5 legacies of Paul Heyman which are bigger than breaking the streak

Paul Heyman literally was shot into the stars recently when his client ended the two decade long legendary streak of Undertaker. And the PG Era fans might only remember him for that or managing CM Punk through his record breaking title reign, but Heyman is clearly something bigger.Over his two decade long career, Heyman has contributed more to professional wrestling than most of the wrestlers and promoters combined. Heyman was one of those wrestling geniuses who set out to change the face of the business and succeeded in doing so over the past couple of decades.While many say that managing Lesnar into breaking the streak is enough to give Heyman a Hall of Fame Spot in the future, it clearly doesnt define his stature all alone.There is more to Heyman than just the streak and here is a look at some of his innovations that sets him apart from the rest and calls out that he deserves the legend tag.

#5 Making stars from Storylines

Terry Funk was a battered old man who failed to find a job in the top promotions; Sandman was literally a bloated guy who was in no shape to wrestle. Mick Foley didn’t have the looks like the main event draws.

But they all were the biggest stars under Paul Heyman and that’s because he had the ability to bury the negatives in a heap of positives.

Heyman used the strong storylines to make the wrestlers look credible and made the fans realize that everyone could wrestle as long as they had a strong backstory to do so.

He turned a ring boy like Mikey Whipwreck into a hardcore icon with the same formula when what he only did was give Mikey the underdog status which soon got incorporated into storylines.

Another member of his roster 911, wouldn’t have made it anywhere else, but Heyman mad the fans cheer for him just for one move (Chokeslam) which later became a main stay in the big promotions.

But many of the promoters failed to replicate this which further proved that it was Heyman’s brilliance whole along.

#4 International Stars into America

Wrestlers like Rey Mysterio, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Juventude, Psicosis and La Parka were some wresters who made their name wrestling all over the world.

But the top promotions, WWE and WCW were not willing to give these guys a chance in their promotion since they all brought a different style which was not familiar to the fans in America.

Benoit, Eddie and Dean had that technical and chain wrestling skills while Rey Mysterio and the other Mexicans bought in the luchador style. Heyman who supported change bought them over to his ECW and gave them a stage to showcase their skills.

The different variety of wrestling that ECW had instantly became a hit with the fans and the bigger promotions realized that different that the old school wrestling didn’t stand a chance against this and started raiding ECW.

If it wasn’t for Heyman, we might not have seen the lights of different styles making it into the main stream and we might’ve been stuck with the NWA type matches.

#3 Realistic gimmicks

One of the biggest problems that WCW and WWE faced during the 90s was the amount of cartoony characters they had. The gimmicks that they had were usually rip off from some movies which connected in no way with the fans.

But Heyman bought a change which later produced some of the biggest stars in the business. he gave gimmicks which were close to real life.

He had Sandman who was a brawler who you might see every day in the local bar, it was something closer to Sandman’s real personality as well which made him adapt easily. Then there was Tommy dreamer who was just Tommy Dreamer and nothing else, someone who just loved the business and wanted to wrestle.

Raven had a gimmick which was close to his real life and many stars like Terry Funk and New Jack didn’t even have a gimmick. It was just some guys who resembled real life people who were more able to communicate with the fans than all those cartoony gimmicks the other two promotions were throwing in.

Now, the biggest stars like Daniel Bryan, John Cena, CM Punk, The Rock and many more don’t have a gimmick at all and is not a character anymore which is clearly a lesson from Heyman’s text.

#2 Paul Heyman guys

Like mentioned earlier, the lights of Brock Lesnar, CM Punk and Cesaro might only be the major Paul Heyman guys that may be familiar to the modern fans.

But the fact is, Heyman has managed a lot of talent and molded them into superstars when they wouldn’t have made it on their own.

Just to know how influential he was here it a small list of the Paul Heyman guys Steve Austin, Rob Van Dam, Chris Jericho, Dudley Boys, Taz, Sabu, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio and the list goes on and on.

He managed to get the best out of each and every individual he had in his hand and even Curtis Axel looks good now because he has the name which was given by Heyman.

Heyman took those guys who no one wanted and turned them into stars that soon got robbed from his hands. Everyone who went through Heyman’s hands gained one thing or the other and imagining how these guys would’ve turned out without Heyman is enough to realize how effective Heyman is in managing his stars.

#1 The Attitude Era

Something which literally changed the way we saw Wrestling, Attitude Era is quite arguably the best time that one could’ve been a wrestling fan.

Though many see it as Vince McMahon’s invention to take out WCW, McMahon himself has said that it was Paul Heyman who inspired him to kick off the Attitude Era. Heyman did things in ECW which appealed to 18-34 aged people and it soon turned out to be the foundation for the whole Attitude thing.

Attitude Era’s biggest star Stone Cold got the idea of his character from ECW where Heyman let him free to do anything. The beer cans was inspired by Sandman as well.

Undertaker crucified Steve Austin on Raw which was a rip off of Raven doing the same to Sandman. The lesbian angles which WWE pulled out were also from ECW as they were the first every promotion to take the risk.

WWE pumped up the amount of violence and sex that they sold through their TV Shows and it soon gave them the upper hand over WCW. WWE eventually won the race against WCW when the latter went bankrupt and died.

But all those came from the head of a man named Paul Heyman, without whom we wouldn’t have even had a WWE now to begin with. Truly a man who deserves recognition, Heyman is Hall of fame worthy even if he didn’t have his client break the streak.