Paul Heyman explains what went wrong with “Paul Heyman Guys” such as Cesaro and Curtis Axel
During an interview with Chris Van Vliet, WWE Hall of Famer Paul Heyman explained what went wrong with “Paul Heyman Guys” such as Cesaro and Curtis Axel. Here is the excerpt…
Van Vliet: “You’ve managed so many champions, so many Paul Heyman guys have gone on to be champions. I don’t know if you’ve talked about this before. What was the original plan with Curtis Axel? Why didn’t that one work out?”
Heyman: “Because I don’t think it was meant to work out. I don’t think there was ever an overall grand scheme to move Curtis Axel all the way up the ladder. Curtis Axel filled the need for there to be people around me to feed to CM Punk at the time, it’s the same thing that happened with Cesaro.
You look at Cesaro, and he checked, especially at that moment in time, he checked every box to become a top star. Everyone who got into the ring with him came back into Gorilla, saying, ‘Give me him.’ Everyone, I remember John Cena worked with him on television and came back and looked at Vince and said, ‘I could main event WrestleMania with him.’ And probably could have, and should have.
Cesaro was placed in that position the day after Brock Lesnar conquered The Streak, so that when Brock took his hiatus, I had an excuse to be on television to say my client Brock Lesnar conquered The Undertaker’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania, and you needed an excuse to have me out there on television, and if you put me on commentary, I can’t say it for two or three hours, I have to say it with impact once a week, just drill that into your head, reinforcement, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.
So Cesaro became the excuse to see me say the line.
Curtis Axel was cast as Paul Heyman guy, generic Paul Heyman guy. You may as well have put a mask on him and call him the Mad Russian, Mr. X, the assassin, the punk destroyer, so that we could feed the babyface CM Punk, and that’s a shame for Curtis Axel, because he had a lot more to offer, but he delivered in those matches with Punk, and that was the assignment, and once that assignment was over, there was no plan to propel him further, and he didn’t have the cache to go in and pitch for something that would continue the momentum coming out of that program.”
Van Vliet: “So there wasn’t a long-term plan for either of those guys?”
Heyman: “I don’t believe so. If there was, I was never clued in on it.
When I was told I was getting Curtis Axel, my question was, what are we doing with this, and Vince’s answer was going all the way to the top. I don’t think Vince really felt that about him, and I don’t think, I mean, I could tell by the third week I was with Cesaro, oh, I understand what we’re doing here, I get it.
I see how this is going to play out, that as soon as Brock is back, this is going to get discarded.”