10 Best Wrestling Talkers Of 2018
8. Paul Heyman
Far from his best year - it doesn't exactly help that his client barely bothered to turn up - Paul Heyman nonetheless delivered his typical verbal masterclasses throughout a largely dismal year of Monday Night RAW. If anything, Heyman is too much of a luxury: his G.O.A.T-level work often brings into focus just how stilted everything else is.
Ahead of SummerSlam, Heyman concocted a ruse designed to rattle Roman Reigns. On the August 6 RAW, he sat down for a candid interview with Renee Young. Cracked of voice and bloodshot of eye, Heyman, in a superb performance thoroughly committed in physical emotion, didn't merely steal a dire pro wrestling show: a grief-stricken performance, this was almost Emmy-worthy, let alone Slammy-worthy. Loaded with snot, Heyman, jittering and spluttering, reacted to Renee Young's question - "Is there anybody here you have your eye on as a potential client?" - like an incoherent mess. The best wordsmith in WWE was at his best when hopelessly lost for them.
His excellent, bellowing huckster self elsewhere - we all say we're sick of Brock Lesnar, until the Advocate comes around - it's little wonder that his magic isn't transferrable.
He makes the vast majority of his peers look bad.