Paul Wight Reveals How Sting Once Helped Him Deal With a Rib by Hulk Hogan in WCW

– Fightful recently interviewed AEW’s Paul Wight, who shared a story from his WCW days on Sting protecting him from a rib by Hulk Hogan after he won the WCW World Title from Hulk Hogan at WCW Halloween Havoc in October 1995. Below are some highlights:

Paul Wight on Sting being kind to him when he started in WCW: “Sting’s one of my favorite people on the planet. I’m not gonna get emotional and cry, but I love Steve Borden. He was so, immediately from day one, so unbelievably kind and everybody was good to me in WCW, but there were a lot of old timers there that all were shooting their own little angles.”

On Hogan’s rib of wearing a title through the airport: “Yeah, but that’s the way wrestling was back then. That was just the business. These guys were out for themselves, and sure, they knew you had talent. Sure, they knew they were gonna draw money with you. But, you know, they want to make sure they did a little bit better and that’s OK, because it teaches you to fight for yourself, and it teaches you to protect your own brand. I never had to go through that with Sting. Sting was wide open, just very open to any ideas I had. My favorite Sting story, and I’ve told this, and he laughs, but when I walked away with the title at Halloween Havoc, my first match against Hulk Hogan. Yeah, well, I was 21, so it wasn’t that I’m 22. So Hogan told me to wear the title through the airport as a rib, and you guys have been around wrestling, you know what ribs are. He goes, ‘Hey, brother, I want you to wear that title through the airport and let everybody know that you took that title from Hulk Hogan.’ So I was like, ‘Okay, yeah,’ because I mean, what do I know? I’m green, I’m proud to wear the championship. Why wouldn’t I wear the world title everywhere I go?”

Paul Wight on Sting stopping him at the airport and exposing Hogan’s rib: “So I’m walking through the Detroit airport with a world championship around my waist and all the old timers that are at the airport are all giving me the thumbs up, ‘Hey, champ. Hey, champ,’ and I’m so proud. I’m glowing like, ‘Yeah, these guys all think I’m the champ. Like this is great.’ I took the title off with the metal detector and put it on the belt and it went through. All the security people are congratulating me and I’m strapping it back on. This is blonde haired Sting with the razor shades. He comes over to me after I’m with the security, he goes, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘What?’ He goes, ‘Why are you wearing the title?’ I said, ‘Well, Hulk told me to wear it to the airport, let everybody know that I’m the new champ.’ He goes, ‘Put it in your bag, you look like an idiot. He’s ribbing you,’ and he walked off and I was like, ‘Aw, he’s making fun of me.’ I had to take the title and put it in my bag. It was my first lesson and yeah, Hulk and Randy ‘Macho Man,’ they were both in on that one. They thought that was hysterical, but…”