On the latest edition of his 83 Weeks podcast new WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff discussed current AEW superstar Paul Wight’s run in WCW, and how Wight, known as The Giant during that time, was just as agile as some of the cruiserweights, and even got heat once backstage for delivering a dropkick. Highlights from the interview are below.
How athletic and agile Paul Wight was in WCW:
I loved every bit of it, and it certainly is a testament to how hard Paul Wight worked, and how much natural talent Paul Wight had. He was very eager at this point. He was an open book. He listened. He tried to learn, and he did a great job. He was a phenomenal athlete. If you think watching a 6 foot 10 guy do a dropkick is impressive, you should see him do a kip-up, which is something that generally only gymnasts can do. Little f**kers that weigh about 140 pounds. They can do kip-ups pretty well. You get a guy that weighs whatever he weighed at the time, 450 pounds, 6 foot 10, be able to do a kip-up, a legitimate kip-up, was mind-boggling.
Says Wight got heat backstage for delivering a dropkick:
What’s interesting about this, is Giant actually got a little heat backstage for doing that dropkick. There was a lot of people that were like, ‘What? You’re killing your giant gimmick. You’re doing stuff that Eddie Guerrero does. Or guys that are 220 pounds do. You’re a giant, work like a giant. Giants don’t dropkick.’ That was a big conversation backstage. I was kind of stuck in the middle of it. I thought, traditionally yes, that would be right, you want to see a big giant be a big giant. You know, ‘don’t go down … … build up to it over weeks or months or years. Don’t go off your feet, you know, and by all means, don’t go do a f**king dropkick. Or a kip-up. Even though you can, don’t do it because it’ll kill your gimmick.’ There was a lot of that conversation backstage.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful
)