On the surface, Paul Heyman - pudgy, bald, middle-aged - may not seem very cool. Don't let the shell fool you. Heyman is a true original - a wrestling promoter who knows what you want and how to give it to you. As the owner and booker of Extreme Championship Wrestling, Heyman developed a truly mature wrestling product. Yes, it had sex, yes, it had violence, yes, it had foul language - but it was mostly mature in the sense that it spoke to the post-adolescent wrestling fan without insult his intelligence. It was a style that would be co-opted by WWE en route to their greatest success ever. Today, Heyman works as a manager in WWE, and the way he lets the ultra-popular world of MMA influence his style is readily apparent - he does his best to build big fights, one at a time, between his larger-than-life clients and their opponents. With every business maneuver he makes, Heyman proves that he has his finger on the pulse of what wrestling fans want. He's the mad scientist, the rebel genius, and pretty damned cool.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
