AJ Styles Discusses His Issues with Paul Heyman; Says Most Guys Dislike Heyman

[ChristmasFnatic]

AJ Styles did a live stream on Twitch and addressed the situation with him leaving RAW for Smackdown and the reports that he had issues with former RAW Executive Director Paul Heyman:

“Paul advocated for Gallows and Anderson to get released. It’s that simple. Their name wasn’t even on the list until Paul brought it up. I think the reason why he did what he did – well, there’s a couple of reasons, he’s just a liar and that’s what they do – but it was because he knew that he had nothing that he wanted to do with them. He didn’t wanna get them to the next level. He didn’t want to do anything for them. He didn’t want to help them become bigger stars. He didn’t want to do any of that. So, the best way to do that after everything he had said to them was to get them out of there. That’s the real story.”

“I talked to a lot of guys about this situation, and you wouldn’t believe how many people that I work with despised this guy because of his lies. And he’d find ways to try and throw them under the bus when he screwed up, he would try to throw them under the bus so they would get in trouble. I heard this from several, several different people.”

“It was almost kinda hard to find someone who liked him. And I didn’t know this. I just assumed everybody liked him and I was the only one. Vince [McMahon] is a very smart man and he can see through a lot of crap. I think he finally saw what everybody already knew and said, ‘You know what, man? You’ve done some great things in the past, but you’re just not well-liked here. Maybe hit the bricks and we’ll let you be the advocate for Brock Lesnar. You do it well, we can’t deny that.’ Right? He’s good at that. But I think that’s as far as it needs to go.”

“I know who makes the calls. I know what goes on. I know it was Vince. But it’s the man that lied to me, and us, about everything and he was the one that helped put them on the list. He was the one that put them on the list. They weren’t even on the list. Paul Heyman. So that’s what I’m talking about.”

[Deathstroke]

Heyman Is revered as one of the most brilliant and creative minds in wrestling history. I’m sure if he couldn’t find anything for gallows and Anderson to do on TV then It told Vince that if even a visionary like Heyman can’t think of ideas for them then in vince mind theyre not marketable. Meh. I’m A Paul Heyman Guy. I want him to be my advocate, I want to negotiate my contracts, and I want him to run my errands.

[ChristmasFnatic]

Heyman Is revered as one of the most brilliant and creative minds in wrestling history. I’m sure if he couldn’t find anything for gallows and Anderson to do on TV then It told Vince that if even a visionary like Heyman can’t think of ideas for them then in vince mind theyre not marketable. Meh. I’m A Paul Heyman Guy. I want him to be my advocate, I want to negotiate my contracts, and I want him to run my errands.

Does he still owe money to ECW guys? I remember an ECE docu where someone(forgot who) said he owes many money and didnt seem to care of paying them back.

[Murph0408]

i never understood the hesitation to just run with gallows and anderson a bit. definitely victims of stop/start booking over and over again. so much natural chemistry/history with AJ and Finn as well. yet whenever they'd get their chance to team up/support those dudes they'd get jobbed out.

AJ and especially Finn as the smartass smaller heel with two henchmen writes itself. but you need Gallows/Anderson to be taken seriously in order to really make it work. it can't be them bumping for every babyface they come across, plus losing 2 on 1 matches.

as for Heyman, he is what he is. those are harsh words coming from such a universally respected vet in AJ but nobody should be surprised that heyman was working everyone around him at all times. i also think that being the lead guy on RAW, you have to lie a lot, or at least make promises/suggestions that you never follow through on. just part of the job.

[I3igAl]

i never understood the hesitation to just run with gallows and anderson a bit. definitely victims of stop/start booking over and over again. so much natural chemistry/history with AJ and Finn as well. yet whenever they'd get their chance to team up/support those dudes they'd get jobbed out.

AJ and especially Finn as the smartass smaller heel with two henchmen writes itself. but you need Gallows/Anderson to be taken seriously in order to really make it work. it can't be them bumping for every babyface they come across, plus losing 2 on 1 matches.

I feel this is a general problem with how WWE books such stables. Whenever the heel enlists some henchmen to help him those guys tend to turn from competent midcard singles stars to hapless jobbers, which cannot even reliably take out the face in a 3vs1 sneak attack.
They only have two ways back to becoming proper performers:
1) The face enlists a tag team to help him and they suddenly regain their skills after magically being depowered for months.
2) The stable breaks up and they start competing on their own.

The most terrible example in recent memory is probably the league of nations. Where they threw together Sheamus, DelRio, Rusev and King Barett to build a stable, which failed to accomplish things either member would have accomplish on his own months prior.
I think it's cause WWE insistence on their 50/50 booking becomes really weird when there are 3+ dudes involved on one side.

[Murph0408]

I think it's cause WWE insistence on their 50/50 booking becomes really weird when there are 3+ dudes involved on one side.

sure, agreed. although even 50/50 is generous when it comes to heels. something about putting heels in groups makes them turn into jobbers. then, once in a blue moon, they run with a group and let them dominate for a short amount of time and act like it's some kind of miracle. like nexus a decade ago (which they soon inevitably squashed and buried). SHIELD started out as a heel group too, they let them kick some ass for a few months and had a hit on their hands. wyatt family too.

lately it's more like, hey we need people to take braun seriously again, so lets feed him every heel we can think of. pushing one guy doesn't always have to be at the expense of everybody else to such an extreme degree. you're just leaving money on the table. heel factions have a strong history with WWE yet they stubbornly ignore it.

[JUSA]

those guys tend to turn from competent midcard singles stars to hapless jobbers, which cannot even reliably take out the face in a 3vs1 sneak attack.

I haven't reliably watched the product in 9+ years but this has been a major problem for WWE... since pretty much forever, with it having some moments of pure stupidity sprinkled in with the usual booking of midcard guys as absolutely inferior to any top guy.

Obviously, HHH's entire career (at least that I saw) whenever he interacted with any non-top guy in any way, shape or form would bury them as badly as possible, often for no reason and no gain to be had, but then cringey stupid chit like HBK teaming up with his at the time enemy Cena and beating literally every tag team on the roster one after the other. Just Pointless.

When you grind your guys into dust, it becomes meaningless. Beating someone everyone knows is a joke does nothing for anyone.

Yeah, midcard guys don't need to be going over top guys and there are times you need to make your top guy look strong, but when it's just constant and just ridiculous and always 100% one sided, you lose all impact. Bret Hart was just such a genius, he made guys look like stars when he went over them and looked like a bigger star himself in the process. Yeah, not everyone has even 1/2 the talent of Bret but come on, they usually go out of their way to do it backwards and wrong.

Would it really hurt if 2 on 1 midcard guys are going to beat down a top guy? Would it really hurt if after a match and being tired and drained a single midcard guy could get the better of a top guy by jumping them from behind? If a top guy was dealing with this, getting the short end of things but only because of bullchit cheap methods -- wouldn't it make a more satisfying moment and them looking even stronger when they took them on one vs one without the cheap chit and went over clean? Why have three guys get slapped around by a single guy? When would that ever make any sense?

[I3igAl]

Would it really hurt if 2 on 1 midcard guys are going to beat down a top guy? Would it really hurt if after a match and being tired and drained a single midcard guy could get the better of a top guy by jumping them from behind? If a top guy was dealing with this, getting the short end of things but only because of bullchit cheap methods -- wouldn't it make a more satisfying moment and them looking even stronger when they took them on one vs one without the cheap chit and went over clean? Why have three guys get slapped around by a single guy? When would that ever make any sense?

I wholeheartedly agree. It would be a lot more interesting that way. I think they are not doing this and not that much character development in general, because they wanna make the show enjoyable for people, who don't watch every episode. Guy, who just tuned in after 6 months can instantly see: This dude fighting this dude is good guy, good guy wins
NXT with less casual fans had some rather good long term character development: Andrade, Ciampa etc.

[JUSA]

I wholeheartedly agree. It would be a lot more interesting that way. I think they are not doing this and not that much character development in general, because they wanna make the show enjoyable for people, who don't watch every episode. Guy, who just tuned in after 6 months can instantly see: This dude fighting this dude is good guy, good guy wins
NXT with less casual fans had some rather good long term character development: Andrade, Ciampa etc.

Yeah. Again disclaimer: I speak of prior WWE knowledge, from the 1980s through around 2010 period (not the current product) but around the time I dropped off, they did always seem to want to hotshot things - usually at the expense of the midcard heels, who they were just brutal to... doing things to them weekly that nobody was ever going to recover from with a complete repackage and the hope people would just forget or not be able to recognize them.

WWE was always more casual. Give the people what they think they want. Which works when you have a super over babyface like Austin or early Hogan, but kind of works backwards with a guy who is only middling over or who wears out their welcome (HHH or late era John Cena) at that point you kind of turn on them for having it too easy and not being challenged.

Here's a recent example, the 'online' fans are kind of turning on Cody, he's not as over as he was, so I see him bust his ass in a match, like this last one, as I'm watching him post-match pulling thumb tacks from his bloody arm, I find myself having some sympathy for the dude. WWE circa 2010 would have had him taken a bucket of slop to the guy's head, pulled his pants down and then pinned him while laughing.

[BigElephant]

sure, agreed. although even 50/50 is generous when it comes to heels. something about putting heels in groups makes them turn into jobbers. then, once in a blue moon, they run with a group and let them dominate for a short amount of time and act like it's some kind of miracle. like nexus a decade ago (which they soon inevitably squashed and buried). SHIELD started out as a heel group too, they let them kick some ass for a few months and had a hit on their hands. wyatt family too.

lately it's more like, hey we need people to take braun seriously again, so lets feed him every heel we can think of. pushing one guy doesn't always have to be at the expense of everybody else to such an extreme degree. you're just leaving money on the table. heel factions have a strong history with WWE yet they stubbornly ignore it.

Even the Wyatt Family succumbed to this. Harper/Rowan were booked fairly weakly unless it was a match featuring the whole Wyatt Family.

[cgh]

I have never understood the hype of Gallows and Anderson. I mean they aren't terrible by any stretch but they don't scream stars to me. They don't have much of a look, their in ring work is pretty underwhelming, their mic work although better than many is still pretty weak and cringy. I'm sure they made more money than they deserved so they got cut.

[66wow99]

AJ Styles did a live stream on Twitch and addressed the situation with him leaving RAW for Smackdown and the reports that he had issues with former RAW Executive Director Paul Heyman:

“Paul advocated for Gallows and Anderson to get released. It’s that simple. Their name wasn’t even on the list until Paul brought it up. I think the reason why he did what he did – well, there’s a couple of reasons, he’s just a liar and that’s what they do – but it was because he knew that he had nothing that he wanted to do with them. He didn’t wanna get them to the next level. He didn’t want to do anything for them. He didn’t want to help them become bigger stars. He didn’t want to do any of that. So, the best way to do that after everything he had said to them was to get them out of there. That’s the real story.”

“I talked to a lot of guys about this situation, and you wouldn’t believe how many people that I work with despised this guy because of his lies. And he’d find ways to try and throw them under the bus when he screwed up, he would try to throw them under the bus so they would get in trouble. I heard this from several, several different people.”

“It was almost kinda hard to find someone who liked him. And I didn’t know this. I just assumed everybody liked him and I was the only one. Vince [McMahon] is a very smart man and he can see through a lot of crap. I think he finally saw what everybody already knew and said, ‘You know what, man? You’ve done some great things in the past, but you’re just not well-liked here. Maybe hit the bricks and we’ll let you be the advocate for Brock Lesnar. You do it well, we can’t deny that.’ Right? He’s good at that. But I think that’s as far as it needs to go.”

“I know who makes the calls. I know what goes on. I know it was Vince. But it’s the man that lied to me, and us, about everything and he was the one that helped put them on the list. He was the one that put them on the list. They weren’t even on the list. Paul Heyman. So that’s what I’m talking about.”

To be blunt, Gallows and Anderson are terrible. Gallows is a big, bald, gangly, slow guy, and Anderson is a short bald guy with no redeeming features. How do you even begin to elevate that?

[66wow99]

Yeah. Again disclaimer: I speak of prior WWE knowledge, from the 1980s through around 2010 period (not the current product) but around the time I dropped off, they did always seem to want to hotshot things - usually at the expense of the midcard heels, who they were just brutal to... doing things to them weekly that nobody was ever going to recover from with a complete repackage and the hope people would just forget or not be able to recognize them.

WWE was always more casual. Give the people what they think they want. Which works when you have a super over babyface like Austin or early Hogan, but kind of works backwards with a guy who is only middling over or who wears out their welcome (HHH or late era John Cena) at that point you kind of turn on them for having it too easy and not being challenged.

Here's a recent example, the 'online' fans are kind of turning on Cody, he's not as over as he was, so I see him bust his ass in a match, like this last one, as I'm watching him post-match pulling thumb tacks from his bloody arm, I find myself having some sympathy for the dude. WWE circa 2010 would have had him taken a bucket of slop to the guy's head, pulled his pants down and then pinned him while laughing.

Except that Cody looks like a business manager who happens to moonlight as a wrestler. I can see how fans aren't invested in this dude.

[anonymous]

Except that Cody looks like a business manager who happens to moonlight as a wrestler. I can see how fans aren't invested in this dude.

cody has the jeff jarrett tna era/hhh 2004 thing working against him imo. he's booking himself as the top baby but nobody really gives a chit. he's having good matches, but he's just not that guy.
if kenny omega had cody's chutzpah, it would work, but kenny omega isn't the grandson of a plumber.

[I3igAl]

Anybody watched the comedy PPV Gallows and Anderson are doing?

[cheerupemokid]

cody has the jeff jarrett tna era/hhh 2004 thing working against him imo. he's booking himself as the top baby but nobody really gives a chit. he's having good matches, but he's just not that guy.
if kenny omega had cody's chutzpah, it would work, but kenny omega isn't the grandson of a plumber.

Cody was the most over face in wrestling when there were crowds. Him having competitive matches with every jobber in the company and indies is probably hurting him. Though we won’t really know until we have crowds again.

Kenny Omega’s problem isn’t the booking it’s that he’s a goofy weirdo. In America, people are not going to widely get behind someone so awkward that (as Jim Cornette would say) he couldn’t get laid in a whore house with two handfuls of 100s.