WWE: 7 Innovations Paul Heyman Did That Changed Wrestling
4. Realistic And Grounded Gimmicks
As Heyman was bringing ECW into new territory the wrestling landscape was very different than it is today. WWE was filled with two types of gimmicks, cartoony ones or people who "had day jobs" for example Doink The Clown, Irwin R. Schyster, The Repo Man or the Mantaur. Their opposition WCW weren't innocent of this either with infamous gems as The Taskmaster and The Shockmaster, but were more focused on simply stealing WWE's top stars to fill their roster. ECW decided to make their wrestlers more relatable by having their gimmicks be more grounded in reality. As previously mentioned this resulted in Sandman, a beer drinking badass years before Stone Cold would arrive on the scene. Austin himself would benefit from this style of characterisation as his time in ECW allowed him to bring more of his own personality into his promo work. Mick Foley fitted in straight away thanks to his natural charisma that shone through perfectly when not constricted, something he would carry over to have great success in the WWE. Raven's grungy look and attitude made him a stand-out act as opposed to his runs in both WWE and WCW under the names Johnny Polo and Scotty Flamingo respectively. These two previous gimmicks had seen him play a Florida surfer and a spoilt rich kid, stark contrasts from the Scott Levy the man. Thanks to the creative freedom afforded by Heyman in ECW Raven would cut promos that took advantage of his Mensa level intellect with philosophy and literary references, and had two famous feuds with The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer, the latter of which was made by his refusal to quit despite taking over two years to finally score one victory over his nemesis. The implications of this method were immediate and still hold strong today. Most main event acts since ECW gained mainstream attention have strayed from the cartoony aspect and have incorporated elements of the real personality of the man behind the superstar. People such as John Cena, Daniel Bryan and CM Punk are all recent WWE Champions who basically play themselves, The Miz and Dolph Ziggler are also former World Champions who had success with the same ideology.
