To follow up on the Paul Heyman situation, it looks like he is gone from WWE. PwInsider talked to a few people in the know and the general concensus was that Vince McMahon was angry at how bad December To Dismember was and pinned the whole mess on Heyman. He got the blame for it with the theory being that “he is caught in the past and doesn’t understand the new vision of ECW”.
PwInsiders sources also revealed that the problems started Sunday at the ECW PPV when everyone realized that the show really stunk. Heyman was said to be unhappy with the way that the show was booked and sources backstage reported that he voiced that concern both before the show and after it. People at the Raw/ECW Tapings said that it was obvious that there were issues between Vince McMahon and Heyman because of the how the show played out on pay TV, with everyone knowing it was a disaster.
Problems carried over from Sunday night and led to the incidents that happened Monday. A number of sources said that there was a meeting at Monday’s show around two o’clock with Heyman, Vince McMahon and Stephanie McMahon-Levesque at the building. Heyman came out the meeting and seemed like his normal self, with no one having any idea that something bad had happened. Shortly thereafter, Heyman gathered his things and left the building to go home. The word going around is that this is not a storyline in any way and he is legitimately done with the company.
Now it doesn’t take a genius to look at ECW as it is today and look at ECW as it was to realize who is actually booking those shows now . . . Vince McMahon. Heyman may have been writing the shows but it is very obvious they went through the Vince McMahon/WWE Creative Editorial process. This was my complaint about the new ECW since the begining . . . Vince wouldn’t let Heyman do what he does best, McMahon had to have his hand in the pie. But even with Vince’s interferance, ECW still put on a better show than SmackDown and that right there could also be a contributing factor to Heyman’s departure. Either way McMahon has made a huge mistake and has let a huge asset go. WWE Creative is terrible and Heyman was the only person bringing good ideas to the table. It would not suprise me to see ECW folded into SmackDown in 2007. Depending on his contract status, this could be a huge opportunity for TNA to get rid of Vince Russo and bring in a great wrestling mind to book their shows. Imagine how good TNA could be with Heyman and Cornette booking their shows?
