During a recent edition of “The Taz Show” podcast, ECW Legend Taz discussed the ring tearing spot on Raw between Kane & Braun Strowman, Paul Heyman ignoring Jinder Mahal in his promo on this week’s Raw & more. Below are the highlights:
On Paul Heyman’s promo:
“I don’t think Paul ever, ever mentioned Jinder Mahal. That’s one thing I would disagree with Paul. I don’t know maybe he wanted to and Vince didn’t want to, I would have somehow said something about Jinder. So it’s not just ignored.
You guys cut a heavy promo about him and The Singh Brothers cut heavy promos about you and they’re mocking you when they come out to cut their promo and they do your promo and then it’s just because he lost now he is just forgotten. I think that Paul should have mentioned Jinder. That’s a very minor thing. That’s just my opinion.
His promo was phenomenal and so many people are going crazy about what Paul shot on the guy that was getting married. Paul broke character, broke the promo and ripped on this guy which was excellent. It was funny. It was awesome. That’s a lost art in the industry. Paul Heyman, ladies and gentleman, is a dying breed for mass wrestling fans and even hardcore fans that see it on the biggest company.
There are many people, I don’t mean this as a disrespect to my friend Paul Heyman because he is my friend, there are many people that can do what Paul did last night, ripping that guy who would get married. There’s many of us…I’ve done that a lot.
I’ve seen Eric Bischoff do that to people. I’ve seen. I’ve witnessed it. I’ve seen Vince Russo do that. I’ve done it. I’ve seen Shane Douglas do it a whole bunch of times. I’ve seen Triple H do it a whole bunch of times. I’ve seen Steve Austin do it. I’ve seen The Rock do it a zillion times.
You’re not allowed anymore. That’s the problem. I hate saying that’s because it’s gonna sound I’m hating on the young talent and I’m not because it’s not their fault. They’re programmed. They’re robots.
Paul isn’t a robot. Paul is a reactor. When you break character, you break the promo and you start shooting on a guy who got married. You don’t know if you’re getting heat from your boss. Now when I was in ECW, my boss was Paul Heyman. So I could do that all I wanted and a lot of us did it all we wanted and a lot of us did it very well.
WWE is a little different now. They have a lot of structure and it seems like their structure is more than ever now and that’s what I mean about robots. And it’s a shame because they have such good young men and women that can work and talk. And I bet you there’s a lot of young wrestlers in that locker room that can talk and break character, but I wouldn’t know that, but you never get to see them do it.”
On Braun Strowman vs. Kane:
“Braun Strowman wrestled Kane and we saw the big broken ring spot. So they did the power slam, people popped and all that stuff. So most of you know that I was fortunate enough to be a part of this spot when back in the day it was done really right with the legendary Bam Bam Bigelow, who is no more with us unfortunately. Bam Bam and I did this in the ring in Asbury Park and then we did it in Dayton Ohio on a ramp way a couple months later and a rematch. We went through the ramp way.
There was a lot of differences in what they did on Raw compared to what we did. The main difference was what we did in Asbury Park was a lot better. There’s a lot of reasons why it was better. The main reason why I was better with what they did because what we did was cool, but what they did on Raw was a stunt. And what Bam Bam and I did with Paul’s mindset on this whole thing…..we didn’t do a stunt guys.
What we did was the ending of a long story between Bam Bam and I where I was the TV champ and Paul wanted to get that title belt off me and get it on Bam Bam. It just fit for the story. He said I know how we’re gonna get the belt off you. We gotta have you get killed. We gotta have in storyline that you were just destroyed. And then he came up with the ring breaking. That was Paul.
What we did was, you know, we did it for a reason – to take the title off me. There was a finish in our match. On Raw, they didn’t have a finish. It was just a show. It just ended. Both guys were in the bottom of the ring.
I think a couple of things why it didn’t really get over like the way they thought it was gonna get over. I think for a lot of younger fans and newer fans, they thought it was awesome. I think younger fans that have never heard of me or Bam Bam, they don’t even know what we did. So to them this may be the first time they saw it. So casual fans that just became wrestling fans, that might have been a cool thing for them.
When they did it last night they had a handheld camera right near where the bump happened that was the first shot. And you see these two big sumb*tches go through like really close up and it’s cool in theory. What we did in Asbury Park, the shot was set wide, hard camera from the audience.
So what happens, you see the whole ring, me on top of Bam Bam trying to choke him out, him throwing himself backwards, now we go through the ring and you get to not just see this bump happen in the square ring where there’s a hole now these two guys went through it, but you see the audience reaction. That’s the key.
You see them jump up and pop. Well, I guarantee you on Raw those people jumped up and stood up to look in the hole as soon as it happened, we wouldn’t know that as viewers at home. You know why? They didn’t shoot like that.”
