Brian Gewirtz recounts he and Paul Heyman getting suspended from WWE after slap fight: “It wasn’t exactly Tyson/Holyfield”

Former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz chats WWE topics in relation to Paul Heyman, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Roman Reigns

Brian Gewirtz chats Paul Heyman, Roman Reigns and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.

From 1999-2012, Brian Gewirtz worked for WWE as a creative writer and present day, he is the Senior Vice President of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Dany Garcia’s Seven Bucks Productions company.

Gewirtz is releasing a book about his time working for WWE that is titled, There’s Just One Problem: True Tales from the Former, One-Time, 7th Most Powerful Person in WWE. Gewirtz guest appeared on The Ringer’s Cheap Heat podcast to promote the August 16th release and talked about several stories he wrote about in the book.

One of those stories was his slap fight with Paul Heyman. Gewirtz says they both were suspended, but it wasn’t exactly a Mike Tyson/Evander Holyfield-esque brawl.

You’ll love the chapter in the book where Paul [Heyman] and I get into an actual slap fight and get suspended from WWE. It was a — by the way, I get along great with Paul now.

Well, you know, ‘won the fight’, I don’t know [if I would say that]. You know that GIF of Jerry and George [from Seinfeld]? I think that was, you know… it wasn’t exactly [Mike] Tyson/[Evander] Holyfield.

After Gewirtz wrapped up his full-time tenure with WWE, he still did some consulting for the company.

The topic of conversation was Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns and Gewirtz recalled when he saw ‘suffering succotash’ written into Reigns’ promo script. He immediately signaled that it would be a bad idea for Reigns to go out and say that.

I was consulting WWE at the time. I saw ‘suffering succotash’ in the script and I was just like sending out flare guns like, no! Don’t have him say that. There’s no good way you could say that.

With Reigns and Heyman being closely aligned and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Gewirtz being closely aligned, Gewirtz joked that he would be game for a tag team match between the two sides.

Paul [Heyman] is, you know, he is one unique individual, future Hall of Famer, never ceases to not entertain me on-screen. I think it would be a horrific mistake on a historic level you can’t possibly imagine, but if there was ever a tag team match with me and [The] Rock versus Heyman and Roman [Reigns], that would be amusing in terms of like the sheer greatness and sheer awfulness combined into one attraction. You know, but I’d be down for it.

Next up on the docket for Reigns is a title defense against Drew McIntyre at Clash at the Castle in September. That match was made official after Reigns bested Brock Lesnar in a Last Man Standing match at SummerSlam.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Ringer’s Cheap Heat podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions. 

About Andrew Thompson 7988 Articles
A Washington D.C. native and graduate of Norfolk State University, Andrew Thompson has been covering wrestling since 2017.