Paul Heyman made an appearance on After The Bell with Corey Graves to discuss a wide range of topics, including the regime change in WWE from Vince McMahon in charge to Triple H in power. Here are the highlights:
The regime change in WWE:
“Well, it’s different than the last transition because the last transition was going to be the end of the New York territory and the beginning of a national and then global expansion because anybody that had seen the rise of Vincent Kennedy McMahon knew that his vision and his goals and his ambitions could not be contained with just the Northeast territory. He saw the expansion of cable and he realized it’s a national game now and with the eye on once it becomes national, it’s gonna go international. So it was also the end of professional wrestling in the Northeast and the implementation of sports entertainment. The entire concept of bigger, better, brighter, Madison Avenue friendly, licensed out action figures, and T shirts, and memorabilia, etc, etc, the big vision for what was a very enormous contained niche industry.”
“Now we’re seeing a regime change of a five and a half billion dollar publicly traded global conglomerate. It’s a far different type of progression into the future because the inheritance of the product comes along with the fact that the product is already established with billion dollar license fees and therefore there is an expectation of what the product is. There’s not going to be that drastic of a change in the entire concept of what we’re promoting, to go from Worldwide Wrestling Federation, which then became World Wrestling Federation, to the concept that is now World Wrestling Entertainment. That was the last transition. This transition is, what do we do with this World Wrestling Entertainment with its billion dollar license fees and how do we progress it into today’s culture, to dominate today’s culture, to compete with the NFL and the NBA and the NHL and Major League Baseball and overseas futbol and soccer and cricket, etc, etc, let alone every every other form of entertainment that’s out there.”
What he would like to see more of going forward:
“It’s the same answer I would have given 35 years ago, the same answer I gave in 1993 going into Philadelphia, the same answer I gave in 2001 coming aboard WWE, the same answer I gave Vince McMahon as executive director of RAW. New superstars, new talents, new personas, new characters, to mix in with those that we care about.”
Paul Heyman Opens Up On The Regime Change In WWE
