Paul Heyman Doesn’t Think Vince McMahon Considers Himself a Good Man

Paul Heyman says that he doesn’t think Vince McMahon considers himself a good man, nor has he ever cared about it. Heyman and McMahon have had a complicated relationship over the years, one that fractured completely at times before they would mend fences. Of course, things are very different now than they were at the height of their work together in the 2000s, with McMahon out of WWE because of the sexual misconduct accusations that were levied against him in 2023 and 2024 while Paul Heyman is still there, working both on screen and backstage with certain talent.

Heyman appeared on In Depth with Graham Bensinger and during the conversation, he was asked about his relationship with McMahon. Bensinger asked if he believed McMahon is “a good man” and said no but didn’t think McMahon ever thought of himself as one either. He also recalled their heated arguments, including over the booking of WWE’s ECW, and Heyman’s belief that McMahon resurrected ECW and changed it as a personal slight against him. You can see the highlights below:

On How He Views McMahon:

“As a supremely complicated human being of great accomplishment… No, I don’t think Vince would consider — don’t think Vince ever considered himself a good man. I don’t think he cared about it; I don’t think that was part of his self-judgment. I don’t think he felt he was placed on this planet to be a good man.

“Do I think he’s a man of great accomplishment? Yes. Do I regret the battles? And I had some battles with Vince.”

On the Arguments They Had:

“It’s a lot of ‘F**k you,’ ‘F**k you’s.’ And he liked confrontation. So if I said, you know, ‘Hey, f**k you’ on this, he wouldn’t go, ‘Oh, how can you talk to me that way? I’m the chairman of the board; I’m going to fire you.’ [He’d say] ‘Oh, really? F**k me? Oh, f**k you!’ It’s like, ‘Okay, here we go. I mean, it was just these childish battles.”

On Their Worst Battle:

“2006, when he relaunched ECW. [He] told me he was putting me in charge of it, and 30 seconds later started stripping me of any authority that I had in controlling or contouring or tailoring or creating the product. And again, if you dumb it down to try to explain it to somebody that doesn’t understand, it goes like this. Vince had no one left to compete with. He was the only game in town. Any other game was a minor league — wasn’t even a B team. It wasn’t even a C team. It was Pee-Wee League compared to WWE. So he resurrects ECW, which was going down in history and still goes down in history today as Paul Heyman’s vision. He puts Paul Heyman in charge. ‘Paul Heyman is now re-presenting ECW.’ And Vince McMahon can change the ECW creative and the ECW product on Paul Heyman. [Imitates maniacal laugh]

“It’s this Machiavellian… I can look at it in the most objective way today, and I can tell you in my heart of hearts or in a cold-blooded business assessment, no matter what perspective I take in looking at it, that’s exactly what happened. He got off changing ECW on me. And it became just such a personal battle that was one, terrible for the product. Terrible for the company, even worse for the audience. That was the most miserable six months.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit In Depth with Graham Bensinger with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.