Paul Wight has left the WWE to join All Elite Wrestling, and in a new interview on the Talk is Jericho, the superstar discussed his move, and spoke about some problems that he had with how the company wanted to use him going forward.
When speaking about the move, Wight explained that a restart was required, and that his contract negotiations affected some of his performances. “I needed a restart,” he said (transcription via John Pollock of Post Wrestling). “After the last RAW (Legends Night) it was absolutely horrendous. I was going through contract negotiations then, so sometimes when you’re going through contract negotiations with them, they try to, lack of a better term they’ll try to make things more awkward, difficult or to prove a point. It’s part of the psychology of the game, you know what I mean?”
Wight went on to explain how a story about where he was to be embarrassed by Randy Orton on Legends Night made him think heavily about the company values and uses its Hall of Fame level talent. “So, they wanted Randy Orton to pie-face me into a chair, which basically pushed me in the face and knocked me down and then I’m supposed to just sit there in the chair and take it, and I’m like, ‘Well, he’s not going to shove me on my ass’ no disrespect to Randy but Randy knows he couldn’t do it if I didn’t want him to, you know? So, to do something quarterly, yeah Randy can put his hand on my chest, and I’ll sit down because I’m not going to fight Randy because he’s trying to get in my head. You can always do that story even though it’s the wrong story to tell with me,” he said.
“I mean Randy put his hands on me and as a giant I should have knocked him the hell out in the hallway, that would have been good business but then to go to the ring and sit on the ramp or the stage with Hogan and Flair and Booker was out there, a lot of Hall of Famers and Legends, they’re really trying to shove me down the road because, yeah, they want to use my notoriety to do community work, do overseas media, to do all that stuff, they’re taking my passion away from me, they were taking wrestling away from me.
“To sit there on the ramp and then, you know, get called a ‘has been’ while I sit there and watch a match, it’s just – you talk so much about legends and respect for legends and respect for Hall of Famers but, like, anytime a Hall of Famer is around they get run into the ground. That’s one of those things where that machine is always moving forward and any blood, they can get out of whatever stone it is they are going to get that last drop until there’s nothing left for anyone. The talent doesn’t have anything left, the fans don’t have anything left for them and for me, that was just the icing on the cake and I was like, ‘I need to restart, I need to rebrand myself.’”
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