Latest / Kenny Wallace Media / Talking Wrestling With Superstar "The Big Show" Paul Wight | Charlie Marlow Show

Transcript

Talking Wrestling With Superstar "The Big Show" Paul Wight | Charlie Marlow Show · Kenny Wallace Media

• 0:00
  A lot of people know about your your college basketball career.
• 0:02
  We hear about Wichita State. We're here in Saint Louis, the
• 0:06
  home of the Missouri Valley Conference.
• 0:08
  I went to Bradley University from the MV.
• 0:09
  I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, no worries.
• 0:12
  And obviously Wichita used to be in the NBC.
• 0:14
  And then also, you never know what's fact or fiction on
• 0:17
  Wikipedia. But you also went to SIU
• 0:19
  Edwardsville, is that true? And played?
• 0:20
  Yeah, I went to SIU for a year right after Wichita State let go
• 0:26
  of coach Mike Cohen. They let Mike Cohen go there,
• 0:28
  brought in Scott Thompson from Rice University.
• 0:32
  He was doing some different things to the program there.
• 0:36
  I, like most young men at the time.
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  I was really lost at that time. I'd lost my dad, my grandfather,
• 0:43
  the coach who recruited me got fired.
• 0:44
  I met a girl, made a lot of crazy, dumb decisions to do as a
• 0:48
  young man, and I wound up in Edwardsville, SIU, Edwardsville.
• 0:52
  So Edwardsville was a lot of fun.
• 0:56
  It was, it was a good university for me because I joined the talk
• 1:00
  Kappa Epsilon fraternity at SIU. So again found some good
• 1:07
  brothers in a fraternity, but it was one of those transitions
• 1:10
  were were those are the first few hard hits I took in my.
• 1:14
  So can you give us your your most memorable story from
• 1:18
  Edwardsville or maybe, maybe Saint Louis also, just I'm sure
• 1:20
  you've wrestled over the years many times here in the area.
• 1:25
  I remember when I think of Saint Louis, it's funny and it's not
• 1:30
  probably a very PG story, but we'll go with it.
• 1:33
  In college, I need to get a job and I was trying to to work on
• 1:39
  the weekends and I got a job just outside of Saint Louis in
• 1:44
  Sauje, Illinois. So, you know, there's a, there's
• 1:48
  a club there in Sauje, Illinois. And I got a job there and I
• 1:52
  worked there about two days and I got fired because I made all
• 1:57
  the customers that came in nervous.
• 1:59
  They were scared to tip the girls.
• 2:00
  So everybody was on their best behavior and I made everybody
• 2:05
  nervous. So I I was my first job working
• 2:08
  as a doorman was in Saje, Illinois and I got fired from a
• 2:12
  a nice club there so. I hear you, I.
• 2:15
  I remember the stories then too. They used to tell me stories of
• 2:18
  of wrestlers and stuff that used to come in there.
• 2:21
  So I think that was a seed that started getting put in my mind.
• 2:25
  I need to find something to do with myself.
• 2:27
  So there you go. Awesome.
• 2:29
  Well that gets into the whole again kind of factor fiction on
• 2:31
  Wikipedia, because I saw that you were a bouncer, as you said,
• 2:35
  it even said a a bounty hunter before you got into wrestling.
• 2:39
  Is that also true? Well, you know, it's nothing as
• 2:41
  glamorous as like Dog the Bounty Hunter or anything like that.
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  Just I, I worked for the bail bonds with a friend of mine for
• 2:46
  a little bit and it's, it's not that glamorous.
• 2:49
  It's domestic violence and different things like that.
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  You serve warrants for people that you know they need to, you
• 2:56
  need to take them back to jail because they skipped on their
• 2:58
  bail. You, you, you make like 75
• 3:01
  bucks. It's not that, you know what I
• 3:04
  mean? It's not that glamorous.
• 3:06
  I, I worked for a guy that had a bail bondsman license at the
• 3:09
  time. So nothing that glamorous.
• 3:12
  I've sold cars. I sold cars at Rusty at Ford in
• 3:15
  Wichita, KS. I did a lot of different things.
• 3:18
  I answered phones at a karaoke company and the karaoke shows at
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  night for a while in Chicago area.
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  So it's all discovering who you are and doing different things
• 3:30
  and not sitting still. And I'm always fascinated about
• 3:33
  the the wrestling origin stories, how you got into it.
• 3:36
  So you said you're working jobs after basketball.
• 3:39
  What was there a meeting with with Hulk Hogan?
• 3:41
  How did it all come about your? Wrestling that came about in
• 3:44
  Chicago. I was working for Jessica
• 3:46
  Karaoke Company and we were doing the morning drive on Danny
• 3:51
  Boneducci's radio show where people would come in and sing
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  karaoke in the studio. And some people were really
• 3:56
  amazing. Like there's a lot of talent out
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  there that back then, you know, the Internet wasn't the powerful
• 4:02
  voice that it is now. So people were were trying to
• 4:06
  discover themselves singing karaoke.
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  So this was an opportunity to come on the live morning show
• 4:11
  with Danny Barducci. And some people were good, some
• 4:13
  people were terrible. Danny was super cool and asked
• 4:16
  me, you know, what I was trying to do with myself because I had
• 4:18
  all this athletic ability and, and presence and size and was
• 4:22
  it, you know, try to play football for the Bears.
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  I mean, everybody had 10,000 opinions on what I should do
• 4:27
  with myself and I wanted to be a wrestler, but it was very
• 4:32
  difficult back then to get in, get into wrestling back then was
• 4:35
  like trying to get in a mafia. I guess you had to know somebody
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  to vouch for you to get you in. So Danny introduced me to Danny
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  had a charity basketball game against Hulk Hogan and Mr. T and
• 4:47
  he said tell you what, I'll have you as my secret partner and you
• 4:51
  know, then I'll introduce you to Hulk and and Mr. T, he says
• 4:54
  Hulk's great. You love him.
• 4:56
  You know, I'm sure he'll be excited to meet you.
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  So, and that's how it all started.
• 5:00
  Then I did the probably the worst thing you could do is I
• 5:02
  did a Hulk Hogan impersonation for Hulk, which could have gone
• 5:06
  really good or really bad. But luckily Hulk was pretty cool
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  and had a good personality and saw that I had a little bit of
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  charisma. So he was excited about it too.
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  So it worked out very well. I remember the first time I met
• 5:17
  Hulk. I told my buddy.
• 5:20
  I said, man, Hulk Hogan's taller than me.
• 5:22
  My friend goes, what are you nuts?
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  Because he had so much presence that I thought Hulk was taller
• 5:27
  than me. I was young at the time.
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  I was like 22 or 21 years old. So I thought Hulk Hogan was like
• 5:32
  7 foot tall, but he's not. I'm taller.
• 5:36
  Paul, give us your your greatest achievement in your wrestling
• 5:39
  career. You think?
• 5:41
  Greatest achievement? Geez, that's a, that's a, that's
• 5:47
  a good question. I don't think I've ever been hit
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  for that one. I mean, I've, I've won a lot of
• 5:51
  championships, which I'm very proud of.
• 5:53
  I think I would probably say dependability, durability.
• 5:59
  I think that's saying it's very hard to have a career this long.
• 6:03
  There's a lot of careers that are really hot for three, 4-5
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  years, seven years, eight years to go 4 decades since 95 and be
• 6:11
  able to work with the amazing talent that I've been fortunate
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  to work with over the years and then hopefully help a lot of the
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  younger talent. That's the biggest stars now.
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  I think that's that's my greatest achievement.
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  I think it's just too stubborn to to go away.
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  I guess maybe that's it. Too stubborn to go away.
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  So are you, you know, tell us the truth.
• 6:34
  Are you 7 feet tall? Are you 7 one?
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  Are you 7 two? What is it actually?
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  I think I've shrunk in my old age, I think I was 7/1 and I
• 6:40
  think I'm just at 7 foot right now.
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  So to defence, if I wear my my Shamus wrestling boots to the
• 6:47
  lips in them I probably hit seven one and a half 72, so
• 6:50
  that's a joke to shameless. I'm sure I'll get a phone call
• 6:52
  for that one. And I consider myself tall at
• 6:56
  about 6-4. I can't even imagine 7 foot 71.
• 7:00
  Tell us what What's the best thing about being 7/1?
• 7:02
  What's the worst thing about being 7/1?
• 7:05
  Well, usually you always can see if you're at a concert, you can
• 7:08
  always see you, you very rarely have a don't have a good seat.
• 7:12
  The worst part is, is is just, you know, walking through and
• 7:15
  not hitting your head on stuff, ceiling fans, doorways.
• 7:19
  The worst is trying to use the restroom on a plane, which is
• 7:25
  already difficult enough, but imagine my size using it and
• 7:28
  I've had to, but the light bulb in the top of the airplane
• 7:32
  bathroom is super hot. And I have burnt the top of my
• 7:36
  head while trying to to use the restroom in the in the airplane
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  bathroom. So I think that's just bumping
• 7:44
  into things that people don't think is going to be in
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  anybody's way. You know, or you walk into a
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  room and all the mirrors are right at your chin.
• 7:51
  So you're like that Naked Gun guy that has the banana that
• 7:54
  falls down, you know, because all the mirrors in somebody's
• 7:57
  house are set for their size. They're not set for you, so if
• 8:00
  you want to check and see if your beard's OK or your hair's
• 8:03
  palmed, you have to duck down. I like it.
• 8:07
  So I'm sure over the years you've wrestled with over over
• 8:09
  25 years, a lot of great stories, a lot of great memories
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  tell us of all, of all the great superstars you've wrestled with
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  or hung out with, who who's the best guy or gal to hang out with
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  on the road? You know, it it so many
• 8:23
  different guys I've spent so much time with those years have
• 8:25
  had such great, great stories with from Kurt Angle.
• 8:29
  It was amazing to travel with. I mean, I rode with probably one
• 8:33
  of the greatest athletes and greatest entertainers and Kurt
• 8:37
  Angle was amazing. He was so amazing in the ring,
• 8:40
  but so humble and an absolute klutz outside the ring.
• 8:45
  He would trip and fall all the time, spill food on his shirt,
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  but just a genuinely good human being who also was a badass at 1
• 8:53
  Olympic gold medal with a broken frickin neck.
• 8:56
  So I mean he was a legit badass, but he never acted like he was a
• 9:00
  badass. He was just curt.
• 9:03
  Billy Gunn was great. Billy Gunn was the one guy that
• 9:07
  never needed a map anywhere we went.
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  He always knew where the gym was, knew where the restaurant
• 9:11
  was, knew where the building was, know what the hotel was.
• 9:13
  Just like this guy have he had his own GPS in his head and just
• 9:17
  knew where everything was His his probably one of the best
• 9:21
  wheel man. We call it in the business.
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  Probably one of the best wheel man ever and just laughed till
• 9:27
  my stomach hurt was probably riding with Paul Heyman.
• 9:31
  I, I have literally had to pull a car over in tears laughing to
• 9:34
  catch my breath because Paul Heyman for years made me laugh
• 9:38
  harder than anyone. And you know, there's, there's a
• 9:41
  lot of great, great stories and great guys and great car rides
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  out there. And that's the thing that really
• 9:49
  helps. I think the, the younger talent
• 9:51
  grow is, is getting in those car rides and telling stories and,
• 9:56
  and lying. And it helps build your
• 9:58
  character and, and, and, and build who you are as a talent.
• 10:01
  It's good stuff. All right, Paul, final question
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  for you. I don't want to keep you too
• 10:05
  long. Mark Henry is going to be coming
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  on next. So can you give me some dirt or
• 10:09
  a good story, something I can bring up to kind of maybe
• 10:11
  embarrass him or? Something I love Mark Henry,
• 10:15
  he's my brother from another mother.
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  So I think in all invested, Mark Henry is probably my best
• 10:20
  friend. So to embarrass Mark Henry,
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  there's too many stories, but I won't tell tales out of school.
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  But I will say this one, I came into the locker room one time
• 10:32
  and he was kind of hunched over and I thought he was upset or
• 10:35
  crying. So I put my bag down and I sat
• 10:38
  down next to him and I put my arm around him.
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  I said, are you all right? Because I was worried something
• 10:43
  happened to him or the kids or something, you know, and.
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  And Mark sits there and he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fine.
• 10:49
  Since I've been trying to tear this quarter for about 30
• 10:52
  minutes, and all I can do is bend it.
• 10:54
  He had bent 1/4 with his fingers.
• 10:57
  And I just pat him on the back. And I said, OK, man, glad you're
• 11:01
  OK. But that's just one of those
• 11:02
  things where I've never seen a human being bend 1/4 with their
• 11:06
  fingers. And he did so, but he was upset
• 11:09
  because he couldn't tear it like you wouldn't.
• 11:12
  So that's my best friend. So yeah, that's all that.
• 11:17
  He can cook his ass off. I'm telling you right now, he's
• 11:19
  a hell of a cook. People may not know that he's a
• 11:21
  hell of a cook. I'm in trying to get his ass
• 11:23
  into doing a cooking show with me.
• 11:24
  So we'll see. Awesome.
• 11:26
  That's fantastic. He's a big star, so we'll see
• 11:29
  you now, you know? All right, Paul, thanks a lot,
• 11:32
  man. This was awesome.
• 11:32
  Really, really appreciate the time.
• 11:34
  Hey, thank you very much for having me and thank you to
• 11:36
  everyone watching.