In a recent interview with SportsKeeda’s WrestleBinge podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam discussed several topics, including Paul Heyman being inducted into the 2024 WWE Hall of Fame, and how Paul Heyman helped to change the wrestling business in the 1990’s.

“It’s pretty cool they’re giving him his flowers, because he was the man, he’s the one that made ECW happen. It’s not jsut him, but he’s the guy that made everything possible, it couldn’t have happened without him, he changed the business, he set new standards, ECW is because of him, his leadership, his braveness, his passion, his artistic direction, all of that is like thank you Paul, thank you Paul.

At the same time, since he’s been in the WWE, man he’s just moving right up, I knew when I was there back then, and we were bringing ECW back and all that, he didn’t get a lot of respect in the way of, the other agents didn’t like ECW, they were trying to fight it, didn’t want it to come in, and they were giving them a hard time.

They were like an opposition in a lot of ways, but man, all the boys seem to know right away that Paul is, you know some people say he’s a genius, a lot of the boys have been really always commenting on how smart he is, and he would take the time to pull the wrestlers aside and give them advice and everything, even before he was in a higher position where that was part of his job to do that.

In ECW, he ran everything and to see him do that on the bigger platform of WWE and to know he’s making bank for all those dreams and sacrifices from back in the day, it paid off in that direction.”

The full interview is available at this link.