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Post by molson5 on Feb 8, 2012 23:59:23 GMT -5
I did think the concern was strange at the time, but Yokozuna was quite a bit bigger post-championship run. Just watching the youtube videos comparing his debut v. 1996, it's hard to put a number on it, but he could easily be 150 lbs heavier. I don't know where exactly the line is where they're worried he's going to drop dead on TV in the ring, but, he was always getting closer to that possibility.
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Post by rnrk supports BLM on Feb 9, 2012 0:09:10 GMT -5
He just kept growing. And growing. And growing.
At Survivor Series '92, shortly after Yoko's debut, he's billed at 505 lbs. By mid-'96, they're calling him "nearly 700 pounds". And it's not just his size, he was looking exhausted just getting into the ring during his last few months. The man was scarily unhealthy, to the point where it was impossible for even a company as blase about its employees' well-beings as WWF to turn a blind eye to his problems.
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The Ichi
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Post by The Ichi on Feb 9, 2012 0:14:59 GMT -5
Basically, he went from big guy to fat guy. A more extreme version of Samoa Joe.
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Post by celticjobber on Feb 9, 2012 0:45:49 GMT -5
He had gained so much weight that he couldn't pass a physical required by New York's athletic commissions to wrestle there. And that was one of the main reasons they wanted him to lose weight.
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Post by Large Father Frigid on Feb 9, 2012 1:19:23 GMT -5
Supposedly Yokozuna had got up to a legitimate 750 lbs for the Legends of Wrestling PPV he took part of in 1999. I read somewhere that he stated that his goal was to get to 900 lbs.
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Post by preferable on Feb 9, 2012 1:21:22 GMT -5
I've just gone onto YouTube to watch Yoko vs HBK from the Raw before summerslam 1996.
It's incredible when you see the two men together. Or indeed any man next to Yoko as he walked down the aisle. You look at the two and think 'their skeletons are about the SAME size'. It's almost unfathomable.
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Futureraven: Beelzebruv
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Post by Futureraven: Beelzebruv on Feb 9, 2012 5:02:09 GMT -5
When you have had guys like Earthquake, Typhoon etc. at first he was a little bigger than them, enough to be a bigger monster, but he could handle it, he's just another fat guy wrestler, then he just kept growing to the point he could hardly move.
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Post by happhazzard on Feb 9, 2012 6:19:14 GMT -5
He was absolutely huge before he died, he was touring over here in the UK and there were several newspaper articles about him.
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Post by derrtaysouth95 on Feb 9, 2012 9:22:24 GMT -5
It's possible to be a functional obese....he crossed that line.
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Post by agent817 on Feb 9, 2012 10:18:42 GMT -5
Supposedly Yokozuna had got up to a legitimate 750 lbs for the Legends of Wrestling PPV he took part of in 1999. I read somewhere that he stated that his goal was to get to 900 lbs. He was intentionally trying to get that big?! I have seen screenshots of that PPV. The guy was as a big of a VW Bug at the time. I've even read that it was tough to get him into airplanes after he hit the 600 lb mark. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2012 10:33:18 GMT -5
It's possible to be a functional obese....he crossed that line. Vader was often billed as over 400 pounds, and had a spare tire for a gut, but he was fairly agile and could pull off some impressive moves, even today. Same with Mabel/Viscera/Big Daddy V. He never really was a great wrestler, but you can easily tell that his diet is to maintain his current weight because his moveset focuses around his girth with body splashes and running avalanches. Yokozuna... he just got fatter and fatter. In Bret Hart's book, once he became WWF Champion, he intended to get as fat as humanly possible by demanding all sorts of junk food wherever he went. What's worse, Vince sent him to fat camps multiple times, and Yokozuna just wanted to get bigger. So, yeah... you can be fat and be a decent athlete, but it all points down to mindset and work ethic, and Yokozuna had a poor mindset and he also got very lazy. |
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Post by Chardee MacDennis on Feb 9, 2012 11:45:37 GMT -5
go youtube Yokozuna's debut match, then youtube the Heroes of Wrestling with Yoko. It is a completely different person.
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Post by baronmordo on Feb 9, 2012 16:18:26 GMT -5
The thing that struck me most about his weight gain was that, when he first appeared, he was wearing pillow-like padding in his pants to make him look fatter. Eventually, he didn't need to wear those anymore, because his legs had actually become that fat. Which is to say nothing of the rest of the weight he gained. Think about that.
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Post by Cam on Feb 9, 2012 16:23:55 GMT -5
Apparently, he was 680 pounds at the time of his death.
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Post by 2 Cold Scorkum on Feb 9, 2012 18:16:06 GMT -5
This is the least credible source on the planet, but I have a Nintendo Power magazine from mid-1993 that has his weight listed at 606 pounds.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2012 18:20:50 GMT -5
Yoko was still fairly agile in his early days in the WWF, but by the end he was all but immobile.
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Post by preferable on Feb 9, 2012 19:41:05 GMT -5
WWE surely knew he was getting bigger. Even throughout 1993 he was increasing in size.
He may have started off at around a legit 450 around late 1992 but by the time 1993 rolled around he was getting bigger. He was big enough to start with yet WWE kept on pushing him despite his size increasing. It's unquestionable in my mind that they encouraged him to increase his girth, at least for the first year or so. It was their 'biggest' selling point of the character. One of them anyway.
"He's getting bigger! He must be 550lbs by now..."
I can't imagine his first 100lbs he put on was done with anything other than the blessing and encouragement of management.
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