Jim Ross Confirms Paul Heyman Was Almost A WWF Commentator In 1997, Reveals ECW Match Was Discussed For Summerslam That Year

In the latest episode of Grilling JR, Jim Ross confirmed rumors that Paul Heyman was up for a job as a commentator of Shotgun Saturday Night for the WWF in 1997. He gave his thoughts on why that likely never materialized and why Heyman tried to keep it a secret from his ECW roster. The story, as relayed by Conrad Thompson, was that Heyman had been on the WWF payroll for some time. The relationship soured some when Heyman no-showed a June 30th show in Des Moines, Iowa where he would have started as the commentator for Shotgun. WWF claimed at the time that Heyman said he wanted it kept quiet because he didn’t want ECW to know before he told them, except he never told them. He never arrived at the show and never did his voiceover work. Heyman reportedly claims he never agreed to do it.

Ross also revealed that there were discussions within WWE of having an ECW match on the Summerslam PPV as another means of promoting Rob Van Dam. Here are highlights:

On what really happened with Paul Heyman almost becoming a commentator in 1997: “Well, I think pretty much with Paul said. Paul sometimes can be…aw heck, he’s a brilliant guy as we all know but I wouldn’t want him doing my taxes. Sometimes his organizational skills, like others that we know, need work. And I also think that he may have thought that broadcasting on Shotgun Saturday Night, which is a…we had no idea if it was going to be around for another week or another month or another year or whatever. It was certainly not Monday Night RAW. It was not the A show. And Paul felt, and perhaps deservedly so, that he should be a part of a bigger, more higher-profile presentation. But that’s just Paul. Paul’s Paul, you know?”

On Heyman not telling the ECW roster: “Paul should have told his team what he was doing. But because he had beaten their heads so fervently, so aggressivly, ‘it’s us against the world.’ And the world in wrestling at that time was the WWF. That was the world. So for Paul to partake in some assets, funds, funding and then to find himself doing television on a secondary show didn’t fit his plan. And I can understand his reason for that, quite frankly. But he’ll drop the ball sometimes. He didn’t want to face his troops that here’s where we are. And he knew it was getting closer and closer to that day. And all it was gonna mean was that I was gonna hire as many of his guys that wanted to come to work for us that were good and I did. And he knew it was gonna happen. I didn’t do it behind his back. He knew. And I’m sure the talent told him, because they’re leaving. So that was how that was. I think he just thought he was being under-utilized and didn’t want to get caught in a jackpot with his team. He still had hopes that ECW was going to survive. Unfortunately it did not.”

On what Vince McMahon thought of Paul Heyman in 1997: “He was a brilliant, albeit annoying, human being, in Vince’s eyes. Hey look, I’ve been with Paul since day one, man. When the booking committee in WCW wanted nothing to do with him, because he was smarter than most of the guys on the committee, and I put him as my partner on TBS, which gave him his big break, and he was a great partner. I had no regrets about that. I’d work with him any time, anywhere. But I don’t think Vince ever really sold on Paul. I’m sure Bruce has told stories…and that story on your podcast about JR on you and Bruce. You know, how I was treated or mocked or made fun of, is not a secret. Every writer that’s been through there in that era can tell you stories about that. Even to a point where Vince goes on TV at one time and impersonates me where he’s wearing a hat and he’s talking like his face is paralyzed like I had the Bell’s Palsy. So that’s how that worked. I think probably some of the same things about Paul. Cheap suits, you know. Paul’s a much better dresser than he was then. I saw a picture that he was on McMahon’s plane the other day, he named all the clothing he was wearing, the name brand stuff. Let me promise you, in 1997, he was going to either Men’s Warehouse or Burlington Coat Factory. So I think Vince…it’s just Vince. He’d kind of make fun of Paul behind his back, but we all knew that he was a smart son of a gun, man. He still is.”

On his own thoughts on Heyman: “But Paul’s a brilliant guy, no doubt. He was kind of a caricature of himself. He’s been known to stretch the truth. Been known to embellish big time. And people say, ‘how about you, JR?’ Because that’s always the deal now on social media. ‘Well JR said this about Paul. What about JR?’ Well JR will stretch the truth, yeah. And I have embellished. I’ve done that for a living. But Paul did it behind-the-scenes. He did it when he wasn’t even on camera. I love working with him. And I get pissed off at him. I’ve been as mad at Paul Heyman as I’ve ever been at anybody in the wrestling business because he was annoying. I called him one time on TV, I said, ‘You’re a pimple on the ass of life.’ And I don’t know where that came from but I believed it at the time.”

On a planned ECW match for Summerslam that year – Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs. Tommy Dreamer & The Sandman: “Yeah, I think so. Because that was the…those four guys were generally perceived as the top of the mark there in ECW. Of course Taz, The Dudleys, Shane Douglas, they had a good crew there. But they were kind of considered the top of the line and the thing we thought was because of who they were, we’d get a great match out of them. Because they would want to steal the show and do everything to be sensationalistic and have a memorable match. So it was discussed. And here’s the deal there. The star of that whole quartet was RVD. RVD was always the guy…hey look I’m not knocking Tommy Dreamer or Sandman, great veterans, Tommy still works his ass off at House of Hardcore, always pulling for him…but man RVD was the star of that quartet in the offices eyes of WWE. Anything we would have done with ECW would have been to make sure we took care of RVD in the process.”

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Grilling JR with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.