Heyman on Between The Ropes

[justcoz 0]

I just read this on pwinsider.com - Paul Heyman from Between The Ropes. I feel exactly like this man when I look at the current product and I'm not even from inside the company. Vince needs to just let this guy book Smackdown and leave Raw to Gerwitz, Stephanie and her right hand man and HHH. We'll see who produces a better product. What I pasted below is just his comments in relation to the current product. There are more ECW comments in the interview that I omitted from here.

 

On what he would do if he was in charge:

‘I think there’s so many guys who are underutilized, or who are boxed in by the parameters that the current presentation of wrestling sets. You know, we’re still in the same model that we were in 1999 in this industry. That’s not healthy for the industry. I think what needs to happen is that the structure of the business or the regiment, or the regimented structure needs to completely change for some of these guys to break out. As popular as Rey Mysterio may be, I would suggest to anybody that he would be five times more popular now under different circumstances. I would say the same for Rob Van Dam. I would say the same for a lot of different guys. If you look at the roster today, there are so many different people that I would have an absolute f’in blast with just getting the most out of them and having them lose their inhibitions and accentuating the strengths and hiding the negatives. We don’t do these things as well as we could.’

 

On a return of the ECW Brand:

‘Yes and no. Do I think that somebody could shake up the entire industry? I hope it happens. I think it’s necessary for the health and the survival and the viability of the industry. Do I think that it will be ECW? No. I think we are all four years older. . . Time has moved on. Do I think we could ‘get the band back together’? It’s not going to be the same again. Could we do it for one night? Yeah. Could we present a ‘one night only’ or once in a great while, do a reunion show? Of course we could, and we would blow the doors off anything else that is out there today. Do I think that ECW itself could, like a phoenix, rise from the ashes? No. I don’t see how that could possibly happen. Do I think that somebody could rise from the ashes or something else should come along? Oh my god, I hope so. I think it’s so necessary for the industry. The grunge movement can’t come back. It happened already. There will not be another Nirvana. There will not be another Soundgarden that just shakes up the whole music industry. However, there will be something else. There will be a new form of hip-hop. There will be a new form of rock. There will be a new form of music that shakes up the whole industry. It just won’t be the same thing that it was the last time. That’s what I think is going to happen in this industry is that someone’s going to come along with a new concept, and they’ll shake everything to the ground again. That will be in the tradition of ECW, but it can’t be ECW.’

 

On the WWE Creative Team and their non-wrestling background:

‘You sit there and you say to somebody ‘Well, OK, what are we building to’ and ‘Let’s do this, and we end up with wrestler A versus wrestler B’. And you have a guy sitting there saying ‘Well, I don’t know. Let’s not talk about the match. Let’s talk about the motivation of the character.’ And of course I’ll sit there and say ‘Yeah, but what are you building to?’ Because you got to know where you are going, and then you understand how the motivation of the character leads you to the payoff. I mean, what’s the climax of this story. . . So is it frustrating to listen to a Hollywood guy say ‘Gee, I don’t want to talk about what the payoff is, I want to talk about the childhood motivation of why this character became who he is.’ Yes, it’s very, very frustrating. . . Am I frustrated by some of these people? In the visuals, yes. But per se, I never bought into the thing of ‘well, he’s not a wrestling fan so he can’t book wrestling’ or ‘he comes from Hollywood so he doesn’t understand wrestling.’ . . . So I never believed in the fact that because someone isn’t in a wrestling background they can’t write wrestling. I think that you can either write it or you can’t write it. It has nothing to do with whether you are a wrestling fan or not a wrestling fan.’

 

On the competition between brands when he was lead writer:

‘[t]here was legitimate competition between Raw and Smackdown because, you know, Raw had their writers; and I was the lead writer of Smackdown and it was balls to the wall. It was let’s see who had the better show and we blew them away. We blew them away quality-wise and we blew them away in terms of ratings. It was the first time that Smackdown pretty much became the ‘A’ show; and Raw, simply by the definition of losing in the competition, was becoming the ‘B’ show. I would love for that to be the case again.’

 

On the buildup and payoff in ECW:

‘You know, I always knew that Sabu and Taz would have a match; and I made you wait eighteen months for them to even lock up. I always knew that Tommy Dreamer would beat Raven one day, but not until the last day. And you waited two and a half years for that payoff. So, what’s the payoff; and once you understand what the payoff is, you know how to get there.’

 

On giving the creative team the benefit of the doubt:

‘I never want to pass a judgment like that for this reason, I had to come into the business one day, and I was given a chance by a lot of guys to implement things that were new. So if these veterans that I had the honor and privilege of working with would have said ‘Who’s this kid to tell me what to do? Who’s this kid to call a finish? Who’s this kid to give me an angle? Who’s this kid to tell me what my promo is about? Who’s this guy to produce a pay per view. He’s never taken bumps. He’s never broken his neck. He’s never done that. Who did he ever beat? Who did he ever put over? What matches has he had? When did he ever sell out Madison Square Garden? And if the guys had looked at me like that, and not given me the chance to show them a different way, then I never would have had the opportunity to be labeled all these wonderful things that people label me in this business because I never would have had the chance to succeed. I was only given the chance to succeed because these guys who had come before me gave me the chance to shake up the business, and show them different finishes, different strategies, different ways to do videos, different ways to shoot interviews. Different ways to present the product. So if I close my mind and give a myopic view of ‘Oh, he’s from Hollywood. He can’t teach me anything.’ Then I’m doing to him the greatest disservice of all, and doing it to myself as well.’

 

On his contract status with WWE:

‘I am under contract to them. I have some time left on it. They’ve always been very private in their dealings with me, so I’d like to respect them back in terms of how long my contract is for. Just as a matter of they’ve showed me the respect to be private, I’d like to return that favor to them. I do have some time left on my contract. I would assume that I will be working through the end of that agreement. At least I’m willing to. . . I don’t know what happens once it expires. I don’t know if they want me to stay. I don’t know if I want to stay. I don’t know yet. There is certainly time for both sides to think about it.’

[Kardo 0]

Heyman of all people should never talk about wrestling feud payoffs.

[SamoaRowe 0]

I say let Heyman be the creative mind for a wrestling show SOMEWHERE! He could do so much good if he could be given the chance, like he was in 2002. He's right, Smackdown was blowing Raw out of the water during his time as writer and I believe that Smackdown has been sabotaged ever since because the concept of Raw becoming the B show scared Vince so much.

[humongous2002 0]

Give SD back to Heyman, I rather drink his kool-aid than the toilet water that's being passed around by Steph, HHH and Gerwitz.

[Guest Loss]

The problem in WWE isn't finding people with good ideas. Vince usually has great booking plans. The problem is getting him to stick to his guns and not letting the wrestlers interfere and tweak things to their favor.

 

Heyman makes some valid points and points out the problems quite excellently, but I don't know that he offers a good solution. What did the SD6 accomplish in the long run after all? They burned through about six months worth of matches in six weeks, and did them just for the sake of putting on a great match, which makes them ultimately forgettable as individual matches.

[justcoz 0]

Heyman makes some valid points and points out the problems quite excellently, but I don't know that he offers a good solution. What did the SD6 accomplish in the long run after all? They burned through about six months worth of matches in six weeks, and did them just for the sake of putting on a great match, which makes them ultimately forgettable as individual matches.

 

I understand your point but I don't think Heyman really had the opportunity to prove where he was going with the whole thing. His legs were cut from under him before he had a real valid opportunity to prove what he could do. Even when he was head writer there was still a feeling that Vince, Stephanie or whoever else were still dictating the direction of certain things. For instance, Mark Henry going over someone like Matt Hardy, who was getting over at the time with Mattitude and his M'Fer.

 

In my opinion, the SD6 were more valuable to the company in those six weeks than they were at any point afterwards. I think what he was trying to accomplish, besides the novel concept of putting great matches on television and giving quality workers the proper time to display their athleticism, was getting each of them over as WWE superstars. I feel that was accomplished.

[Guest Loss]

Chavo? It was another six months before Eddy started really taking off, at least. Angle and Benoit were already somewhat established, and have been booked better in other situations either before or after this period. Edge has only recently begun to get some momentum. Rey Misterio, I'll grant you. Doing the injury angle with Albert was a dumb decision, especially when the original plan was to do the same angle with Matt Hardy, and they were going to be working Mania against each other anyway. Admittedly, that wasn't Heyman's call.

[justcoz 0]

Rey was my biggest point. He could have easily debuted and went the way of Ultimo Dragon without Heyman throwing him into the mix of talent that he did. I believe this was the point that the company seriously looked at Eddie as a core talent on their roster. You are correct about Benoit and Angle. They were the established feud of the SD6. I also believe throwing Chavo into this mix, rather than just using him as cruiser against Jamie Knoble at the time, helped save his WWE career from a Billy Kidman fate. Edge was also incredibly over on Smackdown shortly after the SD6.

 

Listen, I'm a strong advocate of Heyman being on the creative team, I think I've made that clear. There were still flaws in the show when he was head of Smackdown's creative and I think that gets lost sometimes when people remember how much they were enjoying the shows then. The reason for those fond memories are the SD6 matches. I believe it was building to a payoff and we didn't have the opportunity to see what that payoff was because Heyman fell out of favor with the McMahons and Kevin Dunn and others began involving themselves in the creative process on Smackdown. Albert getting Matt Hardy's spot being an example.

 

I think the payoff was more than likely to be Heyman building his show around those six talents. I think the matches were more or less instruments to make their talent the focus of the show and eventually they would each be placed into different scenarios and storylines.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

The SD6 payoff, or at least the climax of it, was going to be a 60:00 minute match involving all three teams. Not sure whether it was going to be an Iron Team match of some sort, or just a three-way 60:00 draw, but that was the match it was eventually going to build to.

[Guest Loss]

Was there a reason that didn't happen at SurSer? Fear of upstaging the debuting Elimination Chamber?

[Guest Salacious Crumb]

It would've cut into the Al Wilson stuff and the six month build to lesbianism.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Was there a reason that didn't happen at SurSer? Fear of upstaging the debuting Elimination Chamber?

I presume it never happened because of the mindset that fans wouldn't be interested in such a long match.

[Guest Fook_Theta]

Either most interviewers are really good, or Heyman is an extremely humble guy.

 

edit: Give Heyman Velocity or Heat or both. Atleast thirty minutes to book whatever he wants, unless it is a non-WWE style match(aka hardcore/tables/etc.) Man deserves that much, and more if he can make people give a shit about the B shows. Giving him Smackdown! is not reasonable due to backstage politics. If The Bitch and Pussy-whipped Smackdown! team care about Velocity that much to keep him from it, he should just quit.