Paulo Silva

Brazilian basketball player, professional wrestler and mixed martial artist as the Giant Silva. He played for the Brazilian National Basketball Team in the preliminaries for the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. He signed with WWE in late 1997 and trained under Dory Funk Jr. and Tom Prichard. He wrestled for the World Wrestling Alliance (Massachusetts) and Power Pro Wrestling (Memphis) before making his WWE on-screen debut on Meet the Oddities (1998) (May 25, 1998) as a member of the debuting Oddities, with manager the Jackyl (Don Callis), Golga (John Tenta) and Princess Luna Vachon (Trudy Vachon). He made his WWE on-screen wrestling debut at Summerslam (1998), teaming with Kurrgan (Robert Maillet) and Golga in a victory against the much smaller Kaientai (TAKA Michinoku (Takao Yoshida), Dick Togo, Men's Teioh and Sho Funaki). The Oddities would eventually be reduced to winning on the weekend B-shows WWF Shotgun Saturday Night (1997) and WWE Sunday Night Heat (1998) but would lose to higher-ranked teams. After they were released in early 1999, Silva would go on to compete for CMLL and IWRG in Mexico, New Japan Pro Wrestling, HUSTLE (Japan), Michinoku Pro Wrestling (Japan) and National Wrestling Superstars (New Jersey). He had a small run in mixed martial arts, ending with a 2-6 win loss record. He never won a Championship in wrestling. He teamed with Giant Singh (Dalip Singh) in New Japan as Team 7 and they and Masahiro Chôno defeated Manabu Nakanishi, Rick Steiner and Yuji Nagata in the finals of the Teisen Hall Cup Six Man Tag Team Tournament on February 3, 2002.