AEW’s Paul Wight Reprises Old Character At CMA Awards

The CMA Awards got a little crazy, you might even say they got insane after AEW’s Paul Wight made a surprise appearance on the show.

Paul Wight first appeared as Captain Insano in the Adam Sandler film The Waterboy back in 1998. 25 years later, Wight reprised the character once again in AEW. Wight has already been seen in the company as Captain Insano in a music video for The Acclaimed and on Dynamite back in September 2023 he appeared in another video package as Adam Cole and MJF hooked him while fishing on MJF’s father’s boat.

Another year on and it seems like Captain Insano lives on as Paul Wight appeared as the character at the Country Music Association Awards. Wight donned his red, white, and blue leotard as Bailey Zimmerman performed his hit “New to Country.” Captain Insano chilled out by a beer pong table for much of the performance before Zimmerman sat on his giant shoulders at the end of the song.

Paul Wight Credits Tony Khan With Captain Insano Living On

Paul Wight recently discussed how Tony Khan was behind him securing the rights to be able to use the Captain Insano character and suggested that Insano will be in an AEW ring again at some point in the future:

Captain Insano was a pretty cool gift. Tony Khan worked it out, got the intellectual property rights for me. So we’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on that. Just to be honest, a lot of it’s been my fault. Having surgeries and stuff like that. So it’s about me getting in the gym, training, getting ready [to] where I feel comfortable. Because it’s basically a one-shot run.

You know, I can’t pull the trigger on this half-assed and go out and fail. When I pull the trigger on Captain Insano, it’s got to be 100 percent we run that until the wheels fall off and then we ride off into the sunset.

Paul Wight also explained that he wants to retire like Sting whose legendary career came to an end at Dynasty in the spring of 2024 as he remained undefeated in AEW for his entire run there.