Paul Heyman sat down with “The Masked Man Show” this week to promote the upcoming Royal Rumble event, as well as his thoughts on Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, as well as helping MVP get back into the WWE.
Paul Heyman talking about helping MVP get back into WWE:
“I’m very proud of him as a human being because you talk about someone who didn’t let his own past drag him down. He came out of a situation and said, ‘Ok, how do I turn my life around?’ How do I live out my dreams even though I have this blemish on me that I’m never going to shake? How can I rise above this?'”
“MVP called me when I was executive director of RAW and said, ‘The Rumble is in Houston. You know I have a son. My son never saw me as MVP. Can you get me in the Rumble,'” Heyman revealed.
“I know how talented he is. I think that life beat him down so bad and he was trying to stay positive and stay inspiring to his son, but I think he forgot the greatness that he had to offer. I said to him, ‘I’ll make you a deal. I’ll get you in the Rumble if you work RAW the next night. Who do you like? Who do you want to work with?’ He said, ‘Mysterio.’ I said, ‘Okay, work with Rey Mysterio. I’ll make that match happen, but I want a match, not just an appearance in the Rumble.’”
“Meanwhile, behind the scenes without him knowing, I went to all the appropriate parties and through protocol, and that includes Vince because that’s the autonomy, that’s the final say, and I pitched him to be a producer who brings his gear with him on the road. So if for some reason, if somebody misses a plane, a flight is canceled, or somebody gets sick or injured and we need a replacement, ‘Hey we have this legacy star, former U.S. Heavyweight Champion, MVP. Ballin’, and he can perform. We can plug him into a match. He’s there, he’s a producer, and people are learning from his experience. ‘Great let’s do that,’ Heyman said in his best Vince impression.
Heyman continued telling the story, saying, “Then as I was doing the Bobby Lashley-Lana-Rusev triangle, I said, ‘You know what? Lashley ultimately should end up with MVP. That would be great.’ By the time he showed up at the Rumble, I had pitched him and got him hired for four jobs. He was wrestling, he was managing, he was commentating, and he was a producer. My theory was he may not last in three of them, but there’s no way they’re going to get rid of him on all four.”
“I had no idea which one he was going to end up keeping. If you would have told me he was going to end up as a commentator, great, as a producer, great, as a wrestler, great, as a mouthpiece for Bobby Lashley, great. I knew he would end up with at least one if not more of those, but at least one, and I knew he could concentrate on that one and excel at it.”
“I also knew that Brock’s time was winding down, he was going to go home for a while, and that the lead mouthpiece position was going to be opened up, so I brought him in to replace me,” Heyman said.
“I brought him in as my successor. I brought him in to carry that role on because there were a few people that were helping someone do a promo, but they weren’t doing the role of the old school manager, the new school advocate. They weren’t being tied to a persona that you couldn’t imagine those two being apart. I knew that Lashley and MVP had such synergy and such chemistry that putting them together, you couldn’t imagine Bobby Lashley without MVP or MVP without Bobby Lashley. I knew that dynamic would be, forget about it being gold, it would be platinum. It would be such box office that they would just jell together and become an act as one.”
“That’s the real successor to the evolution of where managers have gone, that you be with an act, and be so identified with that act, that you complete it and it’s not the same without you. Since I knew Brock was going to take time off, MVP was the heir apparent to carrying on that role in the lead position in this industry.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “The Masked Man Show” with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
