Paul Heyman Says WWE’s Breakout Stars Are Already On the Roster

– Paul Heyman spoke with Paste Magazine for a new interview promoting this weekend’s WrestleMania 34. Some excerpts are below:

On his enjoyment of doing his live shows: “This is written by, directed by, produced by, performed by the audience. This is just me as the maestro in front of an orchestra. We learned this in London—it’s not about the format that we envision, it’s about gathering people from all over who are converging in New Orleans in the same place at the same time for the ame event, WrestleMania, and here’s an open forum for everybody to talk. We’re going to brainstorm. We’re going to have a culture meeting. And I just happen to be the guy at the front who’s the connecting dot for all these people at the same time.”

On why now is his favorite part of his WWE run: “Because everything that I’ve done, everything I’ve been exposed to, everything I’ve worked for, any sacrifice I’ve made, has lead to this moment right here at this place in time. Look at where we are. Brock and I started on television in 2002. He has since that time been a top box office attraction, has gone into history as accomplishing something no one else could accomplish in terms of conquering the Undertaker’s streak. He has been a UFC Heavyweight Champion, beating the greatest heavyweight champion in UFC history, Randy Couture. Knocking Randy Couture out to take the title. Come back from a deadly disease and here we are with me, at 52, having started at 21 in the business, and we’re walking into the main event of WrestleMania, and we are opposing someone who is now such a box office attraction that he’s in his fourth consecutive WrestleMania event. Holy shit, man! You know what, life doesn’t suck right now. It’s pretty fucking good. So what’s my favorite era ever? Right now. And my kids are healthy and they have a chance to see the experience for good and for bad with me along the ride. And the person I work with is legitimately my best friend in the world. And I admire him both as a performer, as an athlete and also just as a human being and a husband and a father. I admire him more than I could ever talk about on television when I’m extolling his virtues.”

On what he’s looking forward to most at WrestleMania: “The entire card. It’s an experience. It’s the same thing as going to a Broadway play. If you’re going to obsess over how many lines a character has, or how the people who created the play envisioned it ending, then you’re missing the point. If you go to a Broadway play and you walk away going “oh my God, that’s the best Broadway experience I’ve ever had,” then you’ve seen a great play. If you walk away saying “I’m sorry I spent my two and a half hours at that Broadway play,” then it wasn’t a great experience. WrestleMania is an experience. It’s an overall ride, its ups and its downs and its curves and its music. It’s presentation and it’s emotion and it’s paying tribute to the past and progressing the product into the future. It’s career defining moments for people who live for career defining moments. And believe me when I tell you, every single person who walks out to the ring during WrestleMania wants to make it a memorable moment in their career that they’ve walked out to the ring during WrestleMania. So you’re seeing people who do what they do better than anybody else on the face of the planet at their absolute best and determined and driven to make it their best performance of the year. So for everyone, I don’t care if it’s the guy who replaces the turnbuckle, he’s on his best behavior on this day. You get to watch peak performers do it at a level that they feel is their best.”

On WWE’s breakout stars: “[The Usos] are an act on Snackdown that I cannot take my attention away from, even for a moment. They are must see. And they’re next at the top of the box office food chain. Seth Rollins wrestled over an hour on television and put on a performance that, in the tape trading days, would have gotten worldwide acclaim with people checking their mailbox every day waiting for the tape to see the performance that everyone is buzzing about. And I can tell you that this is someone who is driven to deliver that every night if he’s given the platform. He wants to earn the platform. How can you talk about a future and not actually say, well, shit, Daniel Bryan’s picking up where he left off? He’s not a nostalgia act, he’s the real deal, and he’s coming back to be everything that he was deprived by his health of being. So when you ask me who do I see as the next breakout superstars, I think they’re already on the roster, and they have been scratching and clawing their way to the top and they’re about to get their opportunity because they earned that opportunity.”