"half a second away!"

That's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Paul Heyman of (the original) ECW fame.

I stumbled onto his column for London's The Sun newspaper, and I've been watching his "Heyman Hustle" webisodes. His videos are all over the map, and a little too sloppy for my taste. Maybe I've just been spoiled by WWE over the years, as far as slick production goes. Once in a while, there'll be a good, solid bit, but it's too hit-or-miss so far for me. It is half a second away.

On the other hand, I find his written columns intelligent, articulated, and perfectly on-point. Perhaps the best example was his post on the Chris Benoit saga, in which he expresses the finality of the senselessness of it all, and how everyone has tried to come to terms with it, family, co-workers and fans alike. I myself have tried to wrap my mind around it, with no amount of success; the tribute shows are still on my DVD's hard drive, neither archived nor erased. I just can't watch them, but I don't want to gloss over the events and pretend they never happened.

I've wanted to write about it, too. But once my mind starts thinking that professional recognition should bear on professional achievements only, I start to think that three people were denied to right to have further professional achievements (or any, in the case of young Daniel), and that that cannot be honoured. All my thoughts string together with "Yes, but..."s. In that, Paul E. sums it up well: "I've no answers and I never will."

But I digress. Point is, Paul Heyman does a great job of analyzing the field of sports entertainment and MMA, particularly from a marketing standpoint, and he is quite enjoyable to read. Give him a try.

He has a particularly interesting viewpoint concerning the Joey Styles/Mike Adamle, um, debacle? Heck, it's the only thing that makes sense. Personally, I think they want to rebuild a "kickable" interviewer, like Coach was in the Rock's heyday. With Jonathan Coachman's rumoured departure for ESPN, they had the opportunity to juggle things around. I think the addition of Mick Foley was brilliant - he's not perfect yet, but give him time to settle in. Besides, he's already better than JBL ever was. Removing Joey Styles, to me, was a mistake for ECW, the weakest brand WWE has. But parachuting Adamle was a great way to turn him heel almost instantaneously - not that he's evil, just that his eagerness to impress and his incompetence are a perfect combination to get people to want him to get beat up. Check out this week's Dirt Sheet; I think that's the best clue to where WWE is trying to head with Adamle.

I just hope they haven't sacrificed a great voice (Styles, I hope you enjoy running the website), if not all of ECW, for the sake of a shortcut to building a minor character. Unless they name him GM of Raw, in which case I quit!

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