WWE Hall of Famer Paul Heyman spoke with Newsweek on a number of topics, including being inspired by his father.
Heyman said, “In all candor, I don’t think I’ve ever delivered an interview or a promo that could match what I witnessed my father do in front of a jury in the Bronx when he was an attorney. Every basic principle of show business was utilized by my father.”
On what he expects to see moving forward in the industry:
“An era more of continued transparency. Intelligent discussion of the product itself. Authenticity, in terms of the characters. And just great stories. What’s next for professional wrestling is the same thing that built wrestling’s greatest highs in the attitude era, in 1984 with the expansion, in the ’70s when the territories were on fire, in the ’50s on the DuMont network, dating back to 1905 with Frank Gotch and George Hackenschmidt.”
“It’s the same thing that broke the Yankees and the Red Sox rivalry. The Lakers and the Celtics. The Chicago Bulls and everybody in the NBA in the 1980s. The Pittsburgh Steelers against the Dallas Cowboys. Who are these people? Why are they fighting? Why should I care enough to pay to see it? You answer those three questions, you have a viewer. You have a ticket buyer. You have a network subscriber. You have a t-shirt purchaser.”
