WWE Hall of Fame inductee, Eric Bischoff, has recently made some revelations about his time as the Executive Director of SmackDown and shed light on why his stint was rather brief.
In 2019, Bischoff was brought back to WWE, performing the same role that Paul Heyman was serving for RAW. However, by the end of 2020, the two were no longer in these positions.
Bischoff, during a recent episode of his podcast “Wise Choices”, remembered how the role was presented to him and stated,
“The role, as it was described to me, was to oversee the creative team and make it more effective and efficient. And…I got really excited about that opportunity is because, by 2019, I had come much closer to having an actual formula that I was about ready to try and implement in a more formal way. Meaning get everyone on board, ‘Okay, here’s the story arch…here’s the three act structure.”
He further elaborated,
“‘Let’s build the story arc leading to this PPV, this big live event, whatever it may be. To the end of the story. Let’s work towards building that story using the framework of this formula that I had been literally developing since 1995.’ And given the role that I was given…ultimately [it] would allow me to try to get at least part of my team on board to develop this concept more fully.”
Interestingly, Bischoff admitted that he wasn’t particularly job hunting at the time but the generous paycheck and the chance to be involved with wrestling at such a high level made him seize the opportunity. He confessed,
“Unfortunately, I was never able to adapt to the WWE system and culture. [I] never really had a chance to work on that, because the fire hose nature of the way things were being done in WWE at the time, with regard to creative and the way Vince liked doing things, there was really no opportunity to focus on that.”
Bischoff and Heyman were ultimately replaced by Bruce Prichard, who now holds the position of Executive Director of WWE. Since then, Bischoff has made sporadic appearances for WWE.