AEW superstar Paul Wight recently joined Wrestling Inc. for an in-depth conversation about his career, which includes the former world champion sharing a story of a time he got heat in WWE for copying the Undertaker’s boot style. Highlights are below.
How wrestlers prefer to call it a title or championship rather than a belt:
“If you call it a belt, a belt is something that holds your pants — a strap,” he said. “I get it’s cool and it’s slang, but I am a little old school. I believe if you’re going to have a championship, then you treat it with respect because you’ve earned it and you don’t want to diminish it. You want to enhance it, but the younger crowd does whatever they think is cool. What do I know?”
Says he got zippers in his boots because he used to get callous’ from pulling laces:
“When I saw The Undertaker’s boots were zippered, I went out and got zippers in my boots because, before that, you had to lace up your boots,” he said. “… Because when you lace up 50/60 eyelets every single night — I used to have callous’ on my pinky fingers, big thick callous’ from pulling up laces every night on my boots. It was an honor and a pleasure, but the business evolves.”
On velcro and snap button belts:
“I would trust the snap buttons before I personally would trust velcro, but if velcro works ,then good for them. Business evolves and the business changes. It’ll be holographic [eventually], you won’t even have to carry it. They’ll just shoot a hologram on your belly and then you’ll have your title.”