Paul Heyman Discusses His Shoot-Style Promo on Vince McMahon, How Vince Pitched the Idea, How Much Freedom He Gave Heyman

In an interview with Inside the Ropes, Paul Heyman discussed his famous shoot-style promo on Vince McMahon on Smackdown during the Invasion storyline. Heyman said that Vince had no input on promo the and gave him total freedom to say whatever he wanted. Highlights are below.

On how Vince McMahon told Heyman he wanted him to do the shoot promo: “Vince is on the plane and the funny thing was, just like with Mick Foley, he was legitimately just sitting there eating fruit or something, and he just goes over and goes, ‘Wanna rip me an asshole ye fucking wide?’ Figuratively, not literally. And it had been awhile since I had done one of those ECW-style shoot promos. My response, ‘Do you want me to rip you an asshole ye wide? As this guy over here found out, I’m the guy to do it. Want me to shoot? I’ll shoot. OK. How far can I go?’ ‘As much as you can to draw me money.’ ‘OK, that I can do.'”

On wanting to invoke Vince McMahon’s father’s name in the promo: “We got to Smackdown and I knew I wanted to invoke the name of a bunch of the promoters he ran out of business, and I knew I wanted to invoke the name of his father because I knew his father, I worked for his father, I was a teenage photographer that used to get paid for my pictures by Vince McMahon’s father, so I felt I had the right to invoke his father’s name, which is a no-no unless you’re going to say his name with reverence, and we had done the angle where I turned Vince’s children, and we’ve done it 100,000 times since, but this was, I turned both of them on Vince at the same time, with Stephanie coming down on TV and goes, ‘I just want my father to die!'”

On Vince giving him total freedom to say whatever he wanted: “To his credit, I’ll give him a ton of credit, I went up to Vince halfway through the day and said, ‘Do you even know some of the shot I’m going to say to you?’ And he goes, ‘Nope. Draw me money.’ OK. ‘Are you going to say anything back to me?’ ‘Nope. Just draw me money.'”

“So we were in gorilla, and I was about to go out to cut the promo and I looked over at Vince who is eating a protein bar and I said, ‘You sure you don’t want to know any of the shit I’m gonna say here? Some of this shit is real heavy.’ ‘Will it draw me money?’ ‘It’ll get a lot of attention, Vince, that I promise you.’ ‘It’s the go home show, goddamnit, bring it!’ ‘Yessir, captain! I’m on my way!'”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Inside the Ropes with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.