Hulk Hogan is known for his backstage politics and now former WWE and WCW star Paul Wight has revealed there was one reason that Hogan almost chose to never work with him again.
Then known as The Giant in WCW – and billed as the son of Andre The Giant – Wight competed in his first bout for the company back in 1995 at Halloween Havoc where he shockingly won the WCW World Championship from Hulk Hogan.
However, due to his win being via disqualification and because of a betrayal of Hogan by Jimmy Hart, the title was eventually vacated leading to the 60-man three-ring battle royal for the gold at World War 3.
Speaking at a For the Love of Wrestling event (via Monopoly Events) AEW star Paul Wight revealed that despite Hulk Hogan being his first opponent in WCW, the WWE Hall of Famer once threatened to never work with him again and it was all to do with a moonsault:
“Oh yeah, I’ve done a moonsaul. 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.”
In reality, following the World War 3 battle royal, Wight and Hogan only competed in two more matches in WCW together with Hogan getting his win back on The Giant in a steel cage match at SuperBrawl VI. The two men met once again 11 years after that in 2007 as part of an independent show with Hogan again sending the fans home happy by picking up the win.