During an interview on the MackMania podcast, WWE’s Paul Heyman was asked his thoughts on the WWE Biography series that is airing on A&E and why he chose to be a part of it:
“If I find the subject matter compelling, if I find it riveting, if I know things about the subject matter that this many years later have never been revealed, or a perspective that has not been offered, or one that needs to be reinforced, that’s a project I’m willing to sign off on. I turn down far more projects than I allow myself to be involved in because I’m really picky.”
“These A&E docs so far, and I haven’t seen the ones coming up in the upcoming weeks and months, but so far, they are of super high quality. I’m really impressed with them. If they don’t knock down a few Emmys for these, something is really wrong. Just magnificent storytelling, very honest, not self serving for WWE, not hyperbole, a real honest documentary. That was another thing that when I asked, ‘Hey, what are the talking points? What is the company line? How honest can we be?’ The answer was, ‘No talking points, no company line. We’re going to ask you direct questions and you give us direct answers as you see them’. That really intrigued me. So not only was I happy to come on board and participate in this, I actually asked to be involved in more.”
Heyman said Roman Reigns would give The Rock a title match:
“If Dwayne Johnson wants the publicity to lose to Roman Reigns, we’ll give him a title match. He doesn’t even have to wait in line, win a Battle Royal, or whatever. There’s box office there. I’m impressed with what Dwayne Johnson has done outside of WWE and I would counsel Roman Reigns that we could make a special provision to defend the title and smash Dwayne Johnson. If Dwayne Johnson wants to take that beating, he is more than welcome to step up to The Tribal Chief as long as he understands that when the match is over, he’s going to be, like everyone else, he’s going to acknowledge The Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns.”
Heyman was asked what he would say to people that felt Vince McMahon was out of touch:
“I think there’s a locker room and an office filled with fabulously wealthy people thanks to the 22-hour work day of Vince McMahon for the past 40 years. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Vince McMahon. What a hypocrite I would be to say anything less than extraordinarily complimentary things about that man. His work ethic, his willingness to put in 22 hours a day, everyday, seven days a week, 365 days a year for 40 years, is why we are all fabulously wealthy and he’ll never get the credit or the understanding that he truly deserves and that he earned.”
“Fully supportive of the new regime. They understand the task at hand. The people that are involved right now at steering this ship were prepared to steer this ship by Vince McMahon.”
“When I took the job as executive director, I asked Vince, ‘What is the greatest service that I can give this company in this role?’ I thought it would be something like, oversee the best writing, give me your best storylines, work your ass off, put the task at hand first, and his answer was, ‘Get your successor ready in case you drop dead because the show goes on, with or without you.’ He looked me straight in the eyes and he said, ‘The show goes on, with or without me’, and he meant it. I could tell you multiple stories that I won’t because they happened in confidence that back up that statement that I witnessed him say to other people at times when, ‘Well, you know this happened. What do we do Vince?’ The answer was always, ‘The show goes on. I don’t care if it’s me. The show goes on’, and he meant it.”
“So everyone right now who is steering this ship was prepared to steer the ship by Vince himself, which makes me very comfortable in their vision, and their hopes and dreams and desires, and their new vision, their vision, which should not be Vincent’s vision. It should be their vision because Vince’s vision wasn’t his father’s vision. It was his vision. He created a universe in an image that he believed in, and those who are now running the show will create the progression of that universe into the next generation of that universe based on the things they agreed with and the things they disagreed with. So hopefully the things they disagreed with, they will make better, and the things they understood were an absolute, taught by Vince, they will carry on that tradition. It’s going to be fascinating to watch.”
