Paul Walter Hauser On Why He Feels WWE Has Made "A Billion Poor Decisions"
Actors Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes, aka Jay and Silent Bob, had a WWE invitation pulled from them after they appeared on AEW's Dynamite. Paul Walter Hauser is a fellow actor and he was asked if WWE's decision makes him hesitant to appear on AEW when he joined The Wrestling Inc Daily podcast.
"No, I don't really care. If someone likes me, let's be friends and if you don't like me, let's call it good," stated Hauser. "The reality is that I love WWE and they represent so much of wrestling in its history. But they've just made a billion poor decisions. It's kinda like the Republican party. If you would have asked me if I was a Republican, I think 20 years ago I would have said yes. But after I've seen so many idiotic moves on their part, it's like, 'How can I support them?'
"I kinda look at WWE as like the Republican party. What the hell are you people doing? How do you expect to maintain your following and respect making the decisions your making?"
Hauser noted that he grew up in Saginaw, Michigan and has always been a Christian, but he's now a moderate who leans liberal.
AEW dipped its toes into cinematic matches with their Stadium Stampede at Double or Nothing. Hauser was asked how that compared to WWE's efforts with the Boneyard Match and Firefly Fun House.
"I think they all work. Every match from Firefly with Cena to Boneyard with AJ to Stadium Stampede ? I think they're all really great representations at how to make lemonade out of lemons," said Hauser.
"Each one has a different tonality. If I look at Firefly Fun House, this looks like it was written and produced by the gang at Adult Swim. With the Boneyard Match, this looked like it was produced and written by Curt Sutter's gang who did the Sons of Anarchy. Then the Stadium Stampede, there's a weird vibe where it's almost like a 90s children's film like 3 Ninjas. There's something very fluffy and silly about it yet wholly entertaining.
"I loved that we moved in that direction but the hope is that we get back to audiences at the end of summer. But they proved that the worked so we can bring those back anytime we need especially if we're catering to an injury. We can still involve them in this type of match where we can cut around it."
WWE's last pay-per-view was Money in the Bank which was once seen as one of the highlight events on WWE's schedule. But Hauser wasn't as much a fan of the last MITB and talked more about it.
"I think at the end of the day, the products are noticeably different," Hauser said of AEW and WWE. "What's frustrating for me is that everyone pops so hard when Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles walked into Vince McMahon's office. They had that cameo moment and Vince is wearing jeans but to me that's such a small, hacky thing that isn't that big of a deal. But they social media-ize it and say look at this crazy thing that happened. That's not why we're tuning in. We're tuning in for great matches, feuds and to find the next big Superstars. I just feel like that part of it is dead and we're getting these bite-sized moments as if that's what we're tuning in for. I'm having a little trouble following the WWE product because it feels full of these half-hearted attempts at things."
Hauser is in the upcoming Spike Lee-directed movie Da 5 Bloods and he talked more about the premise.
"It features a really cool cast and tells a really important story about trying to highlight the forgotten soldiers of Vietnam which, of course, are these black soldiers. At a time when things are still crazy segregated, they were off fighting for America when America wasn't really fighting for them," said Hauser.
"Spike has done a really cool story that's Vietnam-centered but also about black empowerment. And I'm most excited for people to see my buddy Jonathan Majors. He's an incredible actor and I think he's the next Denzel and I'm really excited to see how people react to this film."
Da 5 Bloods is directed by Spike Lee while Hauser's previous credit was in Richard Jewell which was directed by Clint Eastwood. He compared working for the two award-winning directors.
"The commonality is that both men have tightknit family type-groups on their cast and crews. And they're both very comfortable with me improvising all the time. For that I'm grateful and it's a comfortable environment," stated Hauser.
"What's different between Spike and Clint, I would say that Clint really delegates so much of what he does because he trusts those people. Spike has hand in more of the pie as he's checking in on stuff. Clint, at 89 years old, has made a billion movies so he's more focused on watching performance and tweaking little things."
Paul Walter Hauser can be seen in Spike Lee's upcoming film "Da 5 Bloods" debuting June 12th on Netflix. Paul's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.