Paul Wight Reveals His Advice To Giant Wrestlers

Paul Wight has given insight into the advice he shares with fellow giant wrestlers to help them extend their careers.

Wight, formerly known as The Big Show, has been involved with professional wrestling for almost three full decades. In that time Wight has seen the business change considerably yet he has also managed to stay involved without coming across as out of place.

And while he isn’t actively wrestling as often anymore, he is still one of many veterans willing to pass his knowledge onto the next generation of wrestlers.

That was the reason for his interview with fellow wrestler Tempest ahead of AEW All In, in which he discussed the things he shares and suggests to up-and-coming wrestlers so that they can be successful.

When it comes to “standard-sized” wrestlers, Paul Wight often tells them not which moves to do, but what to do to get the biggest reaction possible from the audience.

“My advice is not about what moves to do. I’m not gonna tell them what move to do. My thing that I try to preach upon is making a connection with the audience, telling a story in the ring, making what you do in the ring mean something. Don’t do something just to do it. Make it lead to something. Make it count. If it doesn’t count, then why the hell are you doing it?

They’ll say, ‘What did you think of my match? What did you think of this?’ I say, ‘Was the biggest reaction of your match the finish? Win, lose, as long as it’s always the biggest reaction.’ ‘Oh, no, it was this one thing.’ ‘Then you’re not doing it right,’ ‘cause if you do it right, the biggest reaction is the finish.

Because that’s when the people are the loudest, that’s when you took them on a journey through the entire match and when that 1-2-3 happens, whether you’re the bad guy getting pinned or the good guy winning, if they’re not the loudest there, then somewhere you made a mistake.”

Paul Wight has separate advice for giants and smaller sized wrestlers

But when it comes to wrestlers closer in stature to himself, Paul Wight often tells them that they shouldn’t strive to have in-ring classics, but to stand out and be spectacles.

“Giant wrestlers are a little bit different. Because we’re not five-star guys. We’re not guys who’re gonna go out and have outstanding matches. I don’t think so. That’s not what you see from giants.

Giants are spectacles. Giants are attractions. Giants should be doing things that people are in awe of. If you’re a bad guy giant, or heel, you should try to tap into people’s fears of ‘What if I ran into that guy in a dark alley and he was that aggressive toward me.’

You want to instill a little bit of fear. If you’re a face giant, you want to try to make them feel like, ‘Oh, he’d be a fun guy to hang out with.’ The main thing about being a giant is just presence.

If you go out and you do stuff and oversell and don’t make them earn it, then they’re not really David slaying Goliath. They’re not chopping down that giant tree.

Part of the drama that helps with fans is a smaller person that’s aggressive that stays after it, stays after it, stays after it and then you pay it off.

That’s why giant matches are different. It’s the same philosophy, but they’re executed on a different level ‘cause, in my opinion, you want to start tapping into psychology that people understand.

Everybody understands, at some point, what it’s like to be bullied or be intimidated.”

f/t Fightful