Source: 113 AM The Fan
Whether you know him as The Godfather of ECW or as the co-author of the new Brock Lesnar autobiography Death Clutch: My Story Of Determination, Domination And Survival, there’s no denying that Paul Heyman has insightful view points and great tales to tell.
Paul phoned in to chat with me about Death Clutch, Brock’s battle with Diverticulitis, the success of ECW, how close he came to working for TNA and much more!
To listen to or download the two part interview with Paul Heyman, click on this link.
To listen to the TNA Wrestling specific part of the interview click here, and fast forward to the 8:10 mark. Paul goes into detail about his differences with Dixie Carter on the direction of TNA. He definitely had a different vision than the current version of TNA Wrestling. Very interesting take.
You can check out more from Paul Heyman at HeymanHustle.com
Follow Paul on Twitter @HeymanHustle
Follow Brock Lesnar on Twitter @DCBROCKLESNAR
I have a feeling that, knowing how close Paul was to going to TNA, we will now have a lot of legendary moments in TNA that never were.
Not to say that we won’t have any under the current TNA/IW era. I know we’ll have plenty of moments in the making for the future. But I mean in the way of how things could have ended up being different. You never know, in this realm, Jay Lethal got released. But in the other realm, a realm where Paul actually signed with TNA and ran the company, Jay Lethal became as big as The Rock/Stone Cold, etc.
Its a joyful wonderland…
I’ve been listening to the interview for the last few minutes and it’s pretty interesting. I would encourage everyone to use the links above to listen to this interview – it sounds like Paul Heyman would have had a good run operating TNA Wrestling, but who knows?
His vision of what he would have done is appealing to me. Not to say it would have been necessarily better as Joe says who knows.
As much as I am enjoying the current product I hope sometime down the line the creative direction changes hands again and maybe it will be Paul.
I think one of the biggest problems in wrestling right now is the same guys book for 5 or more years, it’s impossible to come up with fresh ideas over a span that long, even Vince Russo has admitted that in an interview awhile back.
Part of me wants to believe that Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan are already going down the path that Paul Heyman talks about. For example, I think Heyman is correct when he says that you really only should have one or two bonafide legends in the spotlight at any one time. At the same time, Hogan and Bischoff have already said that they’re using the big names to draw attention to the company.
Ideally, another year or so goes by and you have less of the spotlight being focused on the more experienced names and, instead, more of the focus on new faces and talent.
I guess we’ll see – who knows?
Well I personally think it’s such a shame Paul didn’t get a chance to implement this. Its so true that the younger guys struggle to shine with so many legends there. It’s not that the show focusses on the legends actually wrestling (with the exception of sting), it’s just that the spotlight naturally shines brighter on those guys as they have charisma and big personalities (hell that’s why they became legends in the first place). It just ends up making the younger talent look bland.
I think the Jay Lethal/Ric Flair thing is a good example. When I think back on that, the first thing I remember is Flair, even though Lerhal cut some great promos and kicked Flairs ass.
Would agree that Dixie might be be too nice. When you’ve got people like Nash, Hall, Waltman, and even Foley making public and negative comments about the company while they’re getting a pay check from that company something is wrong.