What if Paul Heyman took over WWE Raw?
Even among the more casual wrestling fanbase, the consensus is clear: Monday Night Raw has struggled this summer. There are bound to be certain periods of creative drought, and WWE was faced with the challenging prospect of booking around Brock Lesnar’s hefty price tag and only being willing to show up for limited dates. Still, the show felt inconsistent in how talents like Bobby Lashley were used, while Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn were all but completely squandered. Roman Reigns' character arc felt tired and played out, while Bayley and Sasha Banks were locked in a never-ending purgatory of not quite feuding. The guys called up from NXT over the previous year like Elias, Bobby Roode, and No Way Jose received virtually no opportunities at all to shine.
The dirt sheets have suggested that Paul Heyman helped out with creative on the go home show before Extreme Rules and perhaps on other occasions. Now that Brock Lesnar is presumably out of the mix for WWE until he wraps up his latest MMA efforts, there’s a real question: might WWE enlist him to take over Raw?
Heyman wrote the original ECW shows, ran SmackDown during a famously successful period in the original brand split, and had some creative control over the relaunched ECW. It would make sense for WWE to position as a lead writer now, and it would introduce a number of intriguing possibilities.
5. Braun Strowman is the monster he was always supposed to be
In the original ECW, Paul Heyman pushed 911 as his monster heel partner in crime, and when the WWE version of the brand kicked off, The Big Show was positioned somewhat similarly. In the former case, Heyman was working with a faux giant, as 911 could hack it as a big man surrounded by smaller indie talent, but was limited in terms of his actual size. Heyman had Show to work with at the nadir of his motivation and physical shape, besides which he didn’t really fit the ECW ethos.
If Heyman had Strowman to mould into the character he wants, within WWE’s big picture schematics, particularly with Strowman looking as though he’s leaning heel opposite The Shield, we could see Heyman finally realize his vision for an unstoppable big man villain. Strowman is a legit and not yet fully exposed giant, ripe for Heyman to take to the next level.