I can't deal in ifs or in hypothetical situations. I only deal in absolutes.
Paul Heyman
Roles constantly have to be redefined in any form of entertainment. Look back at the gangster pics of the 1930s and 1940s and the way James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart would play the part. These roles were redefined in the 1970s by Al Pacino and Rober DeNiro. And again in the 1990s by Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins.
Usually, people that I like to work with are people that I believe in more than they believe in themselves, and they just need that extra boost and the person to give them a little more time and understanding and introspection into their own character to find that box office that lives inside of them.
I knew Roman Reigns when he used to come into the locker room with his father, holding his father's hand, barely out of diapers. And I don't say that as an ironic statement... I mean it sincerely.
The crowd is a performer. En masse, a crowd has its own personality, its own character. And there are going to be nights when the crowd delivers a great performance. And there are going to be nights when the crowd bombs.
My first memory of the Garden, it's probably like any other kid in New York: it's either watching the Knicks win the championship or Muhammed Ali against Joe Frazier.
My role is different than Freddie Blassie, the Grand Wizard, and Lou Albano's, and Bobby Heenan's, Jimmy Hart's and J.J. Dillon's as well. I legitimately consider myself Brock Lesnar's advocate. That's my primary purpose to serve to the WWE Universe.
If your heart's not pumping premium on WrestleMania Sunday, then I don't understand what you're doing at WrestleMania.
I don't think Roman Reigns should for one moment of his life be worrying about earning the respect of the WWE audience. Because what he has is their willingness to pay to see Roman Reigns whether they respect him or not.
We live in a society that has ever-changing values and ever-changing standards and ever-changing criteria to determine who is a superstar or not. If you want to be a superstar, if you want to main event, if you want to profit in the entertainment business, you have to go with those trends and spearhead new trends.
I don't want to be one of these guys who sits in a room watching old footage of himself, reliving old glory. It's just not me. I want to create new adventures. I'm not trying to live vicariously through my own past.
My off-camera friendship with Brock Lesnar has always been different than my off-camera friendship with CM Punk. But I could not tell you that I am closer to either one of them or either one of them is closer to me. It's just a different relationship.
I truly am of the belief that I should be nominated and elected 'Emperor of North America' and given a shot at being ruler of the universe, and I haven't had the chance to craft my campaigns for these offices yet because I've been very busy with Brock Lesnar.
Very few people I know deserve to live out their dreams more than Daniel Bryan.
Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns are the main event of WrestleMania 34 because neither one is content, and both are ambitious enough to push the limits of what is now considered their greatest moment, and that's the point that neither one will ever accept. They will never accept the idea that they've peaked as individuals.
I was a huge fan of Shane Douglas and how he used the microphone during a match.
I think The Undertaker is, much like Brock Lesnar, a once-in-a-lifetime wrestler, a once-in-a-lifetime athlete, and a once-in-a-lifetime performer.
Who can deny that it was a pleasure to watch Rob Van Dam interact with the audience and tear the house down for 30 minutes a night.
CM Punk clearly established during his time as a Paul Heyman Guy that he was, as the billing suggested, The Best In The World.
I grew up in a household with my mother, who was a Holocaust survivor. I very much understand the mentality that you cannot live in the past. You can't spend your entire life, or even portions of it, looking back and dwelling on things that have already happened. You have to move forward.
Who cares if the locker room would embrace Conor McGregor. If Conor McGregor can be a revenue driver for WWE, if he can sell network subscriptions, or if he can sell thousands and tens of thousands of tickets, if he can move millions of T-shirts, who cares if anybody in the locker room likes it or doesn't like it.
Shane Douglas accomplished quite a bit in and for ECW, but his career will forever be defined by the moment he threw down the NWA Title.
If you're content in WWE, then you have peaked. You have peaked in your own earning capacity for what you're going to bring home to your family, and you've peaked in what you offer to WWE in terms of your own talent to exploit.
I think the fact that Brock Lesnar is not on the road 52 weeks a year, is not on 'Monday Night Raw' every episode, is not performing 300 matches per year... I think that dictates to the public, 'Brock Lesnar is special.' That an appearance by Brock Lesnar in an of itself is newsworthy. It's not commonplace.
Unlike Frank Sinatra, I have no regrets in my life. Zero. Whatever hardships I have faced, or have caused myself, are moments I have to embrace in order to move forward. I have no problem coming to grips with either the highs or lows in my life.
The audience wants something that entertains them, and whether that entertainment is in the form of a physical match or in the form of a skit or video or promo, it's our job to deliver it to them, to the point where the audience becomes the biggest champion of our brand. And if we can't match that, then we're falling short.
I've always been a big believer in diversification for anybody. It's never good to put all of your efforts and all of your time and all of your financial resources into just one project. Diversification is key for any individual and any business.
To me, a WrestleMania Sunday is 'I serve at the behest and at the pleasure of my beast.' I'm there to lighten the mood. I'm there to keep the mood light and not make it too heavy, and to keep the pressure off Brock Lesnar.
The key to WWE's success and longevity is that they are, as modern and as relevant as the company may be in modern social media and platforms and contemporary distribution, the company is still built around old-school promotion. Who are these two fighters? Why are they wrestling? And why should I pay to see it?
I approach my interviews with the mindset of, exactly what are we selling? How can I sell it the hardest and the most effectively in the fewest words possible? And how can I make each word that I say mean as much as it possibly can? And I bring that perspective to the table because I used to focus a lot on the character that I had to play.
I never envisioned multimillion-dollar offices for ECW.
I dearly believe in my heart that Goldberg is a family man who has a profound love for his wife and son and wants his family to see him as that superhero that people romanticize him being during the height of his fame.
Vince McMahon can end up in a federal lawsuit with you where there is mudslinging back and forth that makes the front page of 'The Wall Street Journal,' and if tomorrow he figures out a way where the company can benefit from your involvement, you will be at a negotiating table with him at lunch.
I broke into the business in the '80s, and the '80s was based on hyper-exaggerated reactions.
I'm not someone who concerns himself with whether people pay to cheer Roman Reigns or whether people pay to boo Roman Reigns. People pay to see Roman Reigns. They pay to react to Roman Reigns.
People are willing to pay for the right to cheer or boo Roman Reigns. That is your job as a box office attraction. Your job and the manner in which you feed your family is not dependent upon whether the audience respects you or disrespects you. It's dependent on the audience's willingness to pay to see you.
I took the antiquated, outdated, passe role of the wrestling manager, and I upgraded it into the upper echelon of sports entertainment to be known as an advocate.
I don't ever recall being nervous before performing because I've already stepped into the shoes and the clothes of the character.
How could you look at CM Punk and not think that he has the 'it' factor? I don't think I'm any great visionary or genius because I saw something in CM Punk; I think everyone else is a stupid schmuck for not seeing it in CM Punk.
Madison Square Garden to any New York kid is the center of the universe. Even going there as a fan is like stepping up to the plate at Yankee Stadium. You know you're in the grand cathedral.
I've known the members of Roman Reigns' family since I was 15 years old.
I'm involved with projects that strike up a passion with me, that stir up completion inside of me. People come at me and go, 'My job makes me feel alive.' OK, well, good for you. My job doesn't make me feel 'alive,' my job makes me feel alive!
If you look at who emerged on the horizon 12 to 18 months after ECW stopped running shows, I think it's very reasonable to believe that we would have picked up CM Punk and several of the other young stars that emerged in the independent scene in the early part of that decade. Punk obviously is the one that I would hope I would have noticed.
I've always been of the opinion that great talent can't be held down.
I can go off-point, I can go off-word, I can go off-paragraph, but I can never go off message.
Ronda Rousey is a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, and anything that Ronda Rousey does is going to come with extreme scrutiny because she is such a pivotal figure in not only American sports but in global sports as well.
I mean, truly, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and if you can't spot that CM Punk is magic from the moment he walks in the door, then you're reading a playbook from an antiquated writer.
The Dangerous Alliance consists of the following - 'The Advocate' Paul Heyman and 'The Beast' Brock Lesnar. That Dangerous Alliance is the single most formidable faction in the history of sports entertainment. We don't need Four Horsemen. We don't need three Freebirds. We don't need a Legion of Doom.
I don't think anything Ronda Rousey does is going to be the norm. I think everything she does is going to set a new trend and blaze a new trail.
Kurt Angle is an Olympic gold medalist, one of the greatest in-ring performers of all-time.
