Paul Wight: “Paying your dues to me is an old-timer’s way of f*cking with a younger talent for no g*ddamn reason”
While speaking to TMZ’s Inside The Ring podcast, “Big Show” Paul Wight addressed the concept of young professional wrestlers having to “pay their dues.” Here is what Wight stated…
“F*ck that bullsh*t, okay. Paying your dues to me is an old-timer’s way of intimidating and bullying and f*cking with a younger talent for no g*ddamn reason.
If a talent comes in respectful with a good attitude, don’t come in like you own the place. Don’t have an attitude. But why should you take heat because your athleticism, your look, or what opportunities you’ve been given, you’ve been successful on? Why should someone hold that against you?
Because you didn’t drive for $35 a night and you didn’t set up some broken, torn-ass-down ring and you didn’t struggle for all this stuff. Okay, why punish somebody for that? You know, whether my thing is, when I came in, everybody was so mad at me ’cause my first match was against Hulk Hogan. I was 22 years old.
Is that my fault? Should I have gone to independents? Should I have learned how people lie, manipulate, and bullsh*t in smaller leagues and promoters don’t pay you and all these other stories that all these other old-timers went through that made them seasoned?
To me, that’s bitter sauce. I don’t like that, punishing a younger talent because that’s not what our business is about.
Our business should be about inspiring younger talent, helping them so they don’t make mistakes, helping them avoid pitfalls.”