Paul Heyman talks about the rebel spirit of ECW and how one of the most powerful men in music today was once an investor and the tribe of extreme.
Jimmy Iovine currently has a net worth of $1 billion after retiring from Apple in 2018 but twenty years ago, he was trying to help ECW continue to gain any bit of exposure they could, according to Paul Heyman.
ECW was always known for taking as many shortcuts as they could without being taken to court and if they were taken to court, Paul Heyman says it wouldn't have mattered because they had no money anyway.
This lack of funds forced the guerrilla mentality that ECW portrayed throughout their entire near 8 years of existence under Paul Heyman.
Speaking on Metal Injection’s Squared Circle Pit podcast, Paul Heyman detailed how Jimmy Iovine attempted to help Paul Heyman and ECW during the dying days of the promotion, saying that Jimmy was a fan of ECW because having started Interscope Records in 1989, he disrupted the music industry so he understood the rebel spirit of ECW.
"An investor in ECW, in our very, very last days, was Jimmy Iovine. The most powerful man in the music [industry] of the past 30-40 years. To this day, he sold Beats to Apple for, you know, $3.2 billion. At the time, Jimmy was the Co-Chairman of Universal Music Group, which was Geffen, A&M, and Interscope. Jimmy was a fan of ours because he started a rebel music label called Interscope and disrupted the entire music industry. So he understood the struggles of ECW. Our only exposure besides when we did some co-promotion with WWE, then WWF on USA Network was after we were off TNN, we would get these little snippets on Jimmy and Doug's Farm Club, which was on USA Network, because Jimmy Iovine was trying to expose ECW again, in our very last days, not just to his audience, but also to the USA Network. Because we were negotiating with Stephen Chao, the President and at the time, the Charmain of USA, Barry Diller."
Paul continued, "It was seven and a half years of stress. I mean, it was also, you know, I can't say the best time of my life because, to me, the best time of my life is tomorrow, that's just the way I view things. I don't regret a single day of it. It was a seven-and-a-half-year struggle to survive. There's a certain adrenaline rush to that, that you just can't duplicate."
Paul Heyman says that in the end, ECW was destined to have the same fate as Napster. they came, they disrupted, and they will live on forever as martyrs.
"We disrupted the game. I mean, we were a cause, you know, we weren't a business, we were a cause. Sometimes the collection agencies and the lawyers and the need to pay bills will catch up to you. We were juggling those chainsaws for seven and a half years. It's an interesting idea for people to say, 'Well, it's an interesting business model. You made people drink the Kool-Aid to you, you made people buy into the cause.' No, we were the cause. If anybody drank the Kool-Aid, I probably drank the Kool-Aid more than anybody or certainly as much as anybody. We were a cause and I can't recommend it as a business model for most other people. I think Bubba Ray Dudley says it best, we were Napster. We weren't meant to last. We were meant to completely change the game. We were meant to disrupt the industry and we were meant to go away and live on as martyrs. That's the story of Napster and whether fortunately, or unfortunately, that's the story of ECW."
As Paul Heyman says, he doesn't want to call ECW the best time of his life because, in his eyes, the best time of his life will be tomorrow. These days, Paul Heyman is the special counsel to Roman Reigns and will be in Roman’s corner at WWE Survivor Series when Roman Reigns takes on Big E.
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