It was not every day that an up-and-coming wrestler got the chance to make their televised in-ring debut against Hulk Hogan. However, this was the situation that fell to Paul Wight back in 1995.
Wight had made his WCW debut at Slamboree under the name The Giant, where he was initially billed as Andre The Giant’s son. While this was later dropped, The Giant made his in-ring debut at Halloween Havoc defeating Hulk Hogan to become World Champion, after Jimmy Hart got the champion disqualified.
The star would go on to work with Hogan on multiple occasions before leaving the company and heading to WWE in 1999.
During the early part of his career, Wight was frighteningly agile for a man of his incredible size and was capable of Drop-Kicks, kip-ups, Drop-Kicks from the top rope, and even Moonsaults.
Speaking at a recent Q&A session at a For the Love of Wrestling event (via Monopoly Events), Wight said that after using a Moonsault in a match he got a phone call from Hogan warning him against ever doing it again.
“Oh yeah, I’ve done a moonsault,” began Wight. “It’s funny. I used to do drop kicks off the top, I’ve done moonsaults. The moonsault thing got killed. The one time I did it, it wasn’t in a live event and it’s before they had cell phone cameras so, there wasn’t any documented evidence of it but, it got around and I got back to my hotel and my hotel phone had a message light and I think I was in Japan and so I called, I picked up the message and it was Hulk (Hogan) who wanted me to call him collect from Japan.
Because this is before cell phones so I called Hulk and Hulk told me flat out if I ever did a moonsault again, he’d never work with me again and hung up. ‘Giants don’t do moonsaults.’ When I first started, I was way too athletic for my size and what the industry was used to for a big man and what the industry wanted from me as a giant. I wasn’t as athletic as Undertaker by any means, but I was a giant that was way too athletic than to be a giant so it was a hard struggle early in my career to figure out who I was supposed to be.”
AEW Claims Hulk Hogan Was A “Better Worker” Than Ric Flair
While Hulk Hogan is undoubtedly one of the biggest stars that the wrestling industry has ever seen, he wasn’t especially known for the quality of his in-ring work. However, during an episode of his Talk is Jericho podcast, Chris Jericho claimed that Hogan was a better “worker” than Ric Flair, a man usually regarded as one of the best ever.
H/t to POST Wrestling