Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Paul Heyman is one of the most polarizing figures in pro wrestling today. Some people love him, while others hate him. There is no question, however, that he has had an unbelievable career. Certainly one that can be considered hall of fame worthy. Whether Heyman was a manager, a booker, promoter or simply an “advocate,” he has certainly seen and done it all. Today, we will focus early on in Heyman’s career, when this young, brash New Yorker ventured to the Memphis, Tennessee territory.
Paul Heyman was just starting to get his feet wet in being a manager in professional wrestling back in 1987. A twenty-one-year-old former wrestling photographer befriended Bam Bam Bigelow who in turn put a good word in to Memphis legend Austin Idol. Idol, who was always a great talker decided to “change things up” in his heel career by taking on a manager. Austin Idol gave Paul Heyman an opportunity.
The little experience Heyman already had in managing was down in Florida, where he was dubbed Paul E. Dangerously. It was a take on the popular movie at the time ‘Johnny Dangerously’ because of his uncanny resemblance to actor Michael Keaton. Heyman came into Memphis’ Continental Wrestling Association (CWA) dubbed ‘Paul Dangerly,’ a spoiled, rich yuppie from New York City. The announcers never did get his name correct, even though Paul would often correct them. That already seemed to be a built-in heat-seeking gimmick. As we will find out, however, things got much worse.
On Paul Heyman’s very first Saturday morning at the WMC Action News television studios in Memphis, Heyman stirred the pot. He was asked to cut a promo on Memphis’ star attraction Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler. Heyman had studied video of how to get over in the CWA. To him, it was simple, get the iconic announcer Lance Russell to hate you and the fans, in turn, will hate you as well. With no script or outline as to what to say on TV, Heyman was introduced to the fans and he decided to be as controversial as he could be.
Paul Heyman started running down Lawler as a typical heel would but then went after the fans of Tennessee wrestling. Heyman said, ‘If Jerry Lawler is the big man around town, no wonder why there are so many lesbians in and around Memphis, Tennessee.’ Since the comments were made on live TV, the comments could not be edited. There was an instant backlash backstage as the bookers and promoters were furious over the “lesbian” comment.
The phone lines at the TV studio immediately rang off the hook with fans calling in to sound off on Heyman’s ‘controversial’ promo. Jerry Jarrett wound up firing Paul Heyman right then and there, but since there was a big show already advertised at the Mid South Coliseum, Jarrett wanted Heyman to first fulfil that obligation. Being the opportunist that he was, on that night at the Coliseum, Heyman continued running down the fans in attendance and he got so much heel heat from the fans that Jerry Jarrett decided not to fire him after all but capitalize on what they had.
The fans weren’t the only ones to have “heat” with Paul Heyman down south, some of the wrestlers simply did not care for this New Yorker who was suddenly making waves. Heyman and another manager named ‘Downtown Bruno’ aka Bruno Lauer (Harvey Wippleman in the WWE) seemed to be at odds often. Perhaps it was the natural competition to be the top manager in Memphis but the two simply did not like each other. One evening, Heyman hid Bruno’s gym bag and Bruno went crazy looking all over for it. One of the wrestlers, told Bruno it was Heyman who hid it and showed him exactly where it was hidden.
It took a couple of the wrestlers to calm Bruno down from having a fist fight with Heyman, instead, he decided to get even another way. According to Bruno, he, Barry Horowitz and another wrestler named ‘The Hunter’ had an elaborate plot to humiliate Heyman. ‘The Hunter’ had a valet named Bambi who was his real-life wife at the time. They convinced her to call up Heyman and invite him down for sex since her husband was out drinking. Heyman allegedly rushed to her hotel room only to find her husband hiding in the shower. The confrontation was certainly meant to embarrass Heyman but also to show to the rest of the boys in the locker room that he could not be trusted.
On June 15th, 1987, CWA had a big match booked for the Mid South Coliseum featuring Paul E’s men of Tommy Rich and Austin Idol versus Jerry Lawler and ‘Superstar’ Bill Dundee in a scaffold match. The plan was for Paul to take a big fall off the top of the scaffolding along with Tommy Rich. Austin Idol was afraid of heights due to a near-fatal plane crash he had survived and refused to do the fall. Paul E. climbed the scaffolding and instead of going all the way up as planned, fear got the best of him and did the fall halfway up instead. Lawler was fed up with Heyman at this point and started throwing haymakers at Heyman’s face. Most of the punches were protected but Lawler admitted he let one really connect with Paul’s face, legitimately breaking his jaw.
It was the last we would see of Paul E. Dangerously in the CWA. Paul would move on to the American Wrestling Association (AWA) not long after that. While Paul Heyman certainly had some success in Memphis, there is really no doubt it was a very rocky start to his professional wrestling career.