Paul Wight appeared on Insight with Chris Van Vliet and told a story about the time Hulk Hogan called his hotel room in Japan after Wight threw a dropkick off the top rope during a tour, with Hogan telling the young giant that if he ever did it again, Hogan would never work with him again.
Wight was telling Van Vliet about how, early in his career, veterans in the business had a specific idea of how a seven foot tall wrestler was supposed to move in the ring, and how the blueprint most of them wanted to force on him was Andre the Giant. Wight said he had so much athleticism when he was young that he wanted to show it off, but the older generation wanted him to work a slower, more grounded style. The Hogan call came during one of those early tours.
“I had Hogan call me in Japan. I threw a dropkick in Japan off the top rope and hit Yasuda with it. And I got to my room, there was a blinking light in my hotel, in my room, and the message says, please call Mr. Bollea when you get to your room. Oh, hell, they didn’t even Hulk it. It’s Mr. Bollea. Sh*t, I’m in trouble. So I called Terry collect, Japan, back then. He goes, ‘brother, did you just do a dropkick off the top rope in Japan?’ I went, ‘Yeah, I did.’ He just, ‘brother, you ever do that again, I’ll never work with you.’ Click.”
Wight said the call was part of a broader problem he ran into early in his career where older veterans wanted him to be a version of Andre the Giant, a version of Kane, or a version of The Undertaker, rather than letting him find his own style as a big man.
“There were guys that they wanted Andre, you know, I wasn’t Andre. I wasn’t Kane or Taker either. Those guys are tremendous athletes. Like Kane and Taker, in my opinion, they’re the two of the best big men ever. So I wasn’t them either. I was kind of a weird hybrid. So we tried to find along the way.”
Wight also mentioned earlier in the interview that he had been fined $500 by Vince McMahon for jumping over the top rope during his WWE run, with McMahon telling him that was not how giants move.
Wight ripped off Hogan to land Captain Insano in The Waterboy
Hogan came up a second time later in the interview when Wight was telling the story of how he got cast as Captain Insano in The Waterboy opposite Adam Sandler. Wight said he almost didn’t even read for the part because he had heard Jim Duggan was going in for it, and he figured Duggan was going to get the job. The casting director asked Wight to read anyway, and Wight said he walked in with no preparation and did a straight Hogan impression.
“I just took the verbiage and did Hogan, ripped him off, and then she said, ‘oh my God, that’s what we’re looking for. That’s it. Congratulations, you’re Captain Insano.’ Oh, I’m like, okay, what did I just do?”
Wight said the read came together in one take and he had no idea at the time what he had just walked into. The Waterboy would go on to become one of the highest grossing comedies of 1998 and turned Captain Insano into one of the most recognizable pop culture cameos of Wight’s career, a performance built entirely on a stolen Hulk Hogan voice.
If you use quotes from this article, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
