The EVP of Impact Wrestling, Don Callis, was a recent guest on the Busted Open podcast. Callis discussed his time in ECW and working with Paul Heyman.
“I think one of the things that I learned from Paul Heyman is picking someone and trying to figure out a way to really do a deep dive of who they are and turning them into and helping them discover who they can be. So that’s kind of one of the things that I like to do best,” said Callis. “So, I’ll take a guy like Ace Austin as an example and start working with him on, ‘hey, you’re a great wrestler but that’s not going to sell tickets.’ So I’ll start working with Ace on other areas of his character”.
Callis went on to talk about being an on-screen character, especially twenty years ago when pro wrestling was at its zenith.
“At that time, it was kind of the only heel authority angle; before that was Vince McMahon who had done it better than anybody but I liked to think that we pulled it off nicely,” stated Callis.
“It’s so funny that when I went into TNA in 2003 they wanted me to do the same gimmick of the authority figure and in 2003 I made the comment that I thought that the authority figure was overdone in wrestling and it shouldn’t be done anymore but is still being done today.”
Source: WrestlingINC
