Promoter
Paul Heyman
Paul Heyman (born September 11, 1965 in Scarsdale, New York) is a professional wrestling manager, on-air talent, and former promoter. He is best known for being the creative force behind Extreme Championship Wrestling's rise to prominence in the 1990s.
Heyman debuted as Paul E. Dangerously, a manager on the independent circuit. In 1986, while a manager in WCW and the AWA, he was known as Paul E. Dangerously, and many in the business still refer to him as "Paul E." In WCW, he managed the Dangerous Alliance (made up of Rick Rude, Arn Anderson, Steve Austin, Bobby Eaton and Larry Zbyszko). He was also the manager of the Original Midnight Express, Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose, in the AWA and WCW.
ECW began operating in 1992 as Eastern Championship Wrestling. After
owner Todd Gordon had a bad falling out with head booker Eddie Gilbert,
Gordon called upon Paul Heyman. Gordon called Heyman because Heyman was
Eddie Gilbert's closest confidant. Gordon wanted Heyman to help him book
a big show called Ultra Clash '93 (on September 18, 1993) at the ECW Arena
in Philadelphia.
On August 27, 1994, the name was changed from Eastern to Extreme. The
name change as well as the change in attitude and product were a direct
result of Paul Heyman. Paul Heyman, was the lead booker and promoter of
ECW. ECW had the distinction of using "real" music for it's
wrestlers, and fairly obscure music at times at that. The opening theme
music used to consist of a combination of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer"
(the heartbeat that spells out E-X-T-R-E-M-E) which cuts to White Zombie's
"Thunderkiss '65" (the guitar part and the Pitbull's music).
Heyman acquired ECW from its founder, Tod Gordon, after the ECW Barely Legal Pay-Per-View. Because of Heyman's love for wrestling, combined with his ability to book matches that the crowd would love, he earned the nicknames "The Evil Genius of Wrestling" and "The Mad Scientist of Wrestling". Heyman introduced several new types of matches to the American audience, such as "The Three Way Dance", "The Barbed Wire Death Match" and "Double Tables". Such matches were never before seen in the WWE or WCW, thus solidifying Heyman's reputation as an outlaw in the world of professional wrestling. Heyman brought "Lucha Libre" wrestling to American television, an event which inspired the WWE and WCW to follow suit.
After noticing ECW's growing popularity, the "Big Two" (WCW and the WWF) started adopting their ideas and hiring away their talent. Paul Heyman believes that ECW was the first victim of the "Monday Night War" between WCW Monday Nitro and Monday Night RAW. While the WWF had somewhat of a working relationship with ECW (going as far as allowing cross-promotional storylines), WCW refused to even mention ECW by name, calling it "barbed wire city" and "a major independent promotion" that wrestled in bingo halls.
Before ECW got a national television deal, its main sources of exposure were on the Sports Channel America syndication package, on AIN satellite, the Internet and tape trading. ECW would reguarly hold a convention called Cyber Slam, where matches were broadcast over the Internet and fans could chat online with the wrestlers themselves.
In August 1999, ECW began to broadcast nationally on TNN; however, this signalled the beginning of the end. TNN didn't give ECW much money to produce their program, yet expected ECW to have high-quality production values like WCW Monday Nitro and Monday Night RAW. This was a problem within itself because Paul Heyman didn't want to change the look or compromise the integrity of the ECW brand anyway. Also, TNN poorly advertised and promoted ECW -- there were barely any press releases or television ads. The only time that TNN actually advertised ECW was during the ECW program itself.
TNN also censored a great deal of the program even though the violence and raunchiness were what made ECW so unique in the first place. TNN didn't want the theme song -- which was a a combination of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" (the heartbeat that spells out E-X-T-R-E-M-E) and White Zombie's "Thunderkiss '65" -- because according to Paul Heyman, it sounded "too demonic." TNN also didn't want any references to "hate" (they preferred "intense dislike") and wanted no music videos on the ECW program. During the first edition of ECW on TNN, Paul Heyman was so unsatisfied with the shoot that he did for TNN that he instead showed a replay of a match between Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn from the 1999 Hardcore Heaven pay-per-view.
Paul Heyman was so frustrated with the way TNN treated ECW that he went as far as cutting a shoot promo and addressed his utter hatred for TNN (or "The Network" as Heyman called it on television). Heyman believed that TNN used ECW as simply a guinea pig to see if professional wrestling could work on the network.
Heyman decided to recruit Don Callis, who played the part of Cyrus, to serve as an onscreen metaphor for the real problems between ECW and TNN at that point. Callis played a representative for TNN/The Network, who constantly critizised the violent nature of ECW programming.
Even though ECW became TNN's highest rated show, TNN was at the time of Heyman's "shoot" publicly negotiating with Vince McMahon's WWF product. ECW on TNN was cancelled in October 2000 in favor of RAW jumping over to the network.
To this day, Paul Heyman strongly believes that the lack of a national television deal (especially after the TNN trial) was the main cause of ECW's demise.
ECW struggled for months after the cancellation, trying to secure a new national TV deal, but could not. Despite help from the WWF, Heyman could not get out of financial trouble and filed for bankruptcy on April 4, 2001.
On April 11, 2001, ECW declared bankruptcy making it officially dead. Later that week, Paul Heyman made his WWF debut as a color commentator replacing Jerry "The King" Lawler. Other ECW stars began to appear on WWF television including Justin Credible, Rhino, Spike Dudley, and Jerry Lynn.
No one can deny the genius that is Paul Heyman and the changes he brought
to the wrestling business.
(Written by Brett Schwan)
Additional Comments:
" Paul Heyman. The guy changed the face of the business. What
else can be said?" - Ace Darling
