Paul Walter Hauser picked a fight with one of wrestling’s loudest voices, and it did not end quietly.
The Naked Gun actor deleted his Twitter account after a nasty public spat with Jim Cornette blew up over a comment involving Nick Bockwinkel. What started as Hauser praising NXT’s Mason Rook quickly turned into a fight about old-school wrestling, fan backlash, and whether Bockwinkel’s name should have been dragged into the conversation at all.
Hauser lit the match by praising Rook’s match with Jackson Drake on this past week’s episode of NXT and taking what many fans saw as a shot at wrestling purists.
“Watch & listen to the crowd. The people who paid MONEY to watch this show are LOVING it. They do not care about the Twittersphere’s ‘wiser Than Thou’ disdain parade. Sorry it didn’t meet your Nick Bockwinkle requirements. They got over & had fun. Welcome to wrestling in 2026.”
Cornette has already been rough on Mason Rook, but the Rook praise was not the part that really set this off. The Bockwinkel line turned the whole thing into a different fight, because Cornette was not about to let Hauser use the WWE Hall of Famer’s name as a punchline.
“It’s friends and family who got free tickets watching Chaz Bono endure oxygen deprivation, turdblossom. You couldn’t have parked Nick Bockwinkel’s car. F*** off.”
Hauser did not back off. Instead, he doubled down and said younger fans are not going to know or care about Bockwinkel the way older wrestling fans do.
“My children & their generation will never know or care who Nick Bockwinkle is or was. Doesn’t diminish his legacy/talent/what he gave. It’s just the truth, Jimmy. The coming generation will likely watch, & enjoy, Mason Rook & Jackson Drake. Boo. Hoo.”
That opened the floodgates. Cornette fired back again, fans piled into Hauser’s replies, and the argument turned into a messy battle over modern wrestling, old-school standards, and who gets to talk about wrestling history.
“Rook won’t be around long enough for a housefly’s generation to enjoy. The problem is idiots in the business who are marks for show biz a**holes who are marks for wrestling letting them play in our profession & making them believe they should have opinions. See Hauser, Dumbass.”
Then Hauser vanished from Twitter as he ended up deleting his account for good. Whether Hauser scrubbed his account because he was tired of the backlash or just wanted out of the argument is not clear. What is clear is that one post praising Mason Rook turned into a full wrestling culture war, and Hauser ended up leaving the platform while Cornette stayed right where he was.
Do you think Paul Walter Hauser crossed the line with the Nick Bockwinkel comment, or did wrestling fans take it too far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
