During a recent Q&A at a ‘For the Love of Wrestling’ show, Old School WCW/WWF Legend The Big Show (Paul Wight) recalled an incident where – after performing a Moonsault in WCW – he got a phone call from Hulk Hogan, who told him not to use that move again, or he wouldn’t work with him in the future.
Here’s what the 7 foot Giant had to say:
“Oh yeah, I’ve done a Moonsault. 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.”
After years in Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling (1995-1999) as The Giant, Paul Wight debuted LIVE on PPV during the World Wrestling Federation’s ‘WWF In Your House 27: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre’ event at the Memphis Pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee on February 14th 1999.
The Big Show left the (renamed) WWE in 2007 but returned the next year in 2008 and stayed loyal to the company until he left for Tony Khan’s All Elite Wrestling in 2021.
