Theres no other way of saying it: Paul Heyman is and was a creative genius. During the initial post-Attitude years, Heyman was put in charge of SmackDown and developing its stars. And during that era, fans of the show were treated to fantastic matches, and witnessed the growth of six great wrestlers: Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie and Chavo Guerrero, Edge and Rey Mysteriothe SmackDown Six. All of these guys went on to become World Champions, and it was due in part to Paul Heyman. In the link below, you can hear just how many intricate details and arguments Paul Heyman put into creating the top stars on SmackDown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nvl_A9ouM8 Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and that includes Heymans tenure in the WWE. His departure posed some big problems for the creative team. He had experience working in a rival promotion that was often times in direct competition with WWE and WCW, and that drive for competition translated into the great matches on SmackDown, particularly in 2002. Without Heyman, however, soon the writing teams were once again amalgamated, and SmackDown lost its unique appeal as a show dedicated to showing athletic contests instead of angles and progressing storylines. Paul Heyman knew how to hide a superstars weaknesses, and emphasize their strengths, which made stars grow. This is how SmackDown superstars, notably Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit, who were the (WWEs) NWOs punching bags while on RAW, managed to break from that moniker and become world champions. His style of booking is sorely lacked in todays WWE. Instead of proper writers, many of the WWEs creative team is composed of TV soap opera writers, who know how to write cheesy angles for a television drama, yet have little to no experience in translating that drama into a wrestling program. A person who does have that experience is Paul Heyman. Though hes seen on TV every week, its unlikely that hes involved with the creative department in the WWE anymore or at least in the same capacity. Which is a shame; they could really learn from someone with his vast wealth of knowledge and years of experience.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
