Few achieved more or played with greater consistency than New York Giants legend Lawrence Taylor.
Taylor was a Giants mainstay, on their books throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
In that time his list of accolades is unfathomable. The formidable linebacker racked up the better part of 200 career regular season games, bursting onto the scene with two Defensive Player of the Year awards in succession in 1981 and 1982.
By the turn of the 1990s he’d won the Super Bowl on two occasions as the Giants triumphed in 1986 and 1990.
Billed as ‘superhuman’ in standing 6ft 4 and weighing up to 240lbs, he was once tied to a contract worth in excess of $6 million after a tussle for his services between the Giants and the New Jersey Generals.
Taylor was named top of a list of 50 of the greatest defensive players of all time and, along with his brace of Super Bowl titles, he boasts the NFL MVP of 1986, ten Pro Bowl inclusions, and a WrestleMania main event.
Yep, you read that one right. Two years after his final NFL season with the Giants, Taylor donned his football gear again –- inside the wrestling ring.
In 1995, WWE attempted to saturate themselves in celebrity culture. That year’s WrestleMania XI acted as chief offender, with mainstream names popping up all over the place, arguably more so than any other Mania.
Baseball umpire Larry Young, Taylor’s NFL teammate Carl Banks and fellow football legend Steve McMichael were all involved at some stage, as were Lion King star Jonathan Taylor Thomas, actor Nicholas Turturro and Baywatch icon Pamela Anderson as WWE upped the celeb ante.
Taylor had top billing however, actually wrestling at WrestleMania XI –- closing the show no less, against fellow giant Bam Bam Bigelow.
WWE set the scene at Royal Rumble months prior, having Bam Bam shove Taylor, sat in the front row, after the football great had been seen enjoying a joke at the expense of the grappler’s defeat in a tag team match.
Bigelow, starring in arguably the most high-profile feud of his storied career, challenged ‘LT’ to a match at Mania which, thanks to training with then WWE Champion Kevin ‘Diesel’ Nash, the sportsman accepted.
The call to have them on last was more than a little controversial. Diesel defended his WWE Championship against good pal Shawn Michaels in a bout that would usually close a show of this type, but that match was shunted down the card to accommodate the high-profile guest spot.
Taylor and Bigelow churned out a main event match lasting a little over ten minutes. While still physically imposing and impressive, Taylor’s lack of wrestling ability and know-how stuck out despite his opponent’s incredible professionalism in being able to help mask the fact.
The NFL triumphed over WWE in the end, too, with Taylor given the nod to win the match at Bigelow’s expense, after a fairly awkward looking forearm from the second rope that the victor took an age to execute. The less said about an attempted power bomb earlier in the match, the better.
Bigelow’s on-screen Manager at the time, Ted DiBiase, later recalled a level of satisfaction with the outing, which is far from remembered fondly by many wrestling fans.
Speaking on his podcast, DiBiase said: “I really was worried because Bam Bam was one of my guys, and Bam Bam was good.
“With Lawrence Taylor, obviously athletically there’s nothing Lawrence Taylor couldn’t do. Oh my gosh, you know, one of the greatest football players of all time, but this is not his normal territory.
“I was there, I guess, to be a helping hand too if he needed any help. And as it turned out, he didn’t really need a lot of help. And I’ll be honest, it turned out a lot better than I even thought it would.”
As for it being in the main event slot? DiBiase added: “I think it was a mistake… it’s almost like admitting that the NFL carries more weight than professional wrestling.
“[I] would have put them next to last and let the main event be the championship match.”
Though WWE achieved their aim of bringing themselves into the mainstream sphere with WrestleMania XI, the show’s main event is up there with the worst in history ahead of the epic spectacle’s 41st edition this weekend,
Bigelow sadly died aged just 45 in 2007, while Taylor has proved an at-times controversial figure in the years since his prime.
His actions off the football field have perhaps tarnished his iconic legacy on it, and the now 66-year-old may wish his wrestling exploits weren’t remembered at all.
Two decades later he said of it: “To this day, people come and say, ‘hey, I know you! You were on WrestleMania 11!’ and I say: ‘Yeah, okay. That’s one of the things I did!”
