One of the low points of Paul Heyman’s career remains his departure from WWE in 2006, a contentious departure over disagreements with Vince McMahon on how to run the revived ECW brand that same year. And while he has discussed it before, Heyman arguably has never gone as in depth about the situation as he did when appearing on “Insight with Chris Van Vliet.” Admitting off the bat that disagreements between him and McMahon were the cause of his departure, Heyman attributed his grievances towards his, almost blind, passion towards ECW, while he believes McMahon was intentionally trying to mess with Heyman by changing things.
“No one drank the Kool-Aid of the cult of ECW more than Paul Heyman,” Heyman said. “So I gave seven and a half years to that cult, to that cause, to that mindset, and to Vince, because he was bored with no competition. WCW was gone, ECW was gone, TNA was nothing in terms of capturing Vince’s attention.
“So what did Vince McMahon get to do? ‘Dammit, I get to change ECW booking on Paul Heyman.’ The power, it’s just…it’s how Vince operates. And so it became a very personal tug of war between whose vision will be implemented for ECW when the whole dynamic was ‘Let’s create a third brand that’s a true alternative to the other two.’ It just became a miserable working environment.”
While he’s been a staple of WWE since returning to the promotion in 2011, many may forget that Heyman was out of the business for half a decade following his 2006 exit, instead choosing to focus on ventures outside of the wrestling business. And at the time of his departure, Heyman believed with certainty that there was no going back to WWE or to wrestling.
“I thought I was done,” Heyman said. “Oh absolutely.”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription
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