WWE's Paul Heyman Describes Vince McMahon's Involvement in Pairing Him With Roman Reigns

Paul Heyman was a guest on Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton podcast this week and went into detail about how his onscreen alliance with Roman Reigns was formed. Heyman had already unveiled a good chunk of the story in the past — Reigns wanted to do something different, Brock Lesnar had wrapped up his WWE contract with WrestleMania 36, Heyman was working backstage with Monday Night Raw and the Covid-19 pandemic had shunted WWE to inside of an empty WWE Performance Center. But what wrestling fans might not have known was Vince McMahon's involvement in the decision and how Heyman was worried he was getting called in to work the commentary desk for the first time in decades.

"Vince removes me as executive director in June of 2020, and I thought I had a bunch of months left on my contract, and I was gonna ride it out, and we'll see where we go from there," Heyman said (h/t WrestlingNews.co). "There were limited options in my agreement as to whom WWE could put me with. When I had the leverage, I wrote that in because we had reached a point with the cachet of being Brock Lesnar's advocate that anybody else you put me with could either make them instantly a star, or you're watering me down, and ultimately hurting the other person, because they don't belong with me. They don't measure up to where you're used to seeing my character bring someone down to the ring, which is either the main event of WrestleMania or close to it. One of the few names on this list was Roman Reigns. Another was Brock Lesnar, obviously. Another was Ronda Rousey. Ronda Rousey was having a baby. Brock Lesnar wasn't coming back with Saudi being down. That kinda left Roman Reigns in there."

"So Vince (McMahon) calls me in the middle of August and he says, 'We're gonna take you back into television. I'm thinking, 'Oh, oh. He's gonna make me a commentator and Jim Ross isn't here. What is a commentator in 2020? How can I be disruptive? How can I be evolutionary in the process? How can I redefine this role because I don't just want to settle in and do what's been done already?' Even by me, I want to do this differently. I said, 'Okay, well, what do you got in mind?' He says, 'I'm going to put you with somebody.' I'm thinking, 'Has he read my contract?' I said, 'Well, you know Vince, the options are kind of limited in that.' I'm trying to tiptoe into a delicate situation here where I'm about to butt heads with him. I'm thinking Ronda is pregnant. Brock's not coming back with Saudi down. He's certainly is not putting me with Roman and he goes, 'I'm envisioning Roman Reigns with Paul Heyman,'" Heyman continued. "I'm thinking, 'Oh my God. He's gonna pull the trigger on this. He would never pull it with Cena. He would never have allowed Cena to come to the dark side."

Heyman has been in Reigns' corner as "The Wise Man" since August 2020, watching firsthand as Reigns has dominated WWE with three straight WrestleMania main event victories and a thousand-plus-day reign as world champion.