Paul Heyman: Vince McMahon’s Mindset Is To ‘Rip The Band-Aid Off’

Vince McMahon doesn’t have time to wait.

When WWE returned to live events in July, Paul Heyman was removed from his role as co-host of Talking Smack. Heyman was part of the show alongside Kayla Braxton during the ThunderDome era, but the show underwent a format change when live events returned.

Speaking to Ariel Helwani of BT Sport, Heyman explained why he was removed from the show.

“The show was taped immediately after SmackDown when we had a virtual audience. As we were heading back to live crowds, there was no way to put me in that position after the show because we do the dark match. Roman Reign is usually in the dark match. I can’t get over to the table. Number two, even if I could get over to the table, we’re not shooting it anymore right after the show because we’re still live, there’s still a show going on. I wasn’t going to be available to do the show right after SmackDown. Much like everything else in the company, most of the culture is dictated by the Chairman of the Board Vincent Kennedy McMahon. His mindset is always, ‘rip the band aid off,'” he said.

Heyman then used Helwani as an example, saying that if Helwani was going to remove his glasses and get lasik in February, he shouldn’t wait until February, Vince would want him to do it now.

Heyman continued by saying, “If you know you’re going to do it, if you know the glasses are coming off and you know you’re not going to wear glasses as of February…the culture here is ‘do it yesterday.’ The moment someone realized, ‘we’re going to do live crowds again and Roman is going to be in the dark match and we need Heyman. Heyman can’t be there and in the studio. We only have three or four more weeks of Heyman on Talking SmackDown, we have to do something different.’ ‘Get rid of him now.’ ‘We still have three or four weeks to decide.’ ‘Get rid of him now.’ That’s the decision. Start replacing him now because we have to do it anyway.”

Heyman currently serves as the special counsel to Roman Reigns, who will battle Big E at WWE Survivor Series.

Elsewhere during the interview, Heyman gave his thoughts on Reigns vs. The Rock happening at WrestleMania 38. You can find his full comments by clicking here.

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