Eric Bischoff’s recent firing after only four months on the job as director of SmackDown was shocking, but perhaps not unsurprising.
While RAW was filled with evidence of Paul Heyman’s influence during that time period, SmackDown muddied the waters with a bizarre detective angle that went nowhere and not much else. In a report from today’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, we have some insight as to why that is.
According to a WWE official speaking to Dave Meltzer, “Eric had absolutely no vision, and once we were headed into FOX, everything was falling through the cracks.” Said official said that Eric “messed up multiple times” with SmackDown’s new home. He also said that the former WCW wunderkind didn’t have the stamina to work a 2019 WWE schedule.
Of course, that’s not very surprising. Eric is now 64 years old, and he was working under a McMahon famous for holding hours-long creative meetings that can last into the wee hours of the morning. Dave expanded that Bischoff often worked a full day before heading to dinner with his wife and that WWE officials couldn’t get a hold of him on certain days after 7 PM. Not exactly a damning inditement in most lines of work, but WWE isn’t your typical office space.
On a recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave also said that Eric’s replacement, Bruce Pritchard, was already doing a lot of the heavy lifting for booking SmackDown in the preceding months and that not many knew what Eric was doing while he was backstage. Whether he was hired on as a fall guy or just wasn’t a good fit, it seems like there won’t be much changeover on the blue brand despite this managerial shakeup.
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