Paul Heyman had about a year-long run as the Executive Director of Raw. During that time, he pushed stars that WWE hadn't really gotten behind before and unfortunately have all but abandoned since Heyman was relieved of his duties. It's unfortunate too, since every one of his designated projects could have been big-time stars.
According to a report by Fightful Select, this group was known as the "catering crew". They were WWE Superstars Heyman believed he could turn into the red brand's flag bearers were not well-established stars before he took them and tried to elevate them on Monday nights. He hand-selected talents he believed could be big names and in that group was Aleister Black, Andrade, Zelina Vega, Buddy Murphy, AOP and Apollo Crews.
Black was on his way to a stardom as an undefeated performer under Heyman's watch. To many, he was WWE's next major attraction. Crews was getting more looks than he'd ever gotten and AOP and Murphy had been aligned with Seth Rollins which made them immediate players in the main event scene. As for Andrade and Vega, they were getting more television time than they'd seen since their call-up from NXT.
Unfortunately, all of that changed the second Heyman was let go.
While Murphy is still aligned with Rollins (well, up until this Friday's SmackDown), AOP got injured and have now been released. Andrade went undrafted at this past week's WWE Draft and Crews was moved to SmackDown, having wrestled on and off for the United States Championship. Aleister Black may have taken the biggest step backward, having lost two matches in row and is undergoing a character change. In many ways, he's become an afterthought for the current booking crew.
Not The First Time Heyman Tried To Elevate Mid-card Stars
For Heyman, pushing stars like this is an old habit. When he was the creative force behind SmackDown --when the brands first split-- , he made a conscious effort to push stars like Eddie Guerrero, Edge, and Rey Mysterio. All of them became WWE Champions at one point.
Unfortunately, this time around, Heyman wasn't as successful. Hopefully, this isn't the end of their pushes as all but AOP are still with the company and are extremely talented.