Paul Heyman (born September 11, 1965) is an American entertainment producer, most well-known for his former roles in professional wrestling as promoter, manager, and commentator.
Heyman is famous as the creative force behind Extreme Championship Wrestling's rise to prominence in the 1990s. He has also worked in World Championship Wrestling, the American Wrestling Association and World Wrestling Entertainment, including WWE's ECW brand where he was recognized as the ECW Representative.
Heyman was named in the prestigious list of Top 100 Marketers by Advertising Age magazine, a widely recognized honor that he is one of the true brand developers not only in sports entertainment but also on a global basis.
After departing WCW, Heyman attempted to start a new promotion in Texas with Jim Crockett Jr., but Crockett wanted to build a traditional wrestling company while Heyman declared wrestling was antiquated and a new take on the genre was needed to be successful in it.
At this time, Eddie Gilbert was booker for a Philadelphia-based promotion, NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling, which he did under the ownership of a pawn shop owner in Philly named Tod Gordon. Heyman came in to help Gilbert teach the younger wrestlers how to perform on interviews, but Gilbert's erratic behavior became too much for Gordon, who had a major falling out with Gilbert right before the "Ultra Clash" event on September 18, 1993.
It's that date that many point to the start of the ECW revolution and the birth of Paul Heyman as the most influential professional wrestling booker and writer of his time. Heyman decided to make stars of the promotion's local talent, an unheard of strategy and one that many believed could never work. But Heyman's approach was completely different than anyone could imagine, and he built a wild, rabid cult following that would chant the name of the promotion (EC-DUB, EC-DUB) instead of the names of the individual wrestlers.
As Paul E. Dangerously, he managed a few wrestlers, including Sabu and 911, but Heyman's increased workload led to him making fewer and fewer appearances on-camera.
Heyman addressing the crowd at an ECW television taping in 1999
A year later, Heyman rechristened the promotion "Exteme," eliminating Gordon's regional branding "Eastern" and declaring the promotion Extreme Championship Wrestling. Heyman broke the company away from the National Wrestling Alliance and ECW became its own entity, with Heyman encouraging wrestlers to express their true feelings about WWE (then WWF) and WCW, and allowing them to help develop their own characters. The company grew an intensely loyal fan base with which Heyman encouraged interaction. Eventually, Heyman became owner of Extreme Championship Wrestling and helped it to grow and become the third-ranking promotion in America. Heyman served as booker, promoter, and the executive producer of both live events and television. After Gordon left, he also had to deal with financial matters, which led to ever-increasing debts owed to the wrestlers. Many critics say Heyman's hands-on approach to the entire company lead to his inability to save the company when the TNN (later SpikeTV) network dumped ECW in favor of the market leading WWF (now WWE) brand. Heyman supporters point out that the total debt for the company was $7 million US, with InDemand pay per view owing over a million in PPV revenue. Heyman supporters argue that comparing that number to the staggering losses of other start ups such as EliteXC, IFL, and even TNA support the claim Heyman was a genius and built a global phenomenon from nothing.
Under Heyman's guidance, Extreme Championship Wrestling became a catalyst that altered the standard of pro wrestling in North America. The company pointedly eschewed the predictable and cartoon-like nature of the mainstream products, and fostered a counterculture alternative attitude; Heyman specifically analogized it to the grunge movement in music. With this, it also depicted more graphic and realistic violence in its product. Additionally, ECW introduced traditional Japanese and Mexican wrestling styles, which were previously rare on American television, and presented them alongside the North American wrestling. Journalists and those who worked with Heyman credit him alone with these innovations, and their effect reached to the mainstream even after the company had ended.
ECW achieved national prominence, but folded in 2001. Paul and a handful of other wrestlers have said that the death of ECW was for two reasons: One was that Paul did not like sharing power and thus put too much workload and stress on himself; he was getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night, if any. The second reason was ECW could not get another network deal after being kicked off The Nashville Network in favor of WWF. Heyman has also frequently cited Eric Bischoff as a primary architect of the company's downfall, expressing his long-held belief that Bischoff's hiring of ECW wrestlers away to WCW was intentionally meant to weaken ECW, which couldn't afford WCW-level salaries.
Having left WWE, Heyman tried to pursue a position in mixed martial arts when he joined a consortium which looked to buy out Strikeforce; it ultimately did not buy out StrikeForce although Heyman praised Strikeforce owner Scot Coker in subsequent interviews.
Since leaving wrestling, Paul Heyman has entered into a collaborative relationship with The Sun, a UK-based newspaper and website.
On February 4, 2008, he gave The Sun an exclusive interview (his first since leaving WWE) about his problems with WWE's handling of the ECW brand, and the events leading up to his quitting.
Heyman has also begun a multimedia project with the paper called The Heyman Hustle, which he describes as "the high definition video blog of a rambling mind." It features video of Heyman interacting with celebrities from various fields of entertainment on the streets of New York City, as well as regular writings of Heyman's take on the world of professional wrestling, including his thoughts on the McMahon wrestling family, the Chris Benoit murder-suicide, Ric Flair's retirement, and Joey Styles being replaced by Mike Adamle as the ECW play-by-play commentator. Noticeable guests of the 1st season of the Hustle include Holly Madison, Ice-T and Coco, James Lipton, Aubrey O'Day, and Jesse Ventura.
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