WWE News: Paul Heyman Finally Signs New Deal With WWE Just Hours Before ‘Monday Night RAW’
From the archive: published Aug 1, 2016, 10 years ago. Details may have changed since.
WWE manager and advocate Paul Heyman has been the subject of much news and especially rumors as of late. With Brock Lesnar returning to the WWE to hype his match with Randy Orton at WWE SummerSlam, it meant that obviously Heyman would join the Beast’s side as he hyped up the event and fought The Viper, right? Not entirely. Heyman has not been under contract with the WWE for some time now, so it meant that if he was going to come back, he would need to sign something.
Most expected him to sign a new deal or work without a contract and simply be paid by the date, as WWE would really need him in the lead up to SummerSlam. WWE tried to have Lesnar talk for himself years back when he made his comeback to the WWE, but it did not work out well for the Beast Incarnate. That’s when WWE went out and managed to bring Paul Heyman back to the company to be with Lesnar.
Heyman managed Lesnar, but he also took it upon himself to manage others like Cesaro and Curtis Axel, as well as CM Punk during his historic WWE Championship run of 434 days. His value has skyrocketed in the WWE, and clearly the company wanted to keep him around. Yet, he had not signed a deal, and the clock was ticking. PWInsider would claim that Paul Heyman would join Brock Lesnar tonight on WWE RAW, leading to some to believe that Heyman signed on for the date only.
As a former promoter, he knows how to sell a pro-wrestling match as well as anyone if not better. He runs a marketing business on the side of his WWE career, of course, which means the man literally sells things to people for a living. Clearly, he knows how to sell us on Lesnar vs Orton. Really though, he won’t have a difficult time with this one anyone. Orton vs Lesnar has been a thought in fans’ minds for years now.
The company never gave us this match when both men were at a high level. It was done on SmackDown years ago when Orton was used simply as an enhancement talent to put over Brock. That meant Orton versus Lesnar was a top match that never occurred either because Brock wasn’t around or was busy with someone else. Clearly in knowing this, the WWE felt it would be a good match to sell the SummerSlam PPV on. WWE did not know the drug test issue with the USADA and UFC would occur in all of this, however.
Brock Lesnar was going to return tonight and if he returned by himself, it would be difficult for him to sell a match with the possible boos he might get. Fans seem to respect Paul Heyman and will listen to him and what he has to say, because they know it’ll be good. What’s so interesting is that after Heyman talks tonight, he may excite you about Orton vs Lesnar more than you already were. You’ll possibly even forget about the drug test issue. Paul Heyman has that power, which is why his value in WWE was so high and why WWE was possibly able to come to an agreement with him that might have even been better than his last.
