Giant Silva
| Giant Silva | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Birth name | Paulo César da Silva |
| Born |
July 21, 1963 São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil |
| Professional wrestling career | |
| Ring name(s) | Giant King Giant Silva The New Giant Paulão |
| Billed height | 218 cm (7 ft 2 in) |
| Billed weight | 385 lb (175 kg; 27.5 st) |
| Trained by |
Dory Funk Jr. Tom Prichard |
| Debut | 1997 |
Paulo César da Silva (born July 21, 1963), is a Brazilian former national basketball player for the Brazilian national basketball team and later mixed martial artist and professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Giant Silva. A super-heavyweight wrestler, he was both a face and a heel in several professional wrestling promotions. Known for his great height, in 2014 he was described as the sixth tallest professional wrestler in history.
In the 1980s, Silva was originally a professional basketball player, playing for the National Brazilian Basketball Team during the basketball preliminaries to the 1988 Summer Olympics as Paulão da Silva. Very much like El Gigante/Giant Gonzales who also started with basketball, the 7'2" (217 cm) da Silva played as a reserve center on the national team wearing the #13 jersey.
After turning pro in late 1997, Silva signed with World Wrestling Federation. After debuting he was given the name: "Giant Silva" and was a member of the Oddities stable. For most of his WWF tenure, Silva was a cornerman for the Oddities and his matches on TV were tag matches, teaming up with Golga and/or Kurrgan. His only highlight was at Summerslam 1998 when he, Golga, and Kurrgan defeated Kai En Tai in a 3 on 4 Handicap match. Silva was released around February 1999.
In 2001, Silva joined New Japan Pro Wrestling. He originally debuted on August 12, 2001 as a member of Masahiro Chono's stable: Team 2000 where he was paired up with another Giant: Giant Singh (better known as The Great Khali) as the tag team: Club 7. Silva made his in-ring debut for New Japan when he took part in the G1 World Climax tournament where he finished in 4th place with 4 points. He and Singh made their debut as a tag team at Indicate of Next on October 8, 2001 where they defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kenzo Suzuki, Yutaka Yoshie, & Wataru Inoue in a 4 on 2 handicap match.
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