Paul Heyman Says The Vision Is Like His ’90s ECW Roster

WWE Hall of Famer Paul Heyman joined Busted Open Radio this week, where he discussed The Vision as a stable, comparing it to his 1990s roster in ECW. Below are some highlights:

Paul Heyman on Why The Vision Is Like His ECW Roster in the ’90s

“Accentuate the strengths, hide the weaknesses. Guys looking to take over the industry, looking to disrupt, looking to be the next generation, whether inside the group or not. And who can deny that? Look at The Bloodline. It was the same theory in The Bloodline. We had a top guy in Roman Reigns. I had a top guy in ECW in Shane Douglas, who was our franchise player. He just didn’t know how to articulate and present himself to the world as the franchise player and have them acknowledge him as such. We had Roman Reigns as the big dog, which was never authentic Roman Reigns. Close but not fully authentic. And the people in the audience saw the holes in that character because that’s what it was. The Big Dog is a character. The Head of the Table is not. If Roman Reigns was sitting here, he’d sit right here. Why? Because he likes to be at the head of the table. That makes him feel good. That’s where he feels he belongs. That’s where he feels respected. That’s where he feels acknowledged. And if he could articulate that and explain that to a general public, now we have our franchise player. Now we have our Tribal Chief.

“The Usos, the Usos are fascinating human beings. And as we brought out in the very first interview about the Usos during The Bloodline, they would walk through the airports, and fans would take selfies and go, ‘Which one are you?’ They don’t say that anymore. We know Jey Uso, we know Jimmy Uso, we know the difference between the two. And it’s more than just one does Yeet, and the other is married to Naomi. We understand the characters. We understand the depth. We understand the torment of being Jay Uso. We understand the frivolity of being Jimmy Uso. Look at Sami Zayn within the bloodline. Look at Solo. And look at how the moment Solo got the moment, he went from being a mute, a stoic mute, to carrying the heel side of the SmackDown brand all summer to build to a match in which you didn’t know who was going to emerge as the real Tribal Chief in the debut of Netflix. It’s the same thing within The Vision. It’s the same thing that it was in ECW. Some people were going to become such stalwarts in ECW that they would carry the brand as far as they can carry it and then, case in point, go on to be even more enormous stars and carry those companies to heights that they had not seen before as well.”

On Comparing The Vision to The Dudley Boyz Revolutionizing the Tag Team Division

“Tell me the WWE tag team division was not revolutionized and evolutionized by the Dudley Boyz. Of course it was. And and and that’s the thing. We have a shop here, and this shop in The Vision is to create the next generation of WrestleMania main eventers. Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, CM Punk, Cody Rhodes right now, that’s your WrestleMania main event top tier. And some people may filter in and filter back out, but they can’t do it forever. Who’s going to be the WrestleMania main event? Not next year, but next year, the year after, the year after, the year after, the year after.”

On last week’s WWE Raw, The Vision teamed up to beat the team of LA Knight and The Usos in a six-man tag team bout. However, the stable faced a huge setback last night when Bronson Reed suffered an injury during his Elimination Chamber qualifying match on WWE Raw. The match was won by Jey Uso.

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Busted Open Radio, with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.