Paul Heyman Explains Why He Turned Down TNA After WWE Departure

For years, WWE Hall of Famer Paul Heyman has exhibited a deep and insightful grasp of the professional wrestling landscape. He is an essential part of WWE right now, but it appears there was a time when he could have joined TNA.

While speaking on Inside The Ropes, Paul Heyman shared that he was in talks to join TNA in 2010 after leaving WWE. During this time, TNA had been trying to contact him since he left WWE, but at first, he wasn’t interested in coming back to wrestling. However, after many phone calls, emails, and messages on Twitter, Bubba Ray Dudley, Taz, and Tommy Dreamer encouraged him to listen to what TNA had to say.

“I was long gone from WWE when I started talking to TNA. They had been trying to reach me from the time I left WWE, and I really had no interest in being back in the industry. Finally, after so many phone calls, so many emails, and so many DMs on Twitter, Bubba Ray Dudley, Taz, and Tommy Dreamer came to me and said, ‘Just talk to them. Hear what they have to say.’

Heyman wanted to run TNA in a new direction, inspired by how Dana White leads UFC. He believed that if he was given the chance, he could succeed, but if he failed, that was part of the game. He thought TNA should focus on younger talent instead of relying on the older stars that WWE used at the time.

Heyman noted that WWE had many legends like Hulk Hogan, Sting, and Mick Foley, which made it hard for TNA to promote younger wrestlers. Heyman wanted to bring Daniel Bryan to TNA, who was also interested in the idea. He envisioned building the promotion around younger wrestlers and a more MMA-like style.

”My concept with TNA was the Dana White concept with UFC: give me the ball and let me run with it. If I fail, I fail, and if I don’t, I don’t. But you’re going to have to let me take a stab at this—not like New Jack stabs white people, but let me take a try at this. WWE had all these legends, all these Hall of Famers; they had an established product, they had a certain way. I was going to take TNA in a completely different direction, and unfortunately for a lot of friends of mine, that direction meant getting rid of all the legends and making it a young guys’ promotion.

At the time, WWE had also fired Daniel Bryan, and my protégé in ECW, who now runs the company called Evolve, Gabe Sapolsky, was very tight with Daniel Bryan because he gave him his first big break. So one of my plans was to bring Daniel Bryan into TNA at the time, and he was quite willing to do so, as he wrote in his own book. The whole concept was going to be to build it around the young guys, build it around a more MMA style, and just give it a completely different feel than the WWE light product that they were presenting back in 2010 and 2011, which is when I ended up talking with them.

They didn’t want to get rid of the old guys. They just didn’t. They said, ‘Sorry, we don’t want to do it.’ They had Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff—no knock on Eric Bischoff this time—they had Sting, they had Mick Foley, they had Ric Flair, they had Kevin Nash, they had the Dudley Boys, they had Rob Van Dam, they had Jeff Hardy; they had ten people who were considered legends. How can you build around the young guys when you’re giving all this TV time to people who are legends? And I wasn’t going to be on TV either, by the way. That wasn’t part of my plan. I was over 40, and I didn’t want to be on television anymore. It had to be young guys; it had to be a young crew, had to be new upcoming guys, and one or two people like Daniel Bryan, who had established their name already but still, he hadn’t really exploded on the scene yet. He was still considered a new guy, a young guy.”

However, TNA didn’t want to let go of its older stars. They were set in their ways and didn’t see that holding onto legends might stop them from attracting new fans. In the end, Heyman decided not to join TNA because he felt they weren’t ready to change. He didn’t want to come back to wrestling and fail again, especially after his experience with the new ECW, which he thought had been poorly managed by WWE. He realized that TNA’s focus on legends would likely prevent it from succeeding, so he chose not to pursue the opportunity further.

”They just didn’t want to do it. They couldn’t grasp the concept that these legends would all leave them one by one at some point. They just figured, ‘No, but we have them, and why would we want to get rid of them?’ The public’s not buying your product, so let’s sell them a different product. They just wouldn’t do it, and I wasn’t willing to compromise what I believed was going to work. I wasn’t going to come back into this industry and fail. I already felt that I had failed with the new ECW. I couldn’t stop WWE from doing to the legacy of that brand what they did. I felt that I had w***** out the legacy of the brand and myself by performing on that television show because what they did to the name of ECW was terrible to me. It was a nightmare, and I didn’t want to relive it by getting back into the business only to fail again.

So, they wouldn’t get rid of the legends. I don’t want to say the old guys because I’m an old guy now, and I don’t want people to get rid of me because I’m old. But if you want to get rid of me because I’m a legend, go right ahead! ‘Hey, you’re a legend!’ No, I feel so much better. Thank you. They wouldn’t get rid of the legends, and at the end of the day, I knew it wasn’t going to work, so I just didn’t do it.”

It is certainly shocking to think that there was a time where Paul Heyman almost joined TNA Wrestling. Nevertheless, this will always remain one of pro wrestling’s biggest ‘What if?’ scenarios, but Heyman is more than happy in WWE at the moment and that is what truly matters.