10 Genius Wrestling Bookers And The Best Decision They Ever Made
2. Paul Heyman (ECW/WWE)
Best Decision: Accentuating positives/hiding negatives
Whether it was during his tenure as the owner of ECW, or as SmackDown head booker in 2002, Paul Heyman has always been lauded as a creative genius.
Taking a different approach to booking, Heyman would take a wrestler, promote their strengths as much as possible, while concealing any weaknesses they had. His booking style also emphasized drama and competition, and so matches booked under his tenure rarely melted into one-sided squash matches.
One of the best examples of his philosophy in action was SmackDown in 2002, which featured the SmackDown Six (Angle, Benoit, Eddie, Chavo, Edge and Mysterio) put on such outstanding wrestling matches that not only did you tend to forget that they had any weaknesses as wrestlers, but SmackDown beat RAW in terms of ratings for the first and only time.
In ECW, for example, he took an unimpressive wrestler named 911, and presented the few moves that he did do well as exciting and worthwhile moments. He also took the Sandman and made him into a blue collar hero, despite his lack of promo ability.
Finally, he built a promotion based on wrestlers with real personalities, which gave them more freedom than in any other promotion.
A true booking genius if there ever was one.