Paul Wight would rather fight off alien invaders in “GenZeroes” than face Hulk Hogan on a rooftop again.
Wight, star of All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and the former WWE champion known as The Big Show, recently caught up with ET Canada ahead of the launch of his new sci-fi series “GenZeroes”. Wight took a trip down memory lane and looked ahead to the premiere of his new show.
Wight, performing as The Giant, was infamously shoved off the roof of Cobo Arena in Detroit by Hogan at WCW’s “Halloween Havoc” event in 1995. Do not expect to ever see Wight perform a stunt like that again.
#OnThisDay in 1995: WCW Halloween Havoc PPV: Hulk Hogan vs. The Giant Monster Truck Sumo with The Giant falling off the roof of Cobo Arena. pic.twitter.com/exGiaVFoB2
— Allan (@allan_cheapshot) October 29, 2021
“I definitely wouldn’t even consider doing that now at my age with my wisdom,” Wight told ET Canada. “Like, ‘No. Why are we doing that?’ But at 22, 23-years-old, I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever you want to do. Push me off a building? Awesome.’ You know, because you’re just so excited.”
22 years ago to the day at Halloween Havoc 1995 that The Giant and I locked up both in the ring and in a monster truck battle. Pretty scary pic.twitter.com/Ji91cGSmX4
— Hulk Hogan (@HulkHogan) October 29, 2017
Added Wight, “The thing was for me to fall off the building. It was about four stories into a big airbag. I’m not a stunt man. I’ve never done anything like that, you know?… You’re young and you think you’re bulletproof… Just being young and being funny, when I went over and Hulk’s looking over the top at me, I was flipping him a bird on the way down… It’s a wonder he didn’t bust out laughing when I did it.”
Wight also confirmed a long-standing urban legend about his early years. Rumour has it that Wight, who has been billed at standing over seven feet in height and weighing at least 383 pounds, has performed a moonsault. This move, generally reserved for lighter competitors, involves climbing to the top rope of a ring, performing a backflip and landing stomach first onto an opponent.
“Totally true,” he said. “It’s probably gone by now. That was done probably with VHS tape it was so long ago that hung around the training room… I had athleticism that was crazy for someone of my size in the game. I could do kip-ups, I could do dropkicks, dropkicks off the top. I could do a moonsault. Believe it or not, the way the industry was then — because it was still transitioning — nobody really knew what to do with me because I was unlike anything anyone had seen before.
“There were rumours of me doing it in Japan. It wasn’t in a match. It was screwing around the afternoon. And then I was told immediately not to do it ever again if I wanted to continue working world. I was thinking, ‘Japan is a great place to break it out. Here we go.’ And it was shut down immediately by those that had the creative control.”
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Wight set the stage for his new series, “GenZeroes”.
“It’s 200 years in the future after the aliens have come through,” Wight said. “It’s almost like the aliens have us basically on a harvest planet. Every few hundred thousand years they come through, they harvest the oceans, they harvest whatever resources have re-accumulated, they harvest that and they move on. So basically, we’re kind of like if you watch ‘World’s Deadliest Catch’, we’re a crab trap out in the middle of the ocean of space.
“They come by and they harvest it. This last time that they came through, humanity did its very best to unite together. Finally, everybody put politics aside and everything else and put up a good fight. It wasn’t enough. The only people that survived were those that were able to hide… The whole theme is they are trying to prepare for when they come back again because we know they are. We’re on a cycle. They will be back. It’s not if they will, that’s when they will.”
Wight revealed that “GenZeroes” fans will have the ability to influence story arcs like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
“As it was developing and we were putting stuff together, they were explaining out the NFTs to me and the involvement of building a community and the idea of the community being able to have some influence with the NFTs…. to even determine some of the outcomes and story plots.
The #GenZeroes launch is nearly upon us!!
Episode 1 will be released on 05.18.2022!
Come and join our Discord to keep up with the latest announcements and more information on our NFT drop coming soon – link is in the description! #GenZeroes #web3 #scifi pic.twitter.com/FmDHf0kYUq
— GenZeroes (@GenZeroes) May 11, 2022
“Remember the books where you could choose your own ending? There are a lot of opportunities with ‘GenZeroes’ unlike anything I’ve ever seen and experienced before for community involvement. After so many years, four decades. of pro wrestling and wearing spandex for a living, I understand that your audience and your community are more important than anything that you can do.”
Wight is a diehard science fiction consumer and puts “GenZeroes” up there with the best.
“I just got to tell you as a science fiction fantasy fan who has probably gone through about 4000 books in the past 12 years — because I do a lot of audiobooks, it’s ridiculous — this has an incredible story arc, and incredible things happening. So this is a great series and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
“GenZeroes” premiered on Wednesday, May 18 through its official website. Wight stars alongside Aleks Paunovic, Nicole Muñoz and Jesse Stanley (“Van Helsing”) in the new series from “Van Helsing” writers Matt Venables and Jeremy Smith.