Paul Heyman (@HeymanHustle) is a pro wrestling manager and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Stamford, CT to discuss how he brings out the best in the wrestlers he advocates for, being aligned with top stars such as Brock Lesnar, CM Punk and Roman Reigns, how he became Roman Reigns’ Wise Man, why Curtis Axel and Cesaro didn’t work as “Paul Heyman Guys”, being in the ring with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 42 when Lesnar appeared to have retired, what he does behind the scenes in WWE, why he left WWE in 2006, how close he came to joining TNA, and more!

You are an absolute master at the little things. I believe that’s the big reason how you turn good into great. Where does that come from for you, mastering those little things?

“I mean, well, thank you for your kind words on that, but it’s just the desire to do something substantive, it’s the desire to do something better than other people do it. It’s the desire to achieve greatness. It’s the adrenaline rush. It’s the dopamine effect when you achieve something that seems to be unachievable, and whether that’s a nuance in a performance, getting that out of someone else, collaborating with someone on their efforts to achieve that greatness. It’s just the pursuit of something that you can be proud of, that you can look back on if you choose to look back on things and say, yeah, that I really enjoyed doing that. That gave me a high that’s not available through any kind of drug, any kind of sex, anything else in life, with the exception of quality time with your children. Outside of that, it’s chasing that high. What makes Mick Jagger and Keith Richards go on stage at their age when they certainly don’t need the money, and tear the stadium down, not only doing classic Rolling Stones music, but new music that they still to this day choose to write, what drives that? What makes them want that? Why is Clint Eastwood directing movies in his 90s and they are Academy Award-level movies? Because there is a need, there’s a yearning, there’s a craving, there is an insatiable lust to go after something that you’re passionate about and want to overdeliver, even past your own expectations.”

Where do you think the Paul Heyman character ends and the Paul Heyman the man begins?

“Depends on the day, depends on what’s needed inside of the performance. The persona of Paul Heyman is carried a lot by the real-life experiences of the person Paul Heyman. So, if I’m asked, I’m not a good actor. I’m not a trained actor. I never went to acting classes. I was never trained to be an actor. I’m not a good actor.”

I would disagree with that. You are a fantastic actor!

“Well, thank you. I’m a method actor. I find things that trigger the emotion that has to be presented within the scene that we’re presenting. So I have to rely on things that I can relate to, so therefore you’re getting a lot of me within the character, but it’s clearly a persona that I’m putting forth, and it’s a skin that I’ve learned to be very comfortable walking in. Ric Flair, famously or infamously, has said many times, the day I’m nervous walking through the curtain is the day I don’t walk through the curtain, and it’s funny because to me, the day I’m nervous walking through the curtain is the day I don’t go, because I’m not nervous going out there. I’m a lot more comfortable in the middle of the ring with a live microphone in my hand in front of 20,000, 30,000, 70,000, 5,000 people than I am just sitting here talking with you right now.”

How did it become a thing the way you say Brock Lesnar’s name, because there’s a lot of fans out there that can’t just say Brock Lesnar. They say Brock Lesnar!

“Well, that’s all branding, I mean, that’s all a matter of what is the emotion that you want to convey. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. I tell that to everybody. The first thing, if someone comes up to me with a script and they say, ‘Oh, these are the words…’ The very first thing I do is, ‘Are you ready? Tell me what you need to do. Tell me your assignment.’ When Joey Styles first came to ECW, Joey Styles would say, ‘We are here live at the ECW arena…’ Stop, cut, break. If you go to Rome and you go to the Sistine Chapel and you look at Michelangelo’s work on the ceiling, do you sit there and say, ‘I’m here at the Sistine Chapel…’ Michelangelo painted that. ‘Look at this ceiling, it was painted by Michelangelo on his back for 5, 10, 15 years,’ whatever the story is. Say the ECW Arena like you’re saying Madison Square Garden, like you’re saying Yankee Stadium, say it with such honor and prestige that it carries weight. So Joey Styles would say, ‘We are here live at the ECW Arena…’ and it’s looking up because it’s majestic, it’s opera, it’s operatic, so it’s never looking down the ECW Arena. It’s the ECW Arena, so everything that you want is about the manner in which you present it.” 

When you’re managing someone on screen, it doesn’t end when Raw ends or SmackDown ends. When you’re a Paul Heyman guy, this is all throughout the week, this is all the time. What does that look like?

“Well, again, it depends on the person that we’re talking about. The way I work with Brock Lesnar is a lot different than the way I would work with Roman Reigns. The way I would work with Roman Reigns is a lot different than the way I would work with CM Punk. The way I would work with CM Punk is a lot different than the way I would work with Bron Breakker. It really depends on the need of the artist. What does it take for Brock Lesnar to achieve the greatness that I know Brock Lesnar can achieve? What does it take for Roman Reigns to achieve the greatness in the form of The Tribal Chief that I know that he can achieve, and whatever it takes to get them there, I’m willing to do, because I want to be in on that greatness. I want to be challenged to rise to that occasion. If all they have to worry about is the actual performance and everything else is taken care of, okay. What’s your nutrition for the day? Tell me your nutrition for the day, so that when you arrive at the arena, that food is waiting for you. It’s prepared, it will be delivered to you at the time that you eat. You eat at 1 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 5 o’clock, 7 o’clock? You eat at 1 o’clock and 7 o’clock? Is there a particular type of vehicle that you are more comfortable being driven in than another type of vehicle that takes you to the arena, so that when you’re in that vehicle, you can think about your performance. If we just designate the fact that the performance is everything, it’s the end-all, be-all. It’s what we spend our lives crafting and desiring and wanting and needing, and the need to achieve something within that performance at a higher level than everyone else on the roster, if not in the entire industry. If we disagree, if we just come to the understanding that we both want it that bad, past the point of obsession, past the point of it even being a healthy obsession that we’re willing it to be an unhealthy obsession in that pursuit, and we both agree to it. Let’s go for that. That’s where I go, and I fall short of my own expectations many times, but I won’t let you fall short of yours.”

It’s interesting, because there’s that moment in 2020, and wrestling’s in a weird spot with COVID. When that camera pans out, Roman Reigns is sitting on the couch next to you. Everything changed. As I understand, Vince didn’t like this couch you were sitting on. What’s the story behind that?

“Vince thought the couch was not opulent enough for a character that was then going to end up being called The Tribal Chief. I can’t disagree with him, but we were in a rush to get that done. Well, the original idea was for us both to return at SummerSlam, and then be on TV that Friday and lead into Payback that weekend that we built to in the rematch where the title went to the Tribal Chief Roman Reigns. I thought let Roman return, give that moment to The Big Dog, and then that Friday on television, he’s not cooperative in the triple threat, he’s not cooperative with Adam Pearce, you know something’s up, but you can’t put your finger on it. Go to him sitting on the couch, and Pearce is looking over going, what the f*ck is Heyman doing there?! But you don’t know that Heyman sitting there, and at the last second pull out because Roman says, ‘That’s not a prediction, that’s a spoiler.’ And you see Brock Lesnar’s advocate sitting with Roman Reigns after all these years, and I just hit Roman’s tagline of ‘Believe that,’ and off the air. So for five seconds you see us together. Did I just see that? You’re rubbing your eyes, and you can’t believe what you saw. And then that weekend get the title on Roman, and then the next Friday is our first appearance, truly together in front of the cameras as a unit, presenting our case as to why this act is a game-changing act, and will create history in WWE.”

There’s a certain way you look at Roman Reigns. What’s the thinking behind that? 

“Uninhibited, uncontroverted, absolute devotion under any and all circumstances. If the room is on fire, and he says we’re going to run through the flames to get to the other side. ‘Yes, my Tribal Chief, I will go with you, my Tribal Chief. For I believe in you to such an extent that if you say we’re going to run through the fire and go to the other side, I have absolutely no reason to doubt the fact that we’re going through on to the other side, my Tribal Chief, and I will light myself on fire for you, my Tribal Chief, to protect you from the flames, for you are my Tribal Chief, and I acknowledge you. My world is built around that acknowledgement.’ It’s just devout worship, it’s blind devotion. It’s also the way, to be blunt, I used to see some people in a room when Vince would talk. It was just amazing to me that if you’re in the room and you’re not there to give a contrarian opinion, I don’t know what you’re in the room for. Because then you just inevitably become a yes man, so there were too many people, too many times that anything that Vince would say, it was never offering an opinion of, ‘Hey, that sounds great, and what if we did it this way too.’ Where’s your own input into it? In watching that, and in seeing other people, you know, just in Hollywood, do it too. Just, ‘Oh, that was so magnificent! Academy Award! Yes, yes! Oh, that was wonderful!’ It’s like, really?”

That sounds like fear?

“Yes, and in many ways it is fear, but it’s also devotion. It’s also just an absolute worship, an absolute giving of oneself to the Tribal Chief, because you must. Because to be in the Tribal Chief’s orbit, to have the Tribal Chief’s attention and to receive any acknowledgement. If you go back and you watch the time on the couch, he looked to me because he had to bring the camera to me, that was necessary. Once the Tribal Chief won the title. I told him, don’t look at me on the entrances. Hold out your hand for the championship and take the championship, but don’t [look at me]. Even when you call for the mic, don’t look at me, nothing. Don’t acknowledge me. Wait till I earn it. Give me a few months of service to the Tribal Chief, service to the cause of the Tribal Chief, service to the Island of Relevancy, service to The Bloodline. Then I will have earned my stripes enough for the Tribal Chief to say, ‘Thank you, Wiseman.’ That’s it. A lot of times he does. He looked this way, and I’m over and say, ‘Wiseman?’ And I come over his shoulder. ‘Yes, my Tribal Chief?’ And he wouldn’t look at me, because for the Tribal Chief to look at you, you have to earn that. It’s a matter of placing him above God, and if you can create that deity above the deity, then you have firmly established that’s the sun around which everything else orbits, that’s the energy in the room, that’s the oxygen that we all crave, and if you, and if you position him in that way, then it just makes him so much more of a bigger star.”

It’s so easy now to look back and go, of course, this character would work. We have the benefit of hindsight. It’s been six years, of course, it works, but was there anyone at that time that didn’t think it would work?

“Well, you know, it’s just the little things that go into it. The first time I came up with Tribal Chief, [Vince said] ‘Really? You want to call him the Tribal Chief?’”

What did Vince want to call him?

“Oh, The Big Dog, Roman Reigns, with his advocate, Paul Heyman. I said, ‘Well, I can’t be his advocate as Brock Lesnar’s advocate. We have to have something different to Roman Reigns, and Roman Reigns has to be different. You got to pull the trigger on this. This has to be as much of a seismic shift as The Deadman becoming The American Badass. This is a whole new character. This is a whole new persona, and he could not have played this persona earlier, because he was too young to do it. He needed to weather the storms to become the Tribal Chief. We grew up with him, almost like he was a child star, in that we saw him from his young days, fresh out of college, and he grew into this Tribal Chief.”

What a beautiful moment you and Brock Lesnar shared at WrestleMania 42. Can you take me into the ring? What was the conversation that you guys shared during that long embrace?

“I thanked him for everything. He thanked me for everything. I told him that I love him. He told me that he loves me. Then I asked him if he finds it funny that the two of us are standing in the middle of the ring, in the middle of the stadium, in the middle of WrestleMania, being broadcast all over ESPN, telling each other that we love each other. I said, ‘This is kind of a surreal moment.’ He goes, ‘F*ck them! Don’t worry about that, this is just for us.’ Okay, my beast. Happy to happen, happy to participate in the moment. It was just a very personal moment that we were not hesitant to share with the rest of the world. It was a very emotional moment.”

I guess that it was a moment to say thank you, but it wasn’t a retirement; Brock Lesnar is still competing

“Indeed he is.”

So what do we make of that moment? What should we make of that moment at WrestleMania 42?

“Remember how I felt if I’m an audience member. I would remember how I felt watching it. I’d remember what that moment was. I remember all that it encompassed, and I would be appreciative of the fact that I got to live that moment and experience it and hold it in my data bank as a fan.”

You’ve managed so many champions, so many Paul Heyman guys have gone on to be champions. I don’t know if you’ve talked about this before. What was the original plan with Curtis Axel? Why didn’t that one work out?

“Because I don’t think it was meant to work out. I don’t think there was ever an overall grand scheme to move Curtis Axel all the way up the ladder. Curtis Axel filled the need for there to be people around me to feed to CM Punk at the time, it’s the same thing that happened with Cesaro. You look at Cesaro, and he checked, especially at that moment in time, he checked every box to become a top star. Everyone who got into the ring with him came back into Gorilla, saying, ‘Give me him.’ Everyone, I remember John Cena worked with him on television and came back and looked at Vince and said, ‘I could main event WrestleMania with him.’ And probably could have, and should have. Cesaro was placed in that position the day after Brock Lesnar conquered The Streak, so that when Brock took his hiatus, I had an excuse to be on television to say my client Brock Lesnar conquered The Undertaker’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania, and you needed an excuse to have me out there on television, and if you put me on commentary, I can’t say it for two or three hours, I have to say it with impact once a week, just drill that into your head, reinforcement, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. So Cesaro became the excuse to see me say the line. Curtis Axel was cast as Paul Heyman guy, generic Paul Heyman guy. You may as well have put a mask on him and call him the Mad Russian, Mr. X, the assassin, the punk destroyer, so that we could feed the babyface CM Punk, and that’s a shame for Curtis Axel, because he had a lot more to offer, but he delivered in those matches with Punk, and that was the assignment, and once that assignment was over, there was no plan to propel him further, and he didn’t have the cache to go in and pitch for something that would continue the momentum coming out of that program.”

So there wasn’t a long-term plan for either of those guys?

“I don’t believe so. If there was, I was never clued in on it. When I was told I was getting Curtis Axel, my question was, what are we doing with this, and Vince’s answer was going all the way to the top. I don’t think Vince really felt that about him, and I don’t think, I mean, I could tell by the third week I was with Cesaro, oh, I understand what we’re doing here, I get it. I see how this is going to play out, that as soon as Brock is back, this is going to get discarded.”

I think that people just think that you’re an on-screen character, because that’s just what they see on Raw or SmackDown, but what is your role in WWE now?

“If I were to list my scope of services, what would be number one? I’m the liaison for some talent, in terms of I’m the creative liaison between that talent and the creative team, the creative team and that talent, so a lot of the creative will flow through me in both directions. I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes business for members of The Vision, obviously for Brock Lesnar, and there are others, more so on Fridays than on Mondays, because Mondays I’m on air a lot, I sit all the way in the right corner in Gorilla. Paul Levesque is up in the position with the headsets on, Bruce Prichard or Ed Koski or John Beckstrom or Ryan Ward will sit next to Paul, so of the 1,000 details per show that Paul has to hold on to, anything that needs to be taken care of. Okay, take care of that. As he navigates the macro, the micro will fall down to the person next to him. In front of them will be [Billy] Kidman or Jason [Jordan], who keep the show honest in terms of time, commercial breaks. We have to hit this crossover, we have to be off the air by this moment, and next to them will be the producer of the segment on headsets, to this side will be the writer of the segment on headsets, and next to the writer is me, and I just sit there and I watch the show, and I’m watching for things that ‘we need to follow up on that.’ ‘Oh, you know what? Let’s not follow up anymore on this.’ ‘Let’s pull that segment coming up in 12 or 13, because it’s a good mystery as it is now.’ I can give instant feedback during the show, but more importantly, I’m there for any talent. I’m there all day for any talent, top to bottom, newcomer to veteran, NXT talent moving up to legend that’s there for a cameo. I’m there for anybody that wants to talk about their performance that night, or their creative process, or how they’re going to approach a certain scene, or their match, or their finish, or anything that they want to talk about in this business. In the art form of the presentation, immediate or long-term, I’m there to talk to them. If I can have the liberty of using this phrase to bestow some wisdom upon them.” 

Fans feel like they know so much right now, especially because all of this information is constantly in our pocket. They feel like they could book this show better than anybody. What are wrestling fans not understand about putting together a wrestling show?

“That it’s not about the immediate moment. You asked me before, what I do behind the scenes in WWE? I do not go into the weekly television meetings. I don’t get into that level of micro anymore. I stay very macro. I attend the long-term meetings, the long-term creative meetings. I take the ride up to Stanford. I sit in on those meetings and love those days. My latest obsession has been, let’s book out SaudiMania. Let’s get that done.” 

So, you’re already looking at that now?

“Oh, I’m looking at the year after Saudi. If it was up to me, and it’s not. Let’s start there. We’ll change it every week if we have to. We’ll change it every time we meet, but let’s get something that we’re building towards. Let’s write the last page now, and then let’s build towards it. I would love to know what we’re doing the year after Saudi at WrestleMania. I’d love to have a concept for that. Who is Roman Reigns’ opponent then? Who’s CM Punk’s opponent then? Who’s Logan Paul’s opponent then? Who’s Bron Breakker’s opponent then? Who’s Seth Rollins’ opponent? Jade Cargill, Becky Lynch, Liv Morgan, Rhea Ripley. What are we building towards? Because if we know that and we have a concept for that, then it makes SaudiMania really easy. It’s not about, oh, you know what I would do this Monday, okay? But how does that affect next Monday? How does that affect what I want to do in January? How does that affect the Royal Rumble? How does that affect SaudiMania? How does that affect what I want to do the year after? Here’s an example. Okay, right now we have lined up for Crown Jewel, the trilogy. The champion on Raw is Roman Reigns. The champion on SmackDown is Cody Rhodes. It’s 1-1. If they both retain the titles all the way to Crown Jewel, we get the trilogy at Crown Jewel. What an enormous main event. What a prestigious main event. What a historic main event for Crown Jewel. You want to sell Crown Jewel, you want that to be one of the biggest PLEs of the year. You want that to be a hot ticket, both in terms of selling tickets and on the secondary market? Put the trilogy match there.”

Earlier, you mentioned working with Vince McMahon. What’s the story behind you leaving WWE in 2006. What led to that?

“We had very different visions for the rebirth of ECW. I was a lead writer of the third show, Raw, SmackDown, ECW, and he was the chairman of the board with 85% of the voting stock. One of us had to leave. Don’t know if you’re a betting man, if you’re gonna place a bet on which one of us was gonna leave, I think the [man] who’s just merely the lead writer of the third show, is going to be the one whose ass is out the door, not the chairman of the board with 85% of the voting stock.”

What led to that? What led to just the relationship falling apart?

“The rebirth of ECW.”

But One Night Stand went so well?

“Because it was a one night stand, and One Night Stand 2005 was a magnificent event that was as authentic an ECW presentation as we could put on in 2005 including but not limited to, but certainly highlighted by the Sandman’s entrance, which I fought for to the point of almost getting fired.”

Because Vince didn’t want to pay for Metallica?

“Right. When that music hit, everyone at the Hammerstein Ballroom knew, wow! This is a real ECW show. This is how it felt back in the 90s, and in 2000. 2006 I thought was a B minus show that had a main event that was so memorable that the audience made such a spectacle of Rob Van Dam versus John Cena. Because in ECW, Rob Van Dam never had a world title shot, 23 months as the world TV champion, and for most of those 23 months, the world TV title meant as much, if not more, than the world title, because it was held by Rob Van Dam and pushed in that fashion. But Rob Van Dam finally going for the big title against John Cena, who was the antithesis of what an ECW fan thought should be a performer on an ECW show, and their main event was so memorable for the audience’s reaction. The character of the audience was the star of that show, and the fact that Rob Van Dam won made that show popular, acceptable, beloved. Coming out of that, had we presented somewhat of a new style, a progressive, innovative approach to professional wrestling in 2006 that was a genuine alternative to anything WWE was offering at the time on Raw or SmackDown, it could have been a hit. But instead it just became a third brand utilizing stars off of Raw and SmackDown. First move I made in the new ECW, I brought CM Punk up from OVW. I wanted Rob Van Dam to be the legend from the original crew, and then you sprinkle in all these other ECW originals as we move the new stars up into the spotlight of what would become a new version of ECW, which was at its worst a complete alternative to anything else that’s out there, and instead that it was not what WWE was willing to put on the air, and was amongst the most miserable experiences of my entire life, because it became very personal between me and Vince very fast, because I spent seven and a half years of my life building a brand that at some point became more of a cause than a business. So when you give your life to the cause, you give seven and a half years, and these are prime years too.”

“The worst day of my life in ECW was still a wonderful day. I was living out a dream and fighting for my life doing it, and knowing that I’m fighting for a cause that I believed in. So, no one drank the Kool-Aid of the cult of ECW more than Paul Heyman did. I gave seven and a half years of my life to that cult, to that cause, to that mindset, and to Vince, because he was bored with no competition. WCW is gone, ECW was gone, TNA was nothing in terms of capturing Vince’s attention. So, what did Vince McMahon get to do? Oh, God damn it, I get to change an ECW booking on Paul Heyman. It’s power, it’s how Vince operates, and so it became a very personal tug of war between whose vision will be implemented for ECW, when the whole dynamic was let’s create a third brand that’s a true alternative to the other two, so it just became a miserable working environment.”

What was the breaking point? 

“The breaking point was a week after we started, and I couldn’t take it anymore then, and still had to last another six months in the job. The breaking point was the December to Dismember. Coming off of Survivor Series, it was obvious to me that CM Punk was embedded in the zeitgeist of the mindset of the audience in WWE of who is the next big star. He captured the imagination of the WWE crowd, and if we could get the title on to Punk and put Van Dam on the chase, we were getting Bobby Lashley. Put Bobby Lashley on the chase, and the rest of the characters in ECW would rise with the tide as the hottest sensation in WWE, CM Punk, is our champion. Rob Van Dam, who would still be more popular than Punk in the moment, going after the title. Bobby Lashley being anointed as the next big star coming off of SmackDown and changing his style to a more MMA-based style. Wow, we could have really taken this to where, by Mania, ECW would have been red hot. Instead, because I was so infatuated with the idea of an ECW with CM Punk as the champion and Rob Van Dam on the chase and Bobby Lashley on the chase, that Vince said no I want the title on Bobby Lashley. We’re going to beat CM Punk first in the Elimination Chamber, and we’re going to beat Van Dam second in the Elimination Chamber, which was a matter of spite. Once we get to that, that now I’m affecting everybody else’s career, number one, number two, I’m affecting the audience having a chance to like the product because the product is being sabotaged by the very person who wants something out of the product for it to be profitable, but he can’t get out of his own way in terms of competing with me behind the scenes for the decisions that are being made on a product that is still associated with me instead of with him, so just the clash between the two of us became just a god-awful miserable experience that one of us had to escape and he wasn’t going anywhere.”

Was there ever talk in 2006 of you working with TNA behind the scenes?

“Not in 2006.”

At what point did TNA reach out? Was this ever?

“2010.”

Were you ever close to working with TNA?

“Depends on the perspective of the person that you’re asking. You’re asking me, was I ever close? I don’t know. I certainly told them what my five-year plan was, and I talked about this on Ariel Helwani’s podcast back then, going to get rid of everybody over 40, going to get rid of all the legends, going to keep one. Back then they had way too many legends. It was an old-timers game, and some of them had years left to give, but they got lumped in with the other veterans, so they seemed older than they were.”

For so long, there was no competition in wrestling. Now there is. Is wrestling in a better place now because AEW exists?

“I certainly hope so. I mean, it shortchanged the compensation packages for a lot of talent, because there was a wolf across the river named Tony Khan that had a billion dollar checkbook that he could afford to pay a lot more money for talent than talent was making back in 2017, 2018, 2019. So it certainly changed the compensation for talent, and they’re on a viable network, they have a style that’s different than WWEs. They present an alternative, if not a competitive brand. I look at AEW, and I realize the influence that ECW had on that project, on that product. For example, like Moxley is a total ECW Sandman, New Jack style performer. But if you look at the AEW style, it’s Rob Van Dam versus Jerry Lynn from 1999. AEW is RVD, and if you were a fan of what RVD and Jerry Lynn were doing in 1999 a lot of what AEW presents today is derived and is influenced by what RVD and Jerry Lynn were doing back then.” 

Why didn’t Shane end up buying ECW?

“Vince found it more valuable to have, as Vince would say, I’d rather have Paul Heyman in the castle pissing out than out of the castle pissing in. It’s the same move that Apple made in buying Beats. Apple didn’t need Beats, Apple wanted Jimmy Iovine. Vince McMahon was tired of me being out on my own, being an independent, doing my own thing. Decided we need Heyman and wanted Heyman involved, and to get Heyman, you had to at least secure the assets of ECW, or promise the bankruptcy court to secure the assets of ECW, so that there’s a curator for our library, and along with that comes Paul E.”

You had an exceptional tan on TV for a few weeks. What’s the story behind this deep tan?

“I was competing with Bron Breakker as to who could look more ridiculous with the self-tanner that we were applying. Actually the time that I did that, I needed it because I looked god-awful at the time. Here’s something I’ve never revealed publicly, and it just goes back to how you approach this industry or performing in and of itself. I know the exact episode that you’re talking about, because it’s a meme now, where I crashed out when I was talking to Jey Uso, because Jey Uso said I screwed over the Tribal Chief, and it’s like, ‘No, it’s always my fault, it’s always me, me, me, but not this time, I’m not the one, I’m not the betrayer, I’m not the double crosser…’ That crash out was very real to me, because at the time, I always get sick right after WrestleMania, because I wear myself so down going into WrestleMania, so I always get sick. I always end up with a sinus infection, or bronchitis, or something, inner ear infection. Something goes wrong with me the week or two after WrestleMania, every single year. At that particular moment I got a kidney stone, or several kidney stones, and in passing the kidney stone it was so sharp it cut my urinary tract, and besides cutting my urinary tract, it left my urinary tract in a position to where I could catch an infection, and man, the last place you want an infection like that is in the urinary tract, because it’s tough to get rid of. So now the urinary tract inflames, presses up against the prostate, irritates the prostate, the infection now starts to spread, and now the infection is in the urinary tract and in the prostate, and it’s spreading through my system. I end up in the hospital. Shout out to White Plains Hospital, because, wow, they took wonderful care of me. I end up in the hospital, and all I’m asking is, I have to be out of here by Sunday night, because I have to be on the jet on Monday to go to Raw. They’re looking at me saying, ‘You have a very serious infection.’ I mean, they’re bringing in people from infectious diseases, because I’m allergic to penicillin, number one, and number two, any antibiotics that they’re giving me, none of them are working. Infection is getting worse. My temperature is rising, and the effects of the infection are taking hold, but I won’t miss work. So I checked myself out that Monday morning. I chartered a jet on my own to Raw, did Raw, flew on the WWE jet back to White Plains, checked myself back into the hospital, didn’t tell anybody. Meanwhile, when I did that scene, and for a couple weeks afterwards, when I would jet myself to Raw, take the jet back home, check myself back into the hospital, when I did that scene, I had a catheter and a PIC line. Next to trying to book the rebirth of ECW in 2006, perhaps the most miserable experience of my life. But there was work to be done, and I wasn’t going to miss work, especially because we had just launched The Vision, and to miss television, then would be abdicating my responsibility to that story.”

What is Paul Heyman grateful for?

“My children, their health and their understanding that I have these dreams.”

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