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Paul Wight (@PaulWight) is a professional wrestler currently signed to AEW and known for his time in WWE and WCW. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Indianapolis, IN to discuss how much longer he intends to wrestle, the amount of times he has turned face or heel throughout his career, working with The Rock, being cast as Captain Insano in The Waterboy, a hilarious Arnold Schwarzenegger story after starring in Jingle All The Way, the scary stretcher spot with Rey Mysterio, Floyd Mayweather breaking his nose for real before their WrestleMania match and more!
So are you feeling good now?
“I’m feeling real good. I think my main thing now is I understand there’s a short window left, and listen, I’m not in any way, shape or form delusional that I’m going to go out and compete for championships and pull the wagon, those days are done. Also, in fairness to the younger talent that’s digging and striving now, they don’t need to see my ass every week, taking up TV time and ring time. There’s nothing I can do that’s going to make my career any bigger or better. All I can do is enjoy some of the last years that I have under contract with AEW and hopefully have some fun with some of the younger talent and teach them some of the lessons that have been passed down to me and just, you know, have a little bit of fun. I’m in a really good spot. I got a good boss that believes in me, supports me, and gives me an opportunity to be a part of the business.”
Do you have a number in mind for how much longer you want to keep doing this?
“It’s funny, with wrestling, I think for me to get back in the ring and compete, I’m going to have to be a certain level. I’ll never be what I was. Got two fake knees and two hips. The proprioception is different. The connection between your joints is different. You feel different as an athlete, so I have to accept what am I now, and does that enhance the product that I’m doing? Sure, I’m smart enough and old enough. There are certain things that I can do that will still give a little kickback to nostalgia, will still look like a big, dangerous giant that is my character and teach. But at the same time, if it looks like, oh, put a bullet in [him], well, I’m not going to do that. So that’s what all this hard work now is, okay, what’s the one thing that I can really control? That’s conditioning and weight. I don’t need to be 500 pounds anymore. I need to be about 350.”
What were you at your very heaviest?
“537. But I’m doing it right. It’s not rocket science, I’ve tried to shortcut so many ways with it. This gimmick, we’ll do carb cycling, and we’ll do keto, and we’ll do this. Dude, it comes down to the same thing. You have to take in less calories than you burn, and it takes 3,500 calories to burn a pound of fat. So in a week, I have to at least minimally create a 3,500-calorie deficit. Right now, I’m almost a 7,000-calorie deficit a week, so that puts me right at a pound and a half, two pounds a week. It’s slow. It sucks. You look worse before you look better. There are some days I get in the gym and I’m like, Oh, all right, something’s happening. And then, you know, a couple of pounds change, I go, wait, I went down in weight and look worse. WTF? But that’s just part of the cycle. Your body changes and grows. And unfortunately, fat is not targeted. It’s like, okay, yeah, well I’ve got two, three abs on one side. They’re coming in really good. Then I got one side that’s just smooth. It’s like the other side didn’t show up.”
What’s the thing that you’ve been most proud of in your career?
“I would honestly have to say respect of the guys that I worked with. I never effed anybody over behind their back. I never intentionally hurt anybody. I was always careful with them, and guys that would come up and tell me that they enjoyed working me, that it was easy working with me, that meant a lot, because it wasn’t that way in the beginning. In the beginning, I was too athletic, I was too strong, guys were scared, they didn’t want to help. As the business went along, and I got better and seasoned and trustworthy. That means a lot. I have guys now that will still call me and, just good buds that call me, and we laugh about old stuff, and they tell me what’s going on with them. That means a lot to me. It does. I got a few guys. I’ve been in a group text chat with a couple of guys for going on 16 years, something like that. It’s pretty cool. It’s nice to have that you made a difference in other talent’s lives, other co workers lives, you meant something to them. I think that that means a lot to me, and I’m always grateful, of course, for the fans, you know, because, I mean, I wouldn’t be anywhere without them. But just as a personal note, I think the respect to the guys that I worked with means a lot.”
Your size is obvious, but I think your athleticism gets slept on sometimes
“You know I used to jump over the top rope. You know why I stopped doing that? Because Vince fined me 500 bucks for doing it.”
What do you mean?
“Because that’s not how giants move. He was in a different mindset. That was the thing that I was battling. Vince had Andre. Vince wanted Andre. ‘Andre ruled the locker with an iron fist. Andre did this, and Andre did that…’ I’m not Andre. I’m not a raging alcoholic and I’m not a mean person. Don’t get me wrong, if you talk to Woods and Big E, they’ll say that I’m grumpy, but that’s just from traveling. I’m not really that grumpy person. But I think he was always struggling with that. Everyone had an opinion of how I should work. Some people wanted me to work like Andre. When I was younger, I had so much athleticism, I was like, oh, I need to show this. I need to show this. And then it was like, No, take it away. I had Hogan call me. Rest in peace. I had Hogan call me in Japan. I threw a drop kick in Japan off the top rope and hit Yasuda with it. I got to my room, there was a blinking light in my hotel, and the message says, ‘Please call Mr. Bollea when you get to your room.’ Oh, hell, they didn’t even say Hulk. It’s Mr. Bollea. I’m in trouble. So I called Terry collect from Japan back then, ‘Brother, did you just do a drop kick off the top rope in Japan?’ I went, ‘Yeah, I did.’ He just goes, ‘Brother, you ever do that again, I’ll never work with you.’ Click. Because there were guys who wanted Andre. I wasn’t Andre. I wasn’t Kane or Taker either. Those guys are tremendous athletes like Kane and Taker, two of the best big men I’ve ever seen in the business. In my opinion, they’re two of the best big men ever. So I wasn’t them either. I was kind of a weird hybrid. So we tried to find along the way.”
How was it working with The Rock?
“Easy, other than the fact that he wouldn’t look at me when he punched me. Rock used to love to tell the story of me being on one knee and him being the same height with me on one knee. So he would spread his legs out really wide when he’s throwing those punches. And he loved that visual. Here’s this giant on one knee, and here’s The Rock. But most of the time he’s looking at himself punching me on the Titantron. It’s like, Hey, if you looked at me, you might not potato me every time. But no, I’m just breaking his balls. He was great. Rock was always fun to work with, and he always knew what Rock was gonna do. Rock was gonna pop the crowd. He’s gonna make fun. Just sell for him. I used to love to sell for rock making fun, like, ‘Somebody got a haircut.’”
It’s become an observation of how many times you turned face or heel
“Arn Anderson told me, ‘The dumbest thing you ever did is learn how to work.’ So any minute, I was able to be a good opponent for what we were doing. I knew that me, personally, I don’t think I should ever have been champion. You don’t need a giant to be a champion. You need a giant to be an obstacle for the upcoming champion. You need somebody, something, a wall, a mountain, something that has to be overcome so that the next talent can be on its way. There’s a damn good living to be made in that position. I think the last time I got the title was just because I had been five or six years in title matches all the time, hadn’t won the damn thing. ‘Well, he’s been in here while, we might want to put it on him, so get some validity out of it.’ But I was okay with that. I enjoyed that, because I look back at my career now, I got to help create some big, big stars. I was working early with Roman and working early with Cody. There are a lot of talents that I had a great [time with], Kofi and Woods and Cesaro. Big moment, Cesaro at WrestleMania, those are all good moments for me. I always understood that I’m not, and this is no way am I putting myself down. I’m not a leading man, I’m not Rock, I’m not Stone Cold. I’m not John Cena. I’m not the leading guy, I’m the funny sidekick, or I’m Thanos, the villain. That’s where I fall in, and that’s okay.”
It’s great to hear the perspective of why you turn face or heel so many times. If you were working a heel, you’re a babyface. If you’re working a babyface, you’re a heel. Yeah, you’re trying to make them look good.
“That’s the whole name of the game. My philosophy is different. What I took to the business and brought to it, not that it’s any super algorithmic formula that’s going to guarantee success. I looked at what I brought to the table, and what are my responsibilities? Get the match over, get my opponent over, and the third thing is going to happen, I will get myself over. I didn’t know how to do those things early in the beginning, because it was, oh, do I just go out, get myself over? Do I do this? Just figuring out how to respond on things, just a couple of little tweaks, and then also trusting the other talent, and talking to them, explaining to them what we’re doing. And once you explain to guys now, if we do this right, and we build this here, this will get a bigger reaction, and then guys get crazy, like your buddy, Rey.”
The stuff on the stretcher is crazy!
“I hate that spot! That gives me nightmares. That went so bad. Oh, that went terrible because it was my idea, because Rey was tied in it, and then I thought I’d rib him in the afternoon, whereas I’ll just pick him up scare him. Oh, I can [pick him up]. This isn’t that tough. So what about swinging the pole? My God, that’ll look crazy. But the whole thing was, I was gonna swing him on the pole, swing him on the pole again, and I was gonna shove him back in the ring. Somewhere, somebody before us, because it sure as hell wasn’t me, the guys used to put this conditioner crap on their hair. And sometimes it would get on the ropes, and it makes your hands so slimy, like even if you grab the top rope, getting out of the ring, your hand just comes right off. So when I swung Rey into that pole, that thing popped right out of my hands, like it squeezed, like a hard-boiled egg or something. It just popped right out, then I saw Rey go, and I went, Oh, I just killed Rey. Oh, Jesus. So I’m freaking out on the inside, but we’re still doing our thing. He’s moving. Oh god, they’re putting him in the ambulance. Oh my god. So I ran back to the locker room, grabbed my clothes, threw them in the car, and drove to the hospital in my rental car, because I’m thinking, man, if Rey’s seriously f*cked up, I’m done. I’m quitting. I’m done. Because I really cared about taking care of the other guys. I get there and Rey sits in the hospital bed with his hands behind his head, just chilling. ‘Hey, man, that was good, huh?’ I’m like, ‘You’re okay?’ [He says] ‘Oh yeah, man, I’m fine.’ I’m like, ‘You know what I went through driving over here worrying?!’ Rey used to love in the house shows when he worked, he used to love to sit on the top turnbuckle and have me chop him in the chest. And he would bump from the top turnbuckle to the floor, and it looked like he got assassinated. There’s a loud smack, and then boom, there’s no more Rey. He just disappears and goes down. Arn Anderson was the agent. Arn said, ‘You know, when I see you do that to Rey, I want to call the police on you.’ It’s not me. It’s his idea. That’s not me doing that. That’s Rey. That’s getting me in trouble.”
Captain Insano was legendary:
“One take. And that was just me blatantly ripping off Hulk because I wasn’t even going to do it. They were doing interviews at Orlando and I heard Jim Duggan had gone and read for it. I was like, Oh, well, Duggan will get it. He’s amazing. Captain Insano, Jim Duggan, yeah, he’ll get it. Then the casting director, she saw me, ‘Would you please just come read?’ I was like, Sure, okay. So I just took the verbiage and did Hogan, ripped him off, and then she said, ‘Oh, my God, that’s what we’re looking for. That’s it. Congratulations. You’re Captain Insano.’ I’m like, Okay, what did I just do? I didn’t know. Funny thing about Adam Sandler, too, that whole group, his whole crew, dude, they’re so amazing. They were so nice to me and Adam’s mom. I would run into them at the Super Bowl, this little Jewish lady comes up and she grabs my hand and she says, ‘You’re in a movie with my son.’ I said ‘I was?’ [She said] ‘Yes, yes, my son, Adam.’ Oh, you’re Adam Sandler’s mom. Yes, ma’am, I sure was. ‘You’ve got to come say hello to Adam.’ So she held me by my hand and took me over to where Adam’s people were at the Super Bowl. And she’s like, ‘This is Adam’s big friend Paul. He’s a pro wrestler.’ But she was so darn sweet, you know? And Adam was like, Hey, man. I said, Dude, it’s awesome. But all those guys were super cool. And that was a great, great moment. And then I did Jingle All the Way.”
I love that every Christmas we get to see you in Jingle All the Way.
“I’m pretty proud of that. It was a lot of fun. I had a good time on that set, hanging out with Arnold. Again, I shot myself in the foot on that movie, too. So I’m sitting around, we’re waiting on a lens for the warehouse scene, and I guess it was like a million dollars to rent this lens, and there’s only two of them in LA and the original crew that had it rented was six hours late, and our production is held. Anyway, I don’t know how those things worked, but apparently it was a big hoodoo, and a lot of producers are mad and everything. So I’m just sitting around in my Santa suit chilling, you know, I’m sitting next to the little monitors and stuff. This guy comes in like a jogging suit, short hair, round glasses, like he’d gone for a run, obviously, to work out some stress. So he sits down, and I thought he was a sound guy. I didn’t know who he was, the number one rule I learned, everybody’s important. Be careful who you talk to. So I’m sitting here, I’m like, ‘Hey, can you believe how much f*cking money they waste doing this sh*t. Really? A million dollars on a lens, whose f*cking dumb idea was that?’ He said, ‘I know it’s crazy, you know, some of these shots are just sometimes got to have it.’ Yeah, it makes me want to be in the lens business, whatever my stupid conversation was. He goes, ‘Hi, I’m Christopher Columbus.’ [The director]. Yeah, the guy that’s making all these decisions. You went for a run because you’re so pissed because production is being held up because you don’t have your lens? Yeah. And then hanging out with Arnold, which was great.”
How was he on set?
“He was awesome. At one point, he was supposed to hook my suspenders in one of those hooks, and it was supposed to yank me through the warehouse. But they couldn’t figure out how to rig it up. So while I’m hanging the harness, I’m just hanging there, my feet off the ground. He slaps me in the nuts and goes, pay attention. I’m like, Oh! I’m swinging. You know, it’s fun, guy sh*t. So then we were doing a shot where Verne Troyer was supposed to get zip-lined when I punched him off Arnold’s back. But they were trying to figure out how to do the close-up without getting the wires and the harness and all that stuff. So I said, I can just stand off camera and chunk him. I can do it safely, he’s like, 40 pounds, yeah, I got it. So the part where poor Verne Troyer hits the toy boxes, I’m off camera, like this, holding him by his little Santa suit, like this, and they go, Okay. Meanwhile, Verne Troyer is mad as sh*t because I treated him like a pillow. You know what I mean? He was a big fan of mine, so he went from talking to me every day to not talking me to the rest of the rest of the entire shoot. So all right, well, learned a lesson there.”
“I have a story for you about Mr. Schwarzenegger. I felt like Arnold and I bonded on Jingle All the Way. I had met a childhood hero. We talked about cigars, we talked about Andre, I felt like I know Arnold Schwarzenegger. I can call Arnold Schwarzenegger at least an acquaintance, and quite possibly a friend. A couple of years go by, doing something, Arnold’s there. I come up. ‘Hey, Arnold.’ He looks at me, ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger, nice to meet you.’ Oh sh*t. He doesn’t remember me. Wow, that sucks, but hey, I get it. He’s Arnold. Who am I at the time? Then some time goes by. Meanwhile, I’m getting a little bit more famous, a little bit more recognizable. I’m starting to understand that people don’t forget me. Run into him again. ‘Hey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, nice to meet you.’ I’m like wow, he really doesn’t remember meeting me. Okay, well, it’s Arnold, you know, busy dude. Lot going on. So now he comes to WWE Raw. I think he’s the Governor at the time, actually, because he had security. So I went by to say hi to Arnold. Again, I’m still looking for that, ‘Oh, I remember you.’ We bonded. Dude, really? So I go in. I talked to the security, says, ‘Oh, Big Show. You want to say hi to Arnold?’ I said, Yeah, man, absolutely. So he’d open his door. I go in the dressing room. Joe Manganiello’s there. Meet Joe. Joe and I became fast friends. We had D and D, just a good dude. So Arnold’s in a conversation. Arnold turns around, looks right at me, goes, ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger, nice to meet you.’ I’m like, Oh, damn. Really? Now this is four times you’ve met me. I get if you don’t remember my name, but now you don’t remember me. Okay, didn’t sell. Even Joe’s looking at me like, oh, that’s kind of rough. Even Joe goes, ‘Weren’t you in Jingle All the Way?’ I’m like, Yeah. All right, man, I gotta get to work. I’m pissed. So now this is going on. I’m on the wall in Gold’s Gym in Venice. I’m on the frickin wall, okay. I know he’s walked by and seen that picture. I know he has. So I see Arnold. He’s walking I just went, ‘Hey, what’s up, Arnold?’ He stops, turns around, sticks out his hand, and goes, ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger, nice to meet you.’ I’m like this over dramatic, like it’s the first time we’ve ever met. I couldn’t work out. I was like, wow, this son of a bitch. I mean, Arnold was living in my head, rent-free. You know what? Next time he’s around, I’m not gonna say hi to him. I’m not gonna do it. Not gonna do it. So then I get a call from WWE that I have to go to the Arnold Classic. He’s getting an award. WWE had done something, and he’s getting an award, so they want me to get it. So I’m there with Mark Henry, and Mark Henry knows this whole story, and Mark Henry’s trying to calm me down, because I’m like, No, you know what? If he pulls that ‘Nice to meet you’ sh*t, I’m gonna go off. I said there’s respect, and there’s like, Nah man, you’re gonna remember me this time. You might not ever like me, but you’re gonna remember me. This is bullsh*t. And Mark’s like, calm down, dude. It’s not that big a deal. I’m like, nah, dude, he’s gonna remember me. No, this is bullsh*t. So I’ve created this whole scenario in my mind, that I am so unmemorable that Arnold can’t take the time to remember me, but he knows all these stories about Andre. So it’s like, Really? Okay, all right, you’re gonna remember me now. So while I’m waiting off to the side to go out to get this award that he’s presenting. He starts telling stories, ‘My good friend Paul, we were in Jingle All the Way together, and so big and such a tremendous athlete…’ He goes into his whole spiel where he puts you over, and I go out there to get there, where he looks at me and winks. He ribbed me for 12 years! Because that’s how brilliant Arnold is. What’s the one thing that I know I bring to the table? Not the most handsome, not the most athletic, not the strongest, none of that. But you’re going to remember meeting me. I know that I have that gift. You don’t forget meeting me. That’s my ticket to the dance. Sure he knew that would be my card, and he took that from me for 12 years!”
What’s the story behind working with Floyd Mayweather?
“Great. That was a happy accident, too. Originally, that was supposed to be a tag. It was supposed to be Floyd and I against Rey and Dave [Batista]. Unfortunately, due to injuries, Dave tore a lat or a bicep, and Rey messed something up, all before we got to the TV part to start the angle. Then they were like, ‘Will you work with Mayweather?’ I’m like, hell yeah! Split the payoff between two guys? Well, really, Mayweather got most of the payoff, and I got thanks for showing up. But anyway. I thought, Yeah, that’s great. When we were doing that, we’re trying to talk to Floyd, there was such a size difference. I remember they were like, ‘How do we make this believable?’ I said, ‘It’s easy. I’ll get on one knee,’ because I’m so big and arrogant, I will get on one knee in front of him, and I said, ‘Yeah, just break my nose.’ They were like, what? I said, ‘Dude, I just spent the last year boxing, getting punched in the face. It’s not that big a deal.’ I told Floyd, because Floyd’s a pro. I said, ‘Don’t break the bone. Just give me a little tap.’ It’ll bleed because you get tapped in the nose, it’ll bleed. It’s not broken, it’s just cartilage. So he was like, ‘You want me to punch you?’ Yeah, man. I said, ‘Don’t shove it through the back of my head. But you got to. If we don’t make it look like something’s happening, nobody’s going to buy it. We need to get this off the ground and running, where people go, Oh, damn. That’s what we need.’ I said, ‘But when you bust me in the nose, and it bleeds, run, because there’s gonna be 5-10 seconds that I’m not going to be in the right frame of mind. If I get my hands on you, I might hurt you, and you’re worth half a billion dollars, so just make sure you’re not around.’ He got that point, and we went out there and did it, and just as soon as that hot blood hit the back of my neck, I was pissed. Even though I know it’s work, I was pissed.”
I can’t believe you asked for it.
“It’s for the business. It’s for the industry. It’s within the realm of what we’re doing. It’s a punch in the nose, like shit. I’ve been punched in the nose for free, we’re trying to suspend belief. We’re trying to pull you in. We’re trying to make you think, Oh, wow. We weren’t expecting that. That’s crazy. What’s gonna happen next? And it’s part of doing business. I remember tearing after him. I remember I grabbed one of his guys that I thought was him, and that guy started going, ‘Not me, it’s not me. It’s not me.’ He started screaming because I had him by the upper hip, the lower love handle in the ribs. I had him like this, and he wasn’t going anywhere. It’s almost like a big dog grabbing a little dog, a little dog yelping. That’s what was going on. So then he tore ass out of there, and nobody came around me, not a camera man, it was like I smelled bad. There was nobody within 20 [feet]. I remember Shane coming over. I love Shane to death. Shane and I have been through some great battles together, too. Shane looks at me, goes, ‘You’re all right.’ I was calm. I was like, I remember going because I licked the butt off my lip, ‘Yeah.’ Shane looks at me, goes, ‘That was f*cking awesome!’ So then I was like, okay, good. We did good. Then we get to the back. I’m excited to see Floyd. He left. He got in his car and left like, nope, not hanging around. This is not for me. I don’t want any part of this. Then we had to call him and his manager to come back. He stuck his head in Vince’s office. He says, ‘We cool, man?’ I said, ‘Dude, you did awesome. Come here, man.’ I gave him a big hug. And then we were off and running. He was so great to work with. We had to talk him out of doing stuff. And thank God they pulled in. Hunter, who I think is brilliant on ideas and putting stuff like this together. Hunter gets the story of it. Hunter was like, wow, this guy wants to do everything. I was like, I know. What are we going to do? He’s like, ‘Well, he’s worth a lot of money. Let’s be careful what we do.’ I got it. But he wanted me to chop him and body slam him through a table. He wanted all this crazy stuff. When I threw the guy out of the ring, we had to do a double, because he wanted that to be him. Nah, dude. They’re not going to let us do that. Then I remember after that WrestleMania, getting assaulted by his grandma. She slapped the bejesus out of me for beating up her grandbaby. Floyd had to come over and calm her. She was mad because I stood on him. That’s what she was mad about, that I stood on him. She was not having it. I mean, her and I became friends a little bit later on, but when we first got back there, she was ready to rip my ass apart. We did good business.”
Did you know Goldberg could get you out for that jackhammer?
“Oh yeah, with ease. Well, here’s the thing. I could take suplexes, I could take hip tosses, I could take all that stuff. I think one of the first big bumps I took that freaked everybody was I took Kurt’s angle slam one time. Just fed and took it. Kurt was like, ‘You took that so easy! Oh my god’. Yeah, it’s kind of why I have a job, because I’m big and I’m also good. I mean, you know, that’s how I took Hennig’s Perfect Plex. Unfortunately, I’m a giant that’s good at taking finishes. So there you go.”
What is Paul Wight grateful for?
“My family, my health and my cats.”
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