Paul Heyman stacks them so Roman Reigns can smash them.
Paul Heyman and Roman Reigns have been on top of Friday Night SmackDown for nearly a year. This Paul Heyman is different than the advocate to Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman as proud of that evolution.
Speaking with Sports Illustrated, Paul Heyman dissected the evolution of his promo and his character and said that now, his promos serve to build up Roman Reigns opponents so that it appears all that more impressive when Roman Reigns breaks them down.
“At this stage, the Paul Heyman promo is to enlighten the audience as to just how talented, how great and how marketable the opponent for Roman Reigns is, and then, by contrast, even if Roman Reigns’s opponent is a 12 on a scale of zero to 10, he’s still not at Roman Reigns’s level,” Heyman says. “A Roman Reigns promo is a fascinating offering on Friday Night SmackDown. I find it funny that I have to spend any time this week doing media interviews because I think SmackDown sells itself. And SmackDown sells itself on the mere fact that Roman Reigns is on the show. SmackDown is the best reality show on television today because you are seeing the real Roman Reigns unfold in front of your very eyes.”
He also expanded upon his evolution.
“What worked for me during the Dangerous Alliance era in WCW would not have worked for me in front of an ECW crowd. The rabble-rouser, cult leader, pied piper of the revolution in ECW would not have worked as Brock Lesnar’s advocate. Brock Lesnar’s advocate would not have worked as the ‘voice of the voice of the voiceless,’ and none of those would have worked for the special counsel for Roman Reigns or the co-host of Talking Smack. These are all distinctly different roles, and I would be doing a disservice to people if I treated it otherwise.”
He continued, “You have to read the room,” Heyman says. “If not, you’re a nostalgia act before you’re even cognizant of the fact that time has passed you by. In some ways, it hasn’t changed. I still ask myself, ‘What’s my goal? What am I selling?’ I’m a salesman, I’m a hype artist, I’m an interest facilitator. My job is to get you interested in the product, in the personalities [that] I’m selling, in the match I want you to witness, subscribe and buy. With Talking Smack, the medium is different; the platform is different. It’s like comparing Twitter to Instagram. The promo that I did on SmackDown, the ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! No! No! No!’ promo was all about just how great Daniel Bryan is and why that demonstrates the enormity of Roman Reigns’ star power—because as great as Daniel Bryan is and all he’s overcome, he’ll never overcome Roman Reigns.”
Paul Heyman says he wants to work with quality projects. It's the reason being paired with Roman Reigns was one of the only things that would bring him back after Brock Lesnar’s WWE deal expired. It's also the reason that Paul Heyman has not had one of his screenplays hit the big screen yet. Learn more about that here.
