The Blue Meanie On How Paul Heyman And Eric Bischoff Will Do Under Vince McMahon, Matt Riddle In WWE

Blue Meanie's old ECW boss Paul Heyman has a new gig as the Executive Director of Raw. Meanie talked about what Heyman will bring to Raw when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on today's edition of the WINCLY podcast.

"I can see nothing but positive things happen if WWE truly let Heyman have a voice. He's always been a creative guy and now he'll have a little bit of a governor on him [with Vince McMahon]. You can't totally go overboard and stuff like that," Meanie said before giving an example of Heyman going overboard in ECW when he flew Jerry Lynn from Japan to Philadelphia just to run through a promo.

"I don't think Paul would make things more violent. Everyone thinks Paul and they think ECW and they think violence. In my opinion, if ECW stayed around then it would have become something like ROH with the pure, technical, athletic wrestling. Paul was always good at thinking of storylines and making them make sense."

Meanie says Heyman will have a huge pool of talent to pick from with NXT which he sees on par with Raw and SmackDown. Meanie said "guys get called over, not called up" when they jump from NXT to the main roster.

"Paul Heyman is a creative genius when it comes to in-ring and behind the camera," said Meanie. "I think Vince has made a great choice to have a fresh set of eyes. ?I think Vince is taking a step back and asking, 'How can we breathe life into this? How can we make this more vital? How can we bring the numbers back up?'

"It's a business and WWE needs a little bit of help. They've had this secret all along, they've just invited him to take over the reins."

Just like with Heyman, Eric Bischoff will be the Executive Director of SmackDown and Meanie discussed how Bischoff will perform in that capacity.

"I think Bischoff will do good," Meanie said before mentioning seeing an "Untold" series on the Network of how Bischoff wanted to buy up WCW and take it over. "The only thing that hurt Bischoff was Time Warner not wanting to be involved with wrestling anymore. They kind of sabotaged it.

"I think Bischoff is a great mind for the business and a great marketer. So if he has the chance to do with a full roster of Superstars?the world is his oyster. Just like with Heyman, they have a chance to do things with an owner that knows the business. Vince knows the business; Ted Turner didn't know wrestling and the people at CNN didn't know the wrestling business."

Meanie stressed patience from fans in regards to seeing changes on Raw and SmackDown as WWE is playing the long game and things will happen gradually.

"When you watch a year from today, you'll notice a difference. We live in a microwave mentality where we want everything now, now, now, now, now. People need to be patient and see where it goes. Put down your phones, stop being critics and just watch from a fan's perspective and enjoy," stated Meanie.

Outside of wrestling on the indies, Meanie is a trainer at The Monster Factory whose alumni include The Big Show, Raven and Matt Riddle. Meanie talked about what he taught Riddle at the wrestling school.

"When WWE did the Riddle documentary and they interviewed me, I said I had done a Dory Funk dojo with Kurt Angle back in the day and you could see how Angle was at that stage right then and there. And Riddle reminds me of a young Angle," revealed Meanie. "He's a fan of the business and is athletic. He already has the gifts with amateur wrestling and MMA. All we did at The Monster Factory was reprogram his motherboard towards pro wrestling and make his skills fit into the world of pro wrestling."

Meanie referred to himself as a mental coach for Riddle and helped prepare him for behind the scenes and on the road.

"Every day in the wrestling business is like Groundhog's Day where you're living the same day in and out," said Meanie. "Watch. Rinse. Repeat. ?Are you ready to do that day in and day out on top of what you put your body through in the ring? When it came to training Matt Riddle, I got him prepared for all of that stuff. He's just a natural and a stud. I think he's gonna be the biggest thing in WWE for a while to come. I think they should let him marinate a little bit in NXT to the point where WWE is begging him to come over to [the main roster]."

Meanie was a part of the infamous bWo in ECW back in the day and he talked about recently commissioning a bWo title belt.

"I'm a huge belt mark," Meanie said while laughing. "Some people love looking at oil paintings or museum paintings on the wall; I just love looking at championship belts.

"I've always been a fan of hard work and craftsmanship and I wanted something to be personal, kinda like a tattoo. All of my tattoos have personal meanings and I saw Helms has the Hurricane Belt, Zack Ryder has his belt and Al Snow has the Job Squad Belt. I saw that and thought the perfect belt would be the bWo belt.

"I'm friends with Andrew over at Wild Kat Belts?and he's making belts for WWE and the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. So, I was like, 'Hey man. Let's do something together.' I approached them and had all these wild ideas but he wanted to keep it simple. I said alright and he came up with this beautiful piece of art."

Meanie said the belt represents the most meaningful part of his career and he enjoyed seeing the progression shots he received while it was being made.

"Once I took the belt out of the package, and he gave me this sweet belt bag, there's like a high you feel when you look at it for the first time. Andrew did an amazing job and it's part of my life, part of my career. I'm not gonna take it to the ring or defend it. I may take it to conventions, but it's something I always wanted and I'm over the moon about it," Meanie said before adding that Andrew at Wild Kat also made Daniel Bryan's eco-friendly belt.

The Blue Meanie can be found on Twitter @BlueMeanieBWO. You can support Meanie by buying one of his shirts at ProWrestlingTees.com/BlueMeanie. His full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of today's episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post. In it Meanie discusses the new bWo title belt, Cody Rhodes' unprotected chair shot, how to gimmick a steel chair, AEW's biggest hurdles, Paul Heyman's new WWE creative role, training Matt Riddle and more.

You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.