Francine Comments On Paul Heyman Running WWE RAW, Why He Made Her A Manager

Before Paul Heyman was Brock Lesnar's mouthpiece and the executive director of Raw, he ran ECW and helped create Francine. The Queen of Extreme talked about if she's surprised at Heyman being with WWE when she spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.

"No, I'm not surprised at all. That much talent shouldn't be kept a secret. He needs to be out there and needs to be pushing for the guys that might be overlooked," said Francine. "That's what Paul does ? he brings the talent out of people. With him being up there, a lot of guys that might have been overlooked might get an opportunity and that's a great thing."

Women's wrestling is much different today than it was in the 1990s which was Francine's heyday. She talked about today's women's revolution and if she misses anything from the previous era of women in wrestling.

"I miss the use of managers because you never know what the people outside are going to do. If you have two guys working, yeah you're gonna get a match. But if you have two girls on the outside, you don't know when they're gonna jump in and mix it up. So I think managers and valets need to make a comeback in this business," Francine said before noting that they are more common on the indies than with mainstream promotions.

"Paul knew exactly what he was doing. When I started, I was training to wrestle and Paul told me he's not a fan of women's wrestling and I would get over so much more by being a manager. And he was 100 percent right."

Francine added that she feels bad seeing how hard the girls are working and taking crazy bumps because they'll feel it later. She says she feels it now and didn't do much of the stuff that women's wrestlers are doing today.

One of the many people Francine managed in ECW was The Franchise Shane Douglas. She talked about still being able to work with Douglas on the indies today.

"We just did a show together with Stevie Richards so it felt like a time machine and we went back 20 years. I don't do too many shows but we've done a handful of shows together. They are still booking us together so people still want to see us," stated Francine. "But it's surreal. We just keep it lighthearted and fun out there because that's what it's all about at this point. We give fans nostalgia and make people smile and that's all you can ask for. I just wanna go out there and see some old friends and have a good time. I get to do that and it's such a blessed life. Any time I can see somebody from the ECW locker room it makes me so happy."

Subscribe to Francine's new podcast Eyes Up Here by clicking here: https://apple.co/33IppUm.

Francine's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of a recent episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post.

You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.