A couple of months back, Paul Heyman was relieved of his duties as head of WWE Raw creative. There were numerous reports at the time about why it happened, including one that stated the belief among some on the writing staff was that Heyman “had to go” based on the working environment. And it might not be too surprising to some who have followed the wrestling business for the last couple of decades, but according to one report, Heyman was ready to come to blows with McMahon at one point years ago over some travel issues the company had.
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Former WWE head of security James Tillis recently recalled an incident during a trip to Australia in 2003 during a conversation with Andrew Thompson.
“My scariest plane ride was we were on our way to Perth, Australia, and we started taking on — I think — there’s something going on where we had to get fuel and me and Paul Heyman were sitting next to each other, and we were near Siberia,” Tillis recalled. “We had to land — I believe it was in Russia or a Russia outpost to get fuel in the middle of a snowstorm where they had to clear the tracks and they wouldn’t let us off the plane obviously, then we took off at unbelievably — it was almost at a 90 degree angle to get out of this snowstorm and Paul Heyman looks at me and he says to me, he goes, ‘If we get out of this alive’ because trust me when I tell you, we were circling and it was getting kind of close and you can ask Paul Heyman. He goes, ‘I’m gonna punch Vince [McMahon] in the mouth if I ever get out of this alive.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God.’”
As previously noted, according to a source close to the WWE creative team back in June, the word was that Heyman “had to go” from his role with Raw creative. According to the Top Rope Nation Pro Wrestling Podcast:
“The quote that I got was he had to go, which is pretty strong…we’d heard that there’s a long list of issues that led to this removal. And the key is most of them centered around poor communication. What was perceived, I should say, as poor communication from Paul Heyman and or being difficult to work with.”
