How Paul Heyman Saved WWE SmackDown In 2002

Eddie Guerrero Edge Kurt Angle Chris Benoit
WWE Network

Long removed from flirting with becoming a workrate promotion in the mid-1990s, WWE’s style had shifted with Stone Cold Steve Austin’s following his neck injury. Austin was drawing, his brawls were drawing, so everybody brawled. The paradigm shifted somewhat in 2000 as Triple H and The Rock took hold of the top two spots, before ‘The Rattlesnake’ escalated it further with some sublime scuffles in 2001.

Calling virtually all of those matches alongside Jim Ross, Heyman literally saw the near future in front of him. It wasn’t destined to feature Steve Austin sadly, but fans were ready to embrace high end in-ring again. In Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero, Edge and Rey Mysterio, Heyman had six superworkers with which to make wrestling a focus again.

He smashed his targets.

A tournament to crown new Tag Team Champions gave rise to the three pairings and a sh*tload of sh*t hot matches in the process. A final pitting the Angle/Benoit and Mysterio/Edge combos against one another was the best of the bunch, taking place on the same show as a Triple H/Kane match lumbered with a faux-corpse-f*cking angle. The disparity between the brands was embarrassingly apparent, but the smartest trick Heyman played was giving Vince McMahon just enough similar sh*t without it overwhelming the far superior SmackDown. He was so good that even his Sports Entertainment became the talk of the entire company…

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett