How Paul Heyman Saved WWE SmackDown In 2002

Almost as if he was trying to create the wildest bullsh*t on top of b*llocks to hide his dynamite wrestling in plain sight, Paul Heyman crafted two romance angles so stupendously silly that they remain fondly remembered despite the era lending itself less to nostalgia than a national crisis.

Billy and Chuck performed brilliantly ahead of and during their wedding before the organisation chickened out of positively promoting homosexuality for the first time. From the ridiculous to the morbidly sublime, Torrie Wilson’s somnolent single father Al was f*cked to death by a Dawn Marie character digging for his gold and digging out his daughter-in-law. Neither of these have aged well over this paragraph let alone the passage of time, but few fans that had hung around from the Attitude Era forget the stories. More importantly, entertainment savant Vince McMahon was happy with Heyman’s work. A positive relationship between those two has almost always yielded actual “good sh*t”, until - like the a*secheeks they can both be - they’re forced to part.

Paul Heyman didn’t just save SmackDown in 2002. He reimagined it and completely redefined it. His footprint exists to this day whenever anybody refers to the blue brand as the “workrate” show despite few performers approaching the consistency of the SmackDown Six. It’s considered a “land of opportunity” even when WWE don’t brand it as such - Heyman’s knack for actually f*cking getting people over made the show appear like the place to go and do just that. Every Seth, Cesaro and Sonya over the years has been bettered by a stint there, so lingering is the perception.

It’s now the reason for all the optimism around his Raw role. If he even approaches this level of success before things with Vince McMahon inevitably implode again, there might yet be a new hope for the fatally failing flagship.