10 Things We Learned From Inside The Ropes With Paul Heyman (London)

A member of the audience asks what led to Heyman getting release from WCW in 1992, which causes the former ECW booker to heartily chuckle.

Heyman brings up Bill Watts' name and how he really, really didn't get along with him. Not mincing words, Heyman calls him not only a bully, but a racist, a xenophobe and an anti-semite. Heyman then gives an impassioned speech about how he despises and will fight anti-semitism to the death and how he could never be afraid of anything because he grew up with a mother who was a survivor of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

Heyman hated Watts, whose job it was to save WCW money by cutting costs. He would supposedly either tell guys to take a pay cut and receive a push or keep their contracts, be buried and then never work for WCW again once their deals ran out and their value had been lowered. Heyman thought it was bullsh*t and, as somebody who had negotiated employee (not just performer) perks, he wasn't prepared to acquiesce to his demands.

Watts and his team apparently fabricated a story that Heyman inflated his expenses and let him go (which Heyman says was completely false). Heyman then sued Watts and WCW and settled out-of-court for a hefty sum, which pretty much enabled him to work f'or free' during his seven-year ECW run.

Now, onto Cornette, who has not been shy about letting his opinion of Heyman be known, even if his stance has softened somewhat in recent times. Heyman doesn't outright attack Cornette and respects his right to say whatever it is he feels but, for Heyman, Cornette is stuck in the past and will always want wrestling to be what it was in the 1970s or 80s, even though it never could be that way again and must evolve.

The greatest difference between the two is that Heyman is aware of the year they are living in and is keen to move with the times, whereas Cornette would be happier if wrestling went back in time.