Chris Jericho and Big Show square off on SmackDown.

In a hotly contested contest between former Unified Tag Team Champions, Chris Jericho scored a huge upset over Big Show on the May 24 edition of SmackDown. Since then, Big Show has been … well, a no-show on Raw, Main Event and SmackDown.

Clearly, losing to Jericho isn’t sitting well with The World’s Largest Athlete, who offered a pretty sizeable excuse when WWE.com contacted him about the matter.

"Chris Jericho and I are former World Tag Team Champions," Big Show explained via telephone late Friday night. "We've also had many battles in WCW and WWE. After the dangerous match Booker [T, SmackDown General Manager] put me in at Extreme Rules, I was not fully healed. Chris was simply in the right place at the right time."

The "dangerous match" referenced by the 441-pound giant was an Extreme Rules Match with Randy Orton May 19, in which The Apex Predator cut Big Show down to size with two RKOs and a punt to the skull. The World’s Largest Athlete had nothing else to say about that matchup, though he grew extremely agitated after being pressed about his absence from WWE programming over the past week.

"I have an ironclad contract!" he screamed through the phone. "I'll take time off any time I want to, for as long as I want to! I don’t care if Booker doesn’t like it. I’m a giant! I don’t do what other people tell me to do. They do what I tell them to do. 'Ironclad' means I answer to no one. That includes Booker, and anyone else in WWE management."

So, when will The World’s Largest Athlete make his return to the ring, and should Chris Jericho be looking over his shoulder?

"When I decide to get back in the ring,” the massive Superstar warned, “there will be no right place and no right time for anyone I set my sights on."

Will there be a Big Show sighting this Monday night on Raw? Tune in at 8/7 CT on USA Network.