I was shocked to see Bob Sapp mentioned in my Yahoo! News listings a few weeks ago. Now he’s on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. From Bob ‘The Beast’ Sapp Is Conquering Japan:
Bob Sapp was a third-round draft pick in 1997 of the Chicago Bears, and mostly sat on the sidelines. He was dropped by the Bears, picked up by another team, then got suspended for using a nutrition drink that broke the league’s steroid policy. He ended his career in 1999 with crippling tendinitis.Then he lost his $800,000 in football savings in an investment swindle. He couldn’t find work. He applied for a chance to transport corpses from an Atlanta morgue to a cemetery for $100 a body, but somebody else got the job. Eventually, he won a spot in a second-tier professional-wrestling franchise, World Championship Wrestling. It went defunct.
Today, after one of the most remarkable sports comebacks ever, he is Bob “The Beast” Sapp, a superstar on the Japanese “K-1″ circuit. It pits men using different martial arts, such as karate, kickboxing and tae kwon do, against each other to see who prevails in three short, violent rounds.
Mr. Sapp, 28 years old, has also become one of Japan’s hottest comedians. The 6-foot-3, 380-pounder has appeared in hundreds of Japanese television shows, biting into a foam rubber doll, trying on blond wigs and plugging “Sapp Time,” his hit rap single.
It’s hard to explain just how massive Bob Sapp is:
Mr. Ishii saw Mr. Sapp’s U.S. wrestling matches in 2001 and recognized star quality: a 60-inch chest, 37-inch thighs and a seven-foot arm span.