The May 14 Wrestling Observer Newsletter discusses WWE’s internal backstage handling of Paul Heyman’s return to Monday Night Raw last week as Brock Lesnar’s representative and also notes Heyman’s involvement with Lesnar’s character since Brock returned to WWE himself:
WWE’s backstage handling of Paul Heyman’s return to Raw: “[Heyman] showed up with little fanfare. While the writing team was aware of Heyman’s involvement in some form late last week, his return was meant to be kept a surprise until the last minute. Heyman was flown to Greensboro, and hid out in a trailer all day, while telling some of his friends that he was in New York. Vince McMahon only let C.M. Punk know about an hour before the show started for strategic reasons, as Punk was told to Twitter that there would be something worth watching on the show, with Vince’s idea that it would boost ratings (the show doing a 3.01 rating indicates that it meant nothing). McMahon also told Punk to keep it quiet from everyone what the surprise was, but when Heyman arrived in the building, moments before he went on the air, to shoot a photo of him and put it up on Twitter. Even Big Show, one of Heyman’s best friends, reportedly didn’t know anything about it until Heyman arrived in the arena.”
Heyman’s role now that he’s back: “Heyman’s role is to be a recurring character. Right now it doesn’t appear that there is any kind of real battle plan past the idea that HHH vs. Brock Lesnar will headline SummerSlam. Heyman may be there weekly. He may be there rarely. Because Lesnar has such few days on his contract and has already used five of them, they want to keep his name alive in some form over the next two plus months before he returns to start building the match. Heyman’s role [last] week was to say Lesnar quit because he’s been mistreated. There will be some form of a storyline that will force him back. It wouldn’t shock me if they do a deal where WWE files a suit or threatens a suit against him for breach of contract which forces his return, because in storyline they can win since they lost the court case with him years ago.”
Paul Heyman’s internal involvement with Brock Lesnar’s character: “Heyman has been involved with Lesnar’s character for at least a few weeks, if not from the start, as far as from the Lesnar side, but not the company side. At the beginning, we had heard WWE didn’t want Heyman involved to the point that last year when they made the video game deal with Lesnar, at first it was to be Lesnar managed by Heyman and WWE wanted Heyman out. A few weeks back, when Mark Madden reported Heyman was involved in Lesnar’s WWE character and Heyman then publicly denied it, there were the Heyman finger prints on things but it was still in the end WWE creative with Heyman and Lesnar in contact since Lesnar listens to Heyman. Having Heyman as a TV character made sense from the start. Lesnar isn’t good at 20 minute interviews, and even if he was, his character isn’t the guy who should be doing long speeches. As far as when the deal was made for Heyman to start appearing on television, it wasn’t that long ago.”
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