10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Paul Heyman

3. He Has Been Part Of Booking Team And Fired More Than Once

Heyman has always been credited for being one of the smartest guys in the history of wrestling. He ran ECW for seven years on a limited budget and made an impact on the business that will be felt forever. When he was there people would always wonder how good his booking would be if he had a bigger budget. When WWE hired him in 2001 they didn't put him on the creative team right away. He was a commentator. When that ended in late 2001 he became a part of the creative team. In the spring of 2002, he became the manager of Brock Lesnar and WWE also did their brand extension. They separated the writing teams up so Heyman became the head writer of the Smackdown brand. The second half of Smackdown in 2002 was incredible. Led by the "Smackdown Six" (Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Edge & Chavo Guerrero) they had some of the best matches of anybody in the world. They wrestled in teams, they had long drawn out feuds where they elevated Edge and Mysterio and the Benoit/Angle feud was the best thing going. There was also Undertaker working with a young Brock Lesnar. A lot of things were going right at that time. Heyman was getting a lot of praise for booking things so well. Heyman's run as the head writer on Smackdown ended in February of 2003. Why? Nobody really knows other than the classic "creative differences" line that was given. It was not based on numbers or quality of show because Heyman was great at his job. It was a clash of styles more than anything. There have been many stories over the years about Heyman having creative differences with Stephanie McMahon. It made people online hate Stephanie since Heyman was so beloved. In the early 2000s, Stephanie was just in her mid 20s and she had all this power while Heyman had all this experience booking, yet they forced him out. Following that creative team departure in 2003 that never should have happened, Heyman became an on screen performer again and would return to WWE in a creative capacity when he was in charge of Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) in 2005. This was around the time of the first ECW One Night Stand show in 2005 and then in 2006 when WWE brought back ECW. He was in charge of WWE's ECW at that point. More on that one later.