When did Paul Heyman shoot on Vince McMahon?
A decade before CM Punk made the term "Pipebomb" famous, Paul Heyman cut one on Vince McMahon. It was at the peak of the "Invasion" angle in WWE in 2001, days before the culmination at the Survivor Series pay-per-view.
That year's Survivor Series was built around WWE vs. The Alliance - the latter being a mixture of WCW, ECW, and a few top WWE names as well. Heyman represented The Alliance by default, being the key figure in ECW.
He cut a no-holds-barred promo on Vince McMahon, using his father's name and accusing him of going against Vince McMahon Sr.'s words, beliefs, and more. He even accused McMahon of stealing ECW's idea and branding it as "Attitude" (referring to the wildly popular Attitude Era between 1998-2001).
So why did Paul Heyman do it? And how much of it was real? A lot of the content in the promo was real, but that was specifically requested by Vince McMahon. Speaking to Inside The Ropes, Heyman revealed that McMahon approached him on a plane with the idea (H/T 411Mania):
“Vince [McMahon] is on the plane and the funny thing was, just like with Mick Foley, he was legitimately just sitting there eating fruit or something, and he just goes over and goes, ‘Wanna rip me an a****le ye f****ng wide?’ Figuratively, not literally. And it had been awhile since I had done one of those ECW-style shoot promos. My response, ‘Do you want me to rip you an a****le ye wide? As this guy over here found out, I’m the guy to do it. Want me to shoot? I’ll shoot. OK. How far can I go?’ ‘As much as you can to draw me money.’ ‘OK, that I can do,'” said Paul Heyman.
It's not normal for anybody to bring up Vince McMahon Sr.'s name, but Heyman felt he could. He revealed that as a teenager, he used to take photographs and sell it to McMahon Sr., which allowed him to be able to use his name.
Paul Heyman gave credit where it's due
Paul Heyman gave credit where it was due, as he even approached Vince McMahon hours before the show to give him a warning:
“To his credit, I’ll give him a ton of credit, I went up to Vince halfway through the day and said, ‘Do you even know some of the shot I’m going to say to you?’ And he goes, ‘Nope. Draw me money.’ OK. ‘Are you going to say anything back to me?’ ‘Nope. Just draw me money,'” said Paul Heyman.
Ultimately, this falls under the umbrella of a "worked shoot". Heyman used a lot of content that was real, but it was planned. This is the perfect example of how wrestling uniquely blurs the line between fiction and reality sometimes.