Tommy Dreamer: Vince McMahon Didn't Want Paul Heyman At ECW One Night Stand 2005
Paul E. Memorably cut a worked shoot at the event
WWE’s ECW reunion show One Night Stand in 2005 was a critical success, with the ‘real’ ECW stars banding together one last time to celebrate the infamous Philadelphia promotion in former stomping ground The Hammerstein Ballroom.
One of the more memorable segments of the show saw former ECW President Paul Heyman come out for a ‘shoot’ promo where he lambasted Eric Bischoff, Edge, JBL, WCW, and WWE amongst others, all to rapturous applause.
But according to former ECW World Champion Tommy Dreamer on Busted Open Radio, Vince McMahon originally didn’t want Heyman involved with the show:
“My biggest time [working with Vince McMahon] would be the resurgence of ECW and John Laurinaitis as head of talent relations,” started Dreamer. “I worked for John, and that big push for it was with Johnny through Shane, but everything has to be through Vince McMahon’s approval. And Johnny basically comes in and then I get called into the big office, and they basically tell me that I’m in charge of it, I’m writing the whole show. I want this to be different, and [Vince says] ‘do whatever the hell you want, hire whoever the hell you want in this again, just for the first ECW One Night Stand, you’re writing it, you’re doing it’ and I was very, very, like ‘wow’. And I remember sitting back in my office, and I called Beulah, and I was like, ‘I can’t believe this. They finally see it in me.’ And I had this great nirvana.
“But back into the meeting. [Vince is] like, ‘this is all you blah, blah, blah. The only caveat, we don’t want Paul [Heyman] involved.’ Paul was at the time hated, sent to – he wasn’t even really doing OVW stuff. He was just, he was in the doghouse for whatever reason, I don’t know. And I’m sitting by myself, I’m in total control. I could have been a jerk and kept Paul out. But I’m saying to myself, how do you keep Paul Heyman out of something ECW? I always knew me and Paul worked great together. And I then had to devise a plan how I had to go to Johnny, for hey, how do I navigate this through the political waters? How do I get Paul Heyman booked, and on this ECW show. And he helped me and, again went to Vince and I was like, ‘Vince, you said, I’m in charge. Everything’s good. But Paul has to be on it.’ And he was just like, ‘you know, Paul was shipped off to nana land.’ But he was like, ‘if that’s what you want. You got it.’ And me and Paul got to work together.
“Paul [at the] last minute made a change to the pay per view because Vince also wanted Steve Austin involved and Paul’s changes and he was always being very, very politically correct, which he never had to be with me. [Paul said], ‘But if you don’t want to change it, you can do it.’ But I was like, ‘Paul, listen, number one, you’re putting a promo in for yourself, and how could Paul Heyman not do a promo and how is that not going to benefit the show?’ And then we had the whole involvement with JBL and the WWE guys.
“The show came off without a hitch. But that was my most - I don’t want to say positive but I was just like, wow, like the proverbial pat on the back, this is mine. And I ran the agent’s meeting. And Vince just sat back and any questions by the agents and Vince was like ‘Tommy’s the agent of every match’ and he gave me the ball, it delivered.”
H/T: WrestlingNews.co