Paul Heyman Refuses To Say A Bad Word About Vince McMahon
Seemingly everyone in the wrestling world has been lining up to share their thoughts on the recently retired Vince McMahon, who resigned from his positions in WWE in the wake of numerous allegations of hush money payouts made to female employees to cover up reported sexual misconduct and abuse. The latest? Paul Heyman.
"I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Vince McMahon," Heyman said while appearing on the MackMania podcast. "What a hypocrite I would be to say anything less than extraordinarily complementary about that man. His work ethic, his willingness to put in 20, 22 hours a day, every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year for 40 years is why we are all fabulously wealthy, and will never get the credit nor the understanding that he deserves and that he earned.
"Fully supportive of the new regime. They understand the task at hand and the people that are involved right now at steering this ship were prepared to steer this ship by Vince McMahon. When I took the job as executive director, I asked Vince, 'What is the greatest service that I can give this company in this role?' ... His answer was, 'Get your successor ready in case you drop dead, because the show goes on with or without you.' And he looked me straight in the eyes and he says, 'Because the show goes on without me. With or without me.' And he meant it."
McMahon stepped down as CEO and chairman of the board temporarily in June, appointing daughter Stephanie McMahon to the position of interim CEO and first-ever chairwoman of the board after the Wall Street Journal broke the first story regarding hush money allegations, leading to a board investigation. After a second Wall Street Journal expanded on the accusations and a series of new investigations began, McMahon announced his retirement on July 22nd, tweeting out that he was done in the wrestling business. On the same day, Stephanie and WWE President Nick Khan were appointed co-CEOs of WWE moving forward. McMahon also stepped down as head of creative, a role that was then taken over by son-in-law and husband to Stephanie McMahon, Paul Levesque, fka Triple H. Levesque had prior exposure to a creative atmosphere, as he was the driving creative force behind "WWE NXT" from 2012 to 2021.
"Everyone right now who is steering this ship was prepared to steer this ship by Vince himself," Heyman reiterated, "which makes me very comfortable in their vision and their hopes and dreams and desires and their new vision ... which should not be Vince's vision, it should be their vision. Because Vince's vision wasn't his father's vision. It's his vision. And he created a universe in an image that he believed in, and those who are now running the show will create the progression of that universe into the next generation of that universe based on the things that they agreed with and the things that they disagreed with."
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