Before Paul Heyman was on WWE television weekly, first as a commentator with Jim Ross and eventually as a manager for a regular who's who of many of the promotion's most prolific performers of the last two decades, the Bronx native was an unemployed former wrestling promoter who was about to go to bankruptcy court – both personal and corporate – after his promotion, ECW, went belly up.

Fortunately, Vince McMahon came in with the save and offered Heyman a lifeline to not only remain in the business but make some money when he needed it most, but, as the promoter-turned-manager pointed out on Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton podcast, his initial plan wasn't to be on weekly television but to instead spend time backstage as a producer.

“I came to WWE, and my first thing I said to Vince (McMahon) in coming in the door was, ‘I don’t wanna be on television. I’m 35, I had my fun. I wanna be behind the scenes only’ and then the whole thing happened with they fired Jerry Lawler’s wife, and Jerry Lawler quit, and I wasn’t supposed to get into WWE until WrestleMania because I was too busy dealing with the ridiculous amount of legalities of what was the pending ECW bankruptcy,” Heyman said via Post Wrestling.

“So I’m going into a personal bankruptcy and a corporate bankruptcy and I’m jumping into WWE and I cut my deal to come in behind the scenes and I get a call from Vince on a Tuesday and he says, ‘Are you aware that Jerry Lawler quit last night?’ And I said, ‘Yeah. I heard the whole story. I’m sorry to hear that’ and says, ‘Well I’m gonna need a little bit of a favor from you,’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m not really in a position to turn down a favor from you in this moment. My company’s gone. I’m entering bankruptcy, and you’re offering me a lifeline in life. So the answer to the favor is yes. Now please tell me what I’m doing,’ and he says, ‘Need you to start on commentary next Monday night’ and I’m like, oh my God. I’m back on television. That’s exactly where I don’t wanna be and then of course I realized, well, I get to play with Jim Ross a little bit. I always liked being Jim Ross’ color commentator, and you know, if I’m gonna have to do anything in the public eye anymore, replacing Jerry Lawler on RAW is not a bad way to debut. That’s a pretty iconic position. That’s what today, we would refer to as relevant.”

Goodness, could you even imagine a world where Heyman didn't become a fixture of WWE television, whether with Brock Lesnar, as the RAW general manager, and or eventually as Roman Reigns' “Wise Man?” Think about all of the wasted moments, the missed opportunities, and the changes that likely would have happened to the company's history without Paul E. Dangerously on the mic. Fortunately, fans don't have to worry about that horrible reality as it's thankfully just hypothetical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5v327D8YhY&t=321s

Rob Van Dam believes Paul Heyman is wrestling's best booker.

Thinking back to the glory days of ECW with Paul Heyman at the helm pnce more, there's a reason why many fans of wrestling have called the little promotion that could operate the best of its era: Heyman's booking.

Discussing that very subject in an appearance on Dominic DeAngelo's Wrestling Writing, one of the true breakout stars of ECW, Rob Van Dam, complemented his former boss for the storylines he was able to put together during their shared time in South Philadelphia, calling his booking “the best” he's worked with.

“I think you know that as far as booking goes, in my opinion, I think he's the best. That's also because I like his stuff in particular. “He got a lot of pushback from the WWE office in 2001 during the Alliance. A lot of his ideas got opposed. Same thing when we brought ECW back for the Sci-Fi network. A lot of his ideas were opposed. There were other bookers in the office that think completely different. They would think it's ridiculous,” RVD said via Fightful.

“I think Paul's got the best ideas 'cause they thought the exact opposite and tried to stop all of his ideas, but I agree with that sentence that he's the best that I know of.”

Though WWE fans have been given the occasional glimpse at what Heyman's booking can look like on weekly television, as he's been given a few shots over the year to translate his vision onto the company's programming, to really get what RVD's talking about, you have to find an avenue to check out old ECW, as the promotion is still ahead of many today despite going off the air over 20 years ago.