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From the Bowery: Ladies and Gentlemen, My Name is Paul Heyman (Blu-Ray Disc One)

October 17, 2014 | Posted by Robert Leighty Jr.
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From the Bowery: Ladies and Gentlemen, My Name is Paul Heyman (Blu-Ray Disc One)  

From the Bowery: Ladies and Gentlemen, My Name is Paul Heyman (Blu-Ray Disc One)

The Documentary

-We start with April 7, 2014 and Heyman in the middle of the ring on RAW as he introduces Lesnar the night after he ended Taker’s WrestleMania Streak. Heyman, in the promo, calls himself the greatest manager of all time and JBL, on commentary, kinds of agrees with him.

-That leads to the beginning as Paul calls himself a schmuck born of 2 extraordinary people. His mother was a Holocaust survivor and he calls her the most driven person he has ever met in his life. He mentions his father was the most ethical and moral personal injury attorney in the history of the Bronx. He admits he was probably a disappointment to his mother, but his father was proud of his son’s moxy and drive.

-The talking heads all throw around first words that come to their mind and I can’t do it justice in this recap. This is just a tremendous opening, as you hear the best of compliments and the worst of insults and in this instance they are all fitting.

-Paul says he was flipping through stations one night and he came across Vince McMahon interviewing “Superstar” Billy Graham. Heyman was a fan from that night as he was captivated by Graham and wanted to be like him. So there you go, Hogan and Heyman had the same influence for getting into the business.

-Paul took out a PO Box and started selling movie posters in the mail at 11 years old, and from the money he bought a photo lab. He started taking photos of pro-wrestling and sold newsletters in the mail. Larry Zbyszko is our first talking head and puts over Heyman being a fan and we get photos of Paul with various wrestlers from the time and that’s pretty cool.

-Heyman read an article that Vince McMahon Sr. would go to a steak house every Monday when they would run shows at MSG. Knowing that bit of information led Heyman to perform his first hustle as he called Capitol Sports and bullshitted his way into a press pass to an MSG show by mentioning that Vince promised him one when they met at the steak house. Awesome!

-Paul, 14 years old by the way, went to the show with his pass and stayed in press room until show time and then ended up behind the scenes in the locker room area. Bill Apter pops up next and calls Heyman a pain in the ass around that time. He would also shoot photos and he mentions that all the photographers hated having around the ring because Paul would push his way around ringside and ruin the photos the rest of the guys were trying to take. They show some old WWF footage and sure enough a very young and thing Paul is right there at ringside.

-Apter says Paul rubbed people the wrong way, but he endeared himself to the right people and the 3 main people were: Blassie, Albano, and The Grand Wizard. The Wizard told Apter that one day Heyman was going to be somebody in the business.

-Heyman started traveling and he ended up getting into a production meeting that was being run by Dusty Rhodes. He wanted to see what Dusty would do because he had only seen how McMahon had run things. Dusty catches Paul and questions what he is doing in the meeting. Paul tells Dusty that he is learning from him and after a long silence, Dusty says “well, you are learning from the right person” and let him stay in the meeting. So week after week he kept coming back and Dusty let him learn from the meetings.

-Paul was friends with Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin and he ended up taking him to Studio 54 to take some photos. Paul was only 19 at the time and when the head photographer was tossed out for drinking too much, he again worked his bullshit magic, and ended up as a photographer at Studio 54. The Paladium opened up soon after and they were major competition for Studio 54. Heyman compares it to the Monday Night Wars as The Paladium was taking a lot of the workers from Studio 54 and when they lost a producer/promoter for Friday Night, Heyman once again talked himself into another job in the summer of 1985.

-The first show he ever did for Studio 54 was a wrestling show (the first wrestling show ever for the place) called WrestleParty ’85 and his idea was to present a “Man of the Year” award to Hulk Hogan, but the WWF was touring the West Coast. So he called up Crocket and they happened to be in Philadelphia, so the award was then given to Ric Flair. Others involved where Dusty Rhodes and Magnum TA and it was also the debut of Bam Bam Bigelow.

-Now it paid off to be a Paul Heyman guy as it got you into Studio 54. The Studio goes out of business, but Paul survives as he is doing 3 wrestling magazines and also doing play by play for various small independent promotions in the North East. He got rather good at commentary so Bigelow kept needling him about becoming a manager. At the same time a movie starring Michael Keaton came out called “Johnny Dangerously” and since bore a resemblance to Keaton (in Paul’s younger days), as a joke, said fine and started calling himself Paul E. Dangerously.

-With a name he went to the Monster Factory and did a little bit of training. He became the manager of the tag team, The Motor City Mad Men. He got all of them booked thanks to him giving the shows that booked him free publicity in his various magazines. He caught the eye of Kevin Sullivan and he asked Paul to head down to Florida in Feb of 1987. They actually have the footage of Paul’s debut as he debuts his client, Tombstone.

-The Florida promotion was bought out by Crocket and that left Heyman without a job. He got a call from Bigelow who was working in Memphis and Paul followed at his request. Now we get Memphis footage as once again there are some great benefits in being a monopoly.

-Lawler talks about Heyman’s days in Memphis and calls him a great talker with charisma. They put Heyman with Rich and Idol because all 3 guys were hated by the fans. Their feud with Lawler was one of the hottest in the history of Memphis and ended in a hair vs. hair match where Lawler had his head shaved. That nearly caused a riot and Heyman mentions it is still talked about in parts of Memphis to this day. I can believe that. Lawler says that Heyman was full of himself and he didn’t like him so they parted ways. He does admit that he knew Heyman had a bright future in the business.

-The next stop was the AWA and that is when the Zack Morris cell-phone debuted. Heyman says he got the idea from the movie Wall Street as he thought it would be cool if someone hit someone else over the head with it. AWA was still in a decent place as they were still on ESPN and he was doing several interviews daily just to keep himself noticed.

-Once again Paul moves and starts doing small shows with Eddie Gilbert. He was also learning how to do bookings among other things. In the NWA, Arn and Tully had left for the WWF, so Dusty needed a new tag team. That is where the idea for the Original vs. New Midnight Express feud came from as they knew it would be a natural feud due to the 4 guys in the ring and the 2 managers outside the ring. I vividly remember this feud as a kid and what I remember is that I was more entertained by Heyman and Cornette.

-The feud did wonders for everyone, but things were constantly changing as Heyman ended up with the Samoan Swat Team one minute and then was fired by Ric Flair the next minute. JR shows up and says that somehow they meshed together so he took him away from creative and made him his announce partner. Heyman says he learned more about the performance of pro-wrestling from JR by sitting next to him than he did from anyone else he had met to that point. JR says he knew Heyman was a brilliant prodigy, and he had a blast working with Paul because of how much he challenged him. He says Paul was great at finding the holes and issues with creative.

-The main problem though was Paul was very abrasive and up front when dealing with management. They suspended Paul from his commentating position and were going to let him sit at home until his contract had expired. Funny thing happened though as WCW had just signed Rick Rude and with attendance dying, they decided to form a new version of the 4 Horsemen: Rude (as Flair), Arn Anderson, Bobby Eaton, Larry Zbyszko, Heyman (as Dillon), and Madusa (as Baby Doll). Paul pitched to Dusty the idea of adding another man to the stable and that was “Stunning” Steve Austin. Yes, boys and girls this is the birth of the Dangerous Alliance. The idea was that Steve was going to be the star of tomorrow and he could learn from Paul and Rude how to be a Main Event superstar.

-Paul says he doesn’t think he would have gotten the chances he did in ECW if it wasn’t for the reputation he earned from the Dangerous Alliance run. JR puts over why the group was so special and why they had to be on TV as much as they did. They show a few of the promos from the group and the idea that they were going to bankrupt WCW was very much shades of what would come with the n.W.o to a degree.

-The off camera guy interviewing Heyman asks what happened and he bluntly says he got fired. He mentions he sued WCW and got a lot of money, but he can’t go into detail because both sides signed a hush agreement. Awesome! Paul sums it up by saying they hated him and he hated them so it was a perfect way to say goodbye.

-Heyman was burnt out by wrestling so he signed a deal to do a radio show in the morning that was going to go head to head with Howard Stern. His focus was to take on Stern, but Crocket offered him a chance to take over his creative as he was rallying the troops to start anew and take on the WWF. Heyman told him no and Crocket didn’t take well to it as he called Heyman no different than anyone else who bitched and complained about things, but didn’t want to do anything to change it. He goaded Paul into coming back, but it was with Eddie Gilbert who was running a small promotion in Philadelphia called ECW.

-Tod Gordon, looking much different from the guy we saw in ECW, shows up (labeled as ECW Owner 1992-1995) and mentions that Paul was mainly just off to the sides to offer advice and do a little on camera managing until the new Crocket promotion got off the ground.

-Paul mentions that he knew WCW and the WWF were behind the times with what they were presenting. He says the one thing ECW did was make stars as they couldn’t keep using cast offs who thought they were better than they were. They were able to find a few veterans that went with their philosophy and most notably put over Terry Funk’s contribution.

-Gabe Sapolsky gets his time to shine as a talking head and puts over how Paul was able to take guys and turn them into something better: taking Dreamer from green suspenders to the heart and soul of ECW, or taking Taz from a wild animal to the biggest ass kicker on the planet.

-Paul eventually got full control of ECW and everyone backstage knew he was going to do something different. ECW became anti-establishment and we get a video package on all the crazy shit ECW did and it is easy to see why males 13-35 were attracted to the company. My first experience with ECW was seeing it at 1 AM on a weekend and as I was flipping through I saw a guy go crashing off a balcony through a stack of tables. That was all it took for me to start making sure I caught ECW on a weekly basis.

-Tommy Dreamer, thankfully, does pop up as one of the talking heads and mentions they wanted to do everything different. Heyman, 28 at the time, grew up in a different era and his younger take led him to using different camera angles and introducing hip hop music to pro-wrestling.

-HOLY HELL, RAVEN of all people shows up as a talking head and I need to rewind to catch what he said because I am flustered that he ended up on a WWE release. Give me a second to catch back up here as most should know I am a huge Raven mark and I thought for sure he had burned any and all bridges to the WWE.

-Ok, I should be good now. Raven shows up as a talking head and he talks about how Paul could manipulate and con the young ECW roster into doing what needed to be done for the good of the show. He mentions that it often involved Paul lying to the boys, though he never lied to the paying fans.

-Lots of ECW guys popping up now talking about how Paul united them with an “us against the world” mentality and made them hate WCW and WWF. They show Paul taking shots at the other 2 companies before a ECW show and then cut to Paul now as he claims there was no bigger supporter of ECW than Vince McMahon. He says that with each shot he took at the WWF, Vince only applauded it even more because he respected the “screw you, I am going to do this” attitude of Paul and because he knew ECW was grooming future stars.

-Ron Buffone (ECW Director and Producer) is up next and he talks about how he knew Vince was helping because Vince would call the studio. Stephanie McMahon says that Paul would often call their house and she never knew what he was discussing with her dad, but they were always long conversations. JR mentions that while Vince would take talent from ECW, he wanted to compensate them in some way.

-Paul then drops a bombshell that he never once took a check from the WWF while he was running ECW. Wow, that goes against everything you have basically heard up to this point. Paul says that what did happen was he agreed to use WWF guys on ECW (while WWF was footing their salary) and those guys were: Brakkus, Al Snow, Droz, and a few others he can’t remember. There was also talent Vince wanted in Terry Gordy, Furnas, and LaFoun, and 2 Cold Scorpio. Things get fascinating here as Heyman discusses how they had a deal with Tommy Boy Records (who provided Scorpio’s music) and ECW was paid $1000 by the Record company for running a commercial after each time Scorpio made his entrance. So Heyman had an issue with Vince wanting to use Scorpio as it was going to cost him $1000 a week, so Vince said he would cover the cost and Heyman had them send the check to ECW’s parent company. It never went to Heyman as he said he never once paid himself in ECW. Mind Blown from that story!

-We get some footage of a backstage meeting where Paul talks to the guys and tells them they all need to be on board as a team. If anyone was miserable being there, then they needed to go as he didn’t want them there. Joey Styles talks about how everyone felt they were working for Paul as he gave them all free reign to pitch ideas to him about their character. Dreamer calls Heyman a God in the ECW locker room and Gordon says he would survey what workers he had and would book the show on a napkin just before they went to air. It amazed Gordon as he would spend weeks trying to figure things out and Paul would just do it off the cuff and it would be amazing, and the talent was ready to run through a brick wall for him.

-Raven discusses the “state of the union” addresses he would give before every show and how he was jaded and thought the young guys were crazy for buying into his hype, but soon he was getting just as hyped and wanted to put his head through a wall as well. Another mind blowing sequence as they show footage from “Beyond the Mat” (courtesy of Universal Studis Licensing LLC) where Paul gives his pep talk just before ECW’s first PPV, Barely Legal.

-Everyone talks about how great he was at reading people and then motivating those people. At this point I think I need to have a Heyman pep talk play each morning when I wake up because I want to run through the brick wall known as life.

– They show some backstage footage of Heyman giving Rhino promo advice, and Dreamer talks about how he would goad the guys into giving great promos. Raven talks about how he thought Heyman was nuts for spending hours working with a guy on a promo just to find a sound bite or 30 seconds that he could use. Heyman says it was something he was passionate about 24/7/365 and he lived and breathed every second of ECW.

-Dreamer talks about how he was a 23 year old kid and Paul was showing him how to run things from behind the camera and how to run things in the studio. Buffone mentions that Paul would be snoring on the couch and would edit and change things while sleeping. Dreamer backs up that story.

-Foley talks about how they crossed the line a bunch in ECW and found themselves in court a few times. Heyman says he grew up in the law business, but his father never once had to defend him or bail him out. He gives all credit to his mother because of her drive due to her being a Holocaust survivor. They discuss the times they crossed the line and specifically mention the crucifying of The Sandman that caused Kurt Angle to walk out of the promotion. Nothing on the Mass Transit incident however.

-Heyman says ECW was expanding too fast and while he was doing well in the stock market and had money from his WCW settlement, he needed investors and his parents were the investors. They discuss how everyone had a job outside of just being a wrestler in ECW and if one just left then someone took their position. We get a hilarious story where Paul actually fired his mom who was in charge of merchandise. Buffone tells the story and you can tell he feels horrible for admitting that Paul fired his own mom over the phone. Damn!

-Tommy talks about how Bubba Ray booked a lot of the shows, but Paul would screw around with him to hold off on paying the building for as long as possible. He also talks about how Paul was always up and making calls to him and others at 5 AM. Heyman mentions the company lived hand to mouth all that time and that it cost a lot to expand but they needed to as there was a demand for the company outside of Philly.

-Heyman mentions that he told Gordon what his vision was before he ever took over the company. Now Gordon talks about how he handled the business part of the company and Paul was handling the advertising. Joey talks about how Gordon handled the purse strings and Paul was creative so it worked, but once Paul took over both roles things started to go bad. Back to Gordon again as he mentions he needed to rein Paul in because if it was up to him he would have had guys arriving in helicopters and explosions going off around them as they repelled from the heavens.

-Talk shifts to how Paul was able to get the guys to kill themselves even knowing it may take time for them to get a paycheck. Dreamer talks about how he hadn’t been paid in months and had a running total where he was owed around $65000 so Paul told him to take the merchandise money. When Paul heard it was $22,000 he told Dreamer to take $15000 and leave the rest for bills to be paid. Dreamer was flabbergasted as he was just told to take all of it, but Paul talked him out of it. Dreamer says that is the way things just went with Paul. They discuss how they had to fly on a discount by Paul lying that the guys were flying back for a funeral.

-Paul says he played with the cards he had in his hand and sometimes when you have no cards you have to bluff your way. He knows he did some things he probably shouldn’t, but he needed to keep buying days to keep the company alive. Dreamer mentions that guys wrestled for free and it was their choice in the end. That even though they were getting bounced checks, the guys kept coming back even though they could have called the police. Paul mentions he had more to lose than the guys that worked for him because they could leave anytime they wanted and it wasn’t like he was getting paid while everyone else was getting bounced checks. He says that every day ECW survived was a miracle.

-Everyone talks about how Paul was a disaster in the final months and days of ECW. He wasn’t even coming to shows, so Dreamer was running creative. Joey says that emotionally Paul was done and burn-out. Paul says he never thought ECW was going to die because merchandise sells were good, and they were the first on DVD. They were at their hottest when they closed because they could not get a TV deal as USA only wanted the WWF, Turner was done with wrestling, and FOX only offered them a 30 minute slot in the afternoon that wouldn’t have made sense financially. Paul also mentions that they were owed money by the PPV company, but they wouldn’t hand over the money unless a new PPV was aired, which Paul didn’t have the money to do. Such a vicious cycle! Paul calls it a must lose situation, and the company was done.

-Paul lets Dreamer know that he was starting on RAW and he wanted him to know before anyone else. Paul said he had an open offer from Vince, and he didn’t sign the contract until he was already working for Vince for 2 months. Steph and JR discuss how Vince was always in Paul’s ear because he didn’t always like the way he did things. JR talks about how people felt they hated each other on commentary and Heyman says he needled JR on purpose. JR says there were times that he was legit pissed at Paul, and that was pretty easy to see if you listen to some of the stuff during the invasion angle.

-For some reason we jump to Heyman meeting Brock Lesnar. Taz was a huge fan of Brock and felt Brock was getting the wrong advice in OVW, so he had Paul talk to him. Vince loved what Brock was doing and was curious how Brock and Paul were able to get along so well. Paul mentions they just enjoyed talking to each other, so Vince decided to put the two of them together.

-Brock mentions he needed Paul Heyman to point him in the right direction and to smarten him up to the wrestling business. The biggest thing was he taught Brock to believe in himself.

-Now we talk about Heyman working for Steph and being the head writer of SmackDown. Heyman admits that SmackDown was the bitch show and he decided he wanted to make SmackDown compete with RAW. He wanted to make RAW his bitch and he wanted SmackDown to be the “A” show. He says the best thing he did was turn guys like Rey, Eddie, Edge, and such into Main Event guys without taking attention away from Lesnar, Taker, and Hogan.

-Edge mentions he got his first solo break from Heyman and it was a huge boost of confidence. He talks about how Paul understood each guy and knew what they needed to motivate them. JR mentions that Cole and Taz were the announce team for SmackDown and it was miserable for them as Heyman was a perfectionist and voice over work took 5-6 hours. Damn! Heyman says he is very proud of what he accomplished on SmackDown and he thinks it may have been his best tenure as a writer because he didn’t have free reign like he did in ECW. He talks about how Nitro wasn’t the only one to beat RAW, as SmackDown beat them during that era as well in rating and was just a better show.

-Show talks about how he would go to production meetings and how Paul would push Vince to the point his face would turn red. He makes a hilarious analogy as he calls Paul the simpleton who keeps slapping the bear in a zoo while everyone else knows he is about to lose an arm. Heyman says he did fight a lot of battles that probably didn’t make any sense, but admits he wasn’t corporately mature enough to handle the success. Steph mentions that Paul was the first writer she ever had to suspend without pay just because Paul was being Paul.

-Paul talks about how he signed a 5 year deal, so they were stuck with him. We get a great line from Paul that comes from Vince “we would rather have Paul in the castle pissing out, then him outside the castle pissing in.” You have to love Vince for wisdom like that.

-They knew Paul wasn’t fitting in with the writing team, so they decided to send him to the developmental territory to basically get out of their hair. Paul didn’t look at it as a demotion or punishment because he got to do what he always loved: development talent.

-That of course brings us CM Punk and he talks about how Paul invited him to help him write the television show. He learned from Paul how to write, book, and pace a show. Heyman says it came naturally to Punk, and he was learning from him before he was done teaching him. Beth Phoenix also shows up and puts over how much Paul helped her and the entire OVW roster.

-As normal Paul once again had his issues in OVW and in this case he was rubbing the wrong people the wrong way. Steph calls him his own worst enemy even when he is great at what he does. Beth basically says her career was made thanks to Paul Heyman.

-ECW was being brought back with One Night Stand and apparently Shane McMahon was the driving force behind it because he was a huge fan. You don’t say? One Night Stand was a tremendous show that captured the spirit of ECW perfectly and Paul said that if it had been left there then great.

-Paul talks about how Shane McMahon nearly bought ECW for real in 2000 and not part of a storyline like happened a year later with WCW. The idea was that it would be a way for Shane to groom himself to run the WWF one day (well that ship has sailed it seems). Then in 2005 Shane again brought up the ECW idea and Paul mentions it was going to be a low budget, in house show only on the internet that would also double as a developmental system. The idea started to grow and they sent out feelers to television networks and SyFy bit and offered money for the show.

-Joey Styles plainly states that the new ECW sucked because it wasn’t ECW. If they had called it anything else it would have done ok, but they were toast once they had to live up to those 3 letters. Punk mentions that Paul, Show, RVD, and he were all frustrated with things in the new ECW. Paul knew it was going to lead to hard feelings and a fall out and that is what happened. Vince and Paul had differing ideas of how to run the new ECW and in the end Vince made the calls which Steph thinks Paul couldn’t handle. Steph mentions Paul started to get in the talent’s ear and nobody could trust Paul anymore.

-Paul talks about the blow-out with Vince and how he knew was never going to work in the company again. He is amazed Vince took him back after the fight they got into on Vince’s plane and he gives all the credit to Vince for bringing him back.

-When Paul did leave he tried other ventures including trying to buy Strike Force as a way to launch Brock Lesnar’s MMA career. He also helped Brock write his book and then created Heyman Hustle. It started as an online television program where Paul annoyed people and talked to porn stars and playboy bunnies.

-We get a behind the scenes look at Heyman Hustle and the Looking for Larry production company. They talk about how they do a lot of the video game stuff (including some of the WWE video game commercials), and anything geared towards men. Some interesting stuff here as it just again shows how driven Paul is and how he will refuse to give up on someone if he sees any bit of talent in them.

-Punk again as he talks about how no matter how busy Paul was, his main thing was raising his 2 kids. They discuss how he has changed since becoming a father. Styles says that he has become more mellow and how his kids are more important than his career. Paul calls his children his life and he says his children are far more extraordinary than he will ever be. Oh man I can’t wait to see the awesome stuff his kids will have in store for this world.

-Paul was there with Brock during his time in the UFC and when Brock’s career was over there he came back to the WWE. Paul didn’t want to come back, but the WWE welcomed him back with open arms and paired him up with Brock once again. They discuss how he is now just strictly on air talent and it has kept him stress free. Heyman talks about how he is having a blast now and loves that his children get to experience it with him.

-Dreamer talks about how doesn’t hate Paul and he loved seeing him on RAW in the angle with Vince where he did a performance evaluation. It is the awesome promo where Paul admits that he has lied to every man, woman, child, and deity because he was a promoter. Dreamer mentions that once he heard that promo he got it.

-Things wrap up as they talk about how Paul has morphed into quite possibly the best talker in the business. Punk says he wouldn’t be here without Heyman and he loves coming to work because he knows he gets to work with his best friend. Well, your best friend is still on TV on a weekly basis, so how about coming back and working with him and your talented wife as well.

-Apparently we get more as the current talent talk about how Paul is always there to help them if they need it. Bray Wyatt shows and it kind of saddens me to see him break character as he talks about how Paul has helped him. WOOO, Renee Young shows up and discusses how she never knows what Paul is going to say and hell, yeah we get the fucking lava promo and I have no clue how Ryback, Axel, and Young were able to keep a straight face. They actually spend a good bit of time talking about how Heyman has yelped Renee and show backstage footage of the two. What is it about Heyman that beautiful women are typically around him?

-Paul talks about how he is the lucky one as he has been able to work with Austin, Foley, and Punk at a young age and he gets to do it to this day with this current crop of young guys. You can just hear the love of the business from Paul as he talks about the future of the business and it is damn infectious. It actually does give me hope for the future of the business.

-Now we get to wrap things up as the talking heads put over the greatness of Heyman. Foley talks about how he is always ahead of the curve and Joey calls him the greatest manager in the history of the business (I will always have Heenan at #1 in my book, but Paul is damn sure close). Apter says that Heyman still has the same glow in his eye now that he did when he was a kid taking photos. Heyman ends it by saying that wrestling is what he had fun doing, but his children as his legacy. Bravo! Bravo!

The Promos

-AWA Championship Wrestling, Aug 1987: Dangerously cuts a promo discussing why he carries his cell phone with him 99% of the time. Key point here is that he mentions he is the head of the Dangerous Alliance thus proving the group had its start in the AWA prior to WCW.

-AWA Superstars, Aug 1987: Dangerously goes on about why he wears pink suspenders and a pink tie. Apparently he isn’t here to make us people happy and we find out he is friends with Bon Jovi.

-AWA Championship Wrestling, Aug 1987: Dangerously discusses how he brought Adonis back to the AWA as he was tired of being a cartoon character (in the WWF).

-AWA Championship Wrestling, Sept 1987: More from Paul as he shows footage from his own talk show, The Danger Zone. His guest is a Teddy Bear and Paul answers fan mail. The poor Bear gets clocked with a phone. Funny stuff!

-AWA All Star Wrestling, Sept 1987: Standard Paul promo as he rages against the fans for wondering why he can’t be a nice guy. He also takes a few more shots at the WWF for making their guys into cartoon characters. He also name drops The Brain and talks about how he got run out of the AWA and how Piper was destroyed by his client, Adrian Adonis.

-AWA Superstars, Sept 1987: Paul now buries the various managers in the AWA that were run out including Heenan. He promises to do what no other manager could do and that is control the entire territory.

-AWA Championship Wrestling, Sept 1987: Paul wants to increase ratings on ESPN so he feels the need to make a big announcement. Before doing so he brings out some of the 80s dirt sheet magazines, and then announces his candidacy for Rookie of the Year. He puts over the fact that he shaved Lawler’s head in Memphis.

-AWA All Star Wrestling, Oct 1987: They show a photo of Paul in 1982 shaking hands with Adrian Adonis and Heyman says he had to make a rep for himself before he could manage Adrian. He also puts over the Original Midnight Express and buries Tommy Rich. Effective promo tying a lot of things together!

-AWA Superstars, Nov 1987: Apparently Paul E. Dangerously stands for excitement. Fun stuff in this promo as he does impressions of Savage, Rhodes, and Piper before burying guys that actually work in the AWA!

-NWA Pro Wrestling, Oct 1988: We are onto WCW now and Dangerously cuts a promo with the Original Midnight Express and goes after Cornette and his version of the Express. He cuts a hell of a promo on Cornette as he sentences him to death. Damn!

-World Championship Wrestling, Nov. 1988: Paul and The Original Midnight Express again, but naturally Paul does all the talking. Nothing much to this one as he once again threatens the New Midnight Express.

-NWA Pro Wrestling, Dec 1988: Cornette hosts his own show called the Louisville Slugger and he calls out Paul E. This should be tremendous fun! Paul E promises the Danger Zone will be replacing this segment, and that leads to Cornette landing a right hand that triggers a kick ass brawl between both managers and their teams. Great stuff here, and one hell of a hate filled brawl that was just a tease for Starrcade.

-World Championship Wrestling, Jan 1989: Paul takes credit for the ratings being up and he once again ties every other main program in the NWA into his promo including the Flair/Sting Title Match, and The Bunkhouse Stampede. We also get some more impressions from Paul and this time of Sting, JYD, and Rick Steiner. He also gets in a shot against Hogan before getting back to threatening Cornette. Awesome!

-World Championship Wrestling, March 1989: The first edition of The Danger Zone (with Dan Spivey as security) and the first guest is none other than Ric Flair and Hiro Matsuda. Paul sucks up to Flair as expected, and Flair discusses the title controversy involving Steamboat. Flair promises to wrestle on National TV the next week to make a statement about who the real World Champion is. Paul E tells Flair he needs to win the title back because he doesn’t want his future son to grow up in a world where Steamboat is the World Champion. Too funny!

-NWA Main Event, March 1989: Short and to the point here as JR and Paul just wrap up the show.

-World Wide Wrestling, March 1989: Paul with the Samoan Swat Team (Rikishi WOOO) and he continues his war with Cornette, the Midnight Express, and pretty much every other tag team in the NWA.

-NWA Main Event, July 1989: Paul E tortures JR about the Ding Dongs and generally just amuses himself (“Ding Dong, who is it?”).

-World Championship Wrestling, Sept 1989: Back to the Danger Zone and Paul E seems crazier than usual as he just lost the Swat Team, and people wonder about his future. He promises that one way or another, this will be the Era of the Dangerous Alliance.

-Power Hour, May 1991: Paul on the Danger Zone and he plays around with a Sting and Scott Steiner wrestling figure. I used to have that Sting figure and had him battle all my WWF figures. Sting interrupts and puts Paul in his place.

-World Championship Wrestling, Nov 1991: Paul says he is back to save the people from Captain Oklahoma (Jim Ross) and has Rick Rude in tow. He promises to bankrupt WCW until he takes over the company and people call him Paul E Turner.

-World Championship Wrestling, Nov 1991: Paul promises a hostile Takeover of WCW (sound familiar?) and brings out the new US Champion, Rick Rude (with Madusa). He then brings out the former Tag Champs, Arn Anderson and Larry Zbyszko as the newest members of the Dangerous Alliance. The hits keep coming as he brings out TV Champ, Stunning Steve Austin as another new member to the group. The final member named is Beautiful Bobby Eaton, and crazy that they burned through all this in a 5 minute interview. He also names Larry as The Cruncher because of the way he broke Barry Windham’s arm. Dustin and Steamboat head out to confront the Alliance and they do a massive sell job for the Thanksgiving night show.

-World Wide Wrestling, Feb 1992: Paul E and Madusa are in the ring to present “The Paul Awards” and TV Wrestler of the Year goes to Stunning Steve Austin. The Hannibal Lecter award for sickest individual goes The Cruncher Larry Zbyszko, and you can tell where all this is going. Sure enough the tag team award goes to Bobby Eaton and Arn Anderson, and of course the Wrestler of the Year award goes to Rick Rude. Paul E then feels he deserves to fill the vacated seat on the WCW board of directors, and that ends things.

-Pro Wrestling, April 1992: Paul continues his war on WCW brass and in this case turns his attention to Kip Frye as he wants the vacated seat on the WCW board of directors. He promises a wave of violence if he is not given the seat and the blood will be on Kip’s hands.

-ECW Hardcore TV, Oct 1993: Joey Styles runs down what to look forward to on the next show and Paul basically harasses him for shits and giggles. Paul then promises to shock the entire wrestling world next week with a new Dangerous Alliance with Shane Douglas at the helm.

-ECW Hardcore TV, June 1994: Paul takes a few shots at WCW as he discusses how they want what he has and that is Sabu. He puts over Sabu as the most dangerous and wildest athlete in the history of the world. The Sabu/Foley dream match is discussed and Paul talks about how he will love to cost Turner money by having one half of the WCW Tag Champions being maimed. Funny that just a little over a year later WCW would get Sabu on their television show.

-ECW Hardcore TV, July 1994: Fun stuff here as Paul hints that fans are worried about the future of wrestling because the leader of the wrestling world is on trial (Vince with the steroid scandal). This one is also notable for Paul using “OJ Simpson you ass,” to close the promo.

-ECW Hardcore TV, Nov 1994: Paul puts over the guys he once managed, but he has a new vision of what pro-wrestling should be and that is Taz and Sabu. He builds up the tag match they will have with the Malenko Brothers and as you would expect he does a hell of a job.

-ECW Hardcore TV, Dec 1994: The Pit Bulls are Paul’s target in this one as they are in a handicap match against his client, 9-1-1. He also goes off the rails against people who blame television and movies for why kids are being violent and throws in pop culture references like John Bobbit getting his dick cut off. He ties it into Sabu and Taz going after The Public Enemy for the Tag Titles.

-ECW Hardcore TV, Jan 1995: Paul puts over the wrestlers of ECW as viable option for the fans and that he still thinks the fans haven’t gotten what they have wanted as he promises the Public Enemy will get their asses kicked on Saturday night.

-ECW, Feb 1996: We get an in ring promo from Paul before an ECW show starts in Queens, New York. He tells the audience that a crew from “A Current Affair” is in the building and the crowd turns on them. He then tells the audience there is a delay because guys from WCW and the WWF (drawing a Bischoff sucks chant) told PPV reps that ECW isn’t good enough for PPV. So Paul uses the coverage from “A Current Affair” to his gain and has the crowd prove that there is no better organization than ECW. He ends by mentioning that Dreamer has impregnated Beulah thus he apparently has an 11 inch dick. Ok then!

-ECW, Feb 1997: The entire ECW roster standing in the ring or in the balcony as Paul announces ECW will be holding their first every Pay Per View. The fans are already hip to the announcement and start a Pay Per View chant before Paul can even spit it out. Paul puts over Gordon huge for the role he played in getting the company to this point though that tune would change in just a few months. Paul rambles for a bit before getting to the point, but I can handle it because Beulah is close by and looks damn good. Great speech here from Paul as he rallies the troops and puts over just about everyone on the roster while the crowd explodes in delight. You want an example of Paul talking his guys into walking into the fires of hell with a smile on their face then watch this video. He finally gets to make the announcement of the PPV and also announces Taz vs. Sabu as the Main Event. He finishes by thanking the fans for all they did to get ECW back on the PPV schedule.

-ECW, March 1998: Paul holds court in front of a NYC crowd and announces they have cleared Cablevision. He also makes sure to insinuate (off camera) that Bischoff does coke and has sex with DDP’s wife. DAMN! Paul then thanks the fans and some special people at ringside for all they did to help them get on Cablevision. He then buries one of the fans who keeps trying to interrupt and makes a joke about him being Puerto Rican.

-ECW Guilty as Charged, Jan 1999: I have seen this one quite a few times as I have this PPV burned on DVD. Paul announces before the PPV that the card will be changed due to Jerry Lynn being injured and Tanaka not getting there in time from Japan. As has been said, Paul was always honest with the fans.

-ECW on TNN, June 2000: Another famous one as Paul just lets loose and shoots on TNN in the waning days of ECW being on the Network. He rages against TNN for throwing 100 million dollars at Vince to bring RAW to the network and thus replacing ECW. He then dares TNN to throw him off the air and vows to break every rule they have until they throw him off the air. He finishes by telling them to attorney up because the war had just begun. Great stuff!

Stories

-This would be the stories that were cut from the Documentary and added her as bonus material.

-Paul tells a story of being backstage at MSG as a photographer and it was his goal to meet Vince Sr. He sees him talking to Andre and figures it would make for a great photo. They show the picture here and the next month he hands the photo to Vince Sr. (while getting harassed by security) and ends up getting $50 so they can use it for promotional purposes. They told him to come back each month and they would continue to pay him for photos. Dude is like Peter Parker.

-A hilarious story here as he talks about the night Freddy Blassie offered him a ride home. Freddy is oblivious to the fact he is a horrible driver and Paul nearly has heart failure when they start going the wrong way on the road. People on the street are pissed, but Freddy keeps telling Paul it’s because he is a hated manager. Paul thinks it is a rib being played on him and tries to just role with it, but eventually has Freddy pull over because he is in fear of his life. Freddy lets him know that he has only 80% vision in one eye and 20% in the other. So at the age of 15, Heyman drives a car for the first time as he takes Freddy back to his house. Heyman’s dad meets them there and Freddy talks about how he has a great son, and then lets it slip that Paul is a horrible driver. Uh oh! Tremendously entertaining story!

-Now some fun stuff as they discuss the beef between Heyman and Jerry Lawler. Each man gives their side of the story and Paul knows they are going to get into a fist fight over this again. Both men talk about how in Memphis they had built things towards a scaffold match, and then each man has a different story of what happened next. Lawler says that Heyman was supposed to be tossed off the scaffold and Paul says that he told them he had a fear of heights prior to the match being booked. Lawler tells it that Paul told him the night of the show after they had built towards this thing. So Paul does go up, but quickly comes back down and takes a much smaller bump. A few weeks later Lawler gives him his receipt in an impromptu 6 man tag with a right hand that breaks his jaw. They do show footage from the scaffold match and while grainy it is still pretty cool they can just pull this stuff out anytime they want.

-Now we get to some great stuff as the ECW Mole story is discussed. Paul mentions he slighted Gordon on the payoff for the first ECW PPV and admits it was wrong, but he had his reason. To get revenge Tod started leaking things to Terry Taylor and was planning to take ECW guys to WCW for an Invasion. Terry Taylor pops up and says the same thing, but does mention he wasn’t ok with the fact that Tod wasn’t letting Paul know anything. Now Tod shows up and says that the whole story has some many versions and nobody really knows what they are talking about. Oh, this should be fun. They go back and forth with their different versions of the story and Tommy Dreamer also gives his thoughts and he backs up what Paul is saying. Paul says he brought Tommy and Taz to his house and told them Tod was a mole in their locker room. Tod denies being the mole and only admits he did talk to Taylor about guys who were interested in going to WCW. Paul hacked into Tod’s phone and was able to play all the messages he had with Terry Taylor and played them for Taz, Dreamer, and Bubba Ray to hear. Paul then gives out the code to Tod’s phone (0816) to prove that he knew the code to the phone. Awesome! Paul then does say that Terry Taylor had reservations about doing all this without Paul’s blessing, so that makes Terry look like a good guy. Back to Gordon as he says he only steered Public Enemy to WCW instead of the WWF because WCW was offering more. He was just trying to get some of his friends a better pay day. Paul says to this day it hurts him to say that Tod Gordon was the mole, but the truth was, Tod Gordon was the mole. Tod defends himself and says he wanted ECW to do well because if they did well he could get back some of the money he lost. Paul says it doesn’t take away from what Tod in helping launch ECW, but he had to live the consequences of his actions. End of story!

-Paul talks about how PPV was holding back his money until they worked out their network TV issues. Paul says he can’t do his next PPV in LA without the money, so he has a meeting with Vince McMahon and he asks for $500,000. Only 3 minutes later Paul was given a $500,000 loan to run the PPV and buy ECW some more time to get a new TV deal and keep his licensing deals in place.

-Stephanie McMahon tells of how they did conference calls for the writers of RAW and SmackDown, but they were each unique for whoever worked on each show. One time they were doing the RAW call and they heard a click of someone hanging up. They find out it was Paul and then she asks him why he was trying to manipulate listening to the RAW call. She says he just had to ask, but Paul denies it was him. She tells him they knew it was his phone and Paul lies saying he lost that phone last week. Steph admits the lie was so detailed that it was entertaining, but at the same time it got him fired. Now we go to Paul for his side of the story and he says he didn’t listen to one word of that RAW conference call. He says that he hated the conference calls because they ruined his Saturdays, so he would join them early and then go back to bed because he knew it would take hours to get through RAW. He would then have someone wake him up when they got around to SmackDown. The problem was his phone died and that is why it seemed like he hung up. So he got fired for listening to a call that he was sleeping through, though he does admit to listening to the previous 7 RAW conference calls and never got busted for those. Awesome!

-CM Punk coins the term “Paul Heyman” guy and various guys talk about being Paul Heyman Guys and Girls: Edge, Punk, Big Show, Styles, Dreamer, Apter, Gordon, Foley, and Raven all claim to be Heyman Guys. JR says he is Paul Heyman Guy, but for different reasons as he likes to think he helped Paul in his early days and that lead to a lot of others becoming Paul Heyman Guys. Both Nattie and Beth Phoenix claim to be Paul Heyman Girls. Lawler laughs off the idea and chuckles that he isn’t a Paul Heyman guy, and Steph says she is a Paul Heyman fan, but not a Paul Heyman Girl.

Teasers

-Nothing more than 5 trailers that teased this Blu-Ray being released. One thing to note is that it looked to be called “The Paul Heyman Story.”

9.5
The final score: review Amazing
The 411
So far so great with this set as the Documentary was fascinating and one of the better ones they have ever done. Most of the promos are rather good, and some of the bonus stories are quite hilarious. More promos, more stories, and some matches to come with Disc Two.
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