Paul Wight Explains How AEW’s United Center Debut Presents A Unique Opportunity For Talent
Photo Credit: All Elite Wrestling
Paul Wight is excited for the new opportunities ahead for the All Elite Wrestling roster.
Paul Wight recently spoke with WrestleZone about All Elite Wrestling coming to the United Center in Chicago. AEW Rampage will take place in downtown Chicago, a notable occurrence for several reasons. Not only will August 20 mark AEW’s debut in the building (they’ve run at the Sears Centre/NOW Arena in nearby Hoffman Estates), but it’s also the first major wrestling event at the United Center in several years. SummerSlam took place in the famed building in 1994, and WWE ran a live event as recently as March 2018, but the company largely calls the Allstate Arena home when they are in town.
AEW’s United Center debut is also notable for Wight as well, who is one of the few people on the AEW roster that can lay claim to wrestling in the building. FTR and Matt Hardy were on that same WWE live event in 2018, but Wight hasn’t worked an event in the building since he was on the WCW roster. The wrestler/commentator has had four matches in the United Center, and he shared what it meant for talent to get this experience as well as AEW overall.
“When you perform in front of these passionate crowds like this, they’re going to bring out a part of your performance that you’re not even aware of yet. You’re going to feel that anticipation when your music’s playing before you walk down the ramp. When you pull into the arena and the fans are backstage, there’s an energy and a hype that comes of working in these big cities and these legendary cities like Chicago and New York and LA and stuff like that. So you want to take that energy and use it to your advantage, and this is going to be an incredible experience for a lot of our talent. A lot of our talent has yet to experience a crowd of that magnitude to perform in front of, and those are the kind of experiences that you take as a talent,” Wight explained, “over years and experience, all those situations add up. They build confidence in you, they build confidence in your character, and you build that relationship with the audience.
“So, having the opportunity to work the United Center on an AEW card for our younger talent, these are going to be those moments that they’re not ever going to forget. There’s going to be shows that you’re going to have that will inspire you to work harder, that will inspire you to dig a little bit deeper in your character, dig a little bit deeper in your match psychology. I explain to young kids all the time that out of all the billions of people on this planet, you have worked hard, paid dues, made sacrifices, gotten lucky breaks, gotten opportunities, and there’s probably only—let’s be serious—out of all the billions of people on this planet, there’s probably only 100 talents, male and female, that are featured every week on major television networks that actually really move professional wrestling today. The needle movers, people that talk about their storylines, people talk about their characters.
“And that unique opportunity is something that you don’t sit back on your butt and say, ‘Oh I made it, I’m here,’ No, now’s the time you keep working hard and you apply yourself more because these are the moments that define your career and make your character. These are the moments in time that help forge your destiny. So for me, I’m super excited to see where a lot of our talent that have worked so hard for so many years, that have great relationships with the fans, to now get to work on it on a bigger scale with a bigger, sold-out crowd, with crowds are enthused about your product, people are excited about the AEW product. And for me, a guy that’s kind of seen it all and done it all, I’m excited for the younger generation to really take in and embrace it. Years down the road, they can have old war stories like I have.”
Stay tuned for our full interview with Paul Wight on WrestleZone, as he talks about his latest run on Fast & Furious: Spy Racers as Palindrome, AEW’s debut in New York City, getting closer to his own in-ring return, how he’s changing up his ring gear and excitement for the chance to reinvent himself and much more!
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