Paul Wight Explains Why He Never Thought He Should Be Champion, ‘You Don’t Need A Giant To Be Champion’

Paul Wight (The Big Show in WWE, The Giant in WCW) won world championships in WCW, WWE, and the reboot of ECW.

Wight shared the ring with many of the top stars during his time in WWE and WCW, including Steve Austin, The Rock, and Hulk Hogan.

Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Wight discussed his mindset when it came to his character.

“Arn Anderson told me, ‘The dumbest thing you ever did is learn how to work.’ So any minute, I was able to be a good opponent for what we were doing. I knew that me, personally, I don’t think I should ever have been champion. You don’t need a giant to be a champion. You need a giant to be an obstacle for the upcoming champion. You need somebody, something, a wall, a mountain, something that has to be overcome so that the next talent can be on its way. There’s a damn good living to be made in that position. I think the last time I got the title was just because I had been five or six years in title matches all the time, hadn’t won the damn thing. ‘Well, he’s been in here while, we might want to put it on him, so get some validity out of it.’ But I was okay with that. I enjoyed that, because I look back at my career now, I got to help create some big, big stars. I was working early with Roman and working early with Cody. There are a lot of talents that I had a great [time with], Kofi and Woods and Cesaro. Big moment, Cesaro at WrestleMania, those are all good moments for me. I always understood that I’m not, and this is no way am I putting myself down. I’m not a leading man, I’m not Rock, I’m not Stone Cold. I’m not John Cena. I’m not the leading guy, I’m the funny sidekick, or I’m Thanos, the villain. That’s where I fall in, and that’s okay.”

Van Vliet mentioned that Wight wanted to make his opponents look good.

He replied, “That’s the whole name of the game. My philosophy is different. What I took to the business and brought to it, not that it’s any super algorithmic formula that’s going to guarantee success. I looked at what I brought to the table, and what are my responsibilities? Get the match over, get my opponent over, and the third thing is going to happen, I will get myself over. I didn’t know how to do those things early in the beginning, because it was, oh, do I just go out, get myself over? Do I do this? Just figuring out how to respond on things, just a couple of little tweaks, and then also trusting the other talent, and talking to them, explaining to them what we’re doing, and once you explain to guys now, if we do this right, and we build this here, this will get a bigger reaction, and then guys get crazy, like your buddy, Rey.”

Wight last won a world title in 2012 with WWE.

Elsewhere during the interview, he commented on his future in AEW. You can find his full comments here.