WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff recently appeared on Chris Van Vliet’s “INSIGHT” podcast and discussed what it was like to work with former WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon.
Bischoff recalled his brief stint as SmackDown Executive Director in 2019, and how it was almost every day working with McMahon. Bischoff revealed what aspect of Vince stifled his creativity.
“Obviously I wasn’t there on the inside when Vince left. I was there for 4 months, I worked with Vince almost every day,” he said. “On those days we did work together, it was often for hours and hours and hours. I don’t want to say that I know Vince McMahon, because I don’t, I don’t think anybody does outside of his immediate family. We all get little glimpses of him, but I don’t think many people really know Vince McMahon. My experience was Vince had a strong vision, clearly, look where WWE is today, clearly he has had a strong vision throughout his life. The challenge for me and the people I worked with on the creative side were to come up with things that would get Vince’s attention in a positive way. You never knew what that was going to be, because there was no consistency there. Every day was a brand new day, it’s not like I could get a read on Vince McMahon. I think that stifled creativity a lot.”
He continued, “You’ve heard these stories, and I don’t mean to share these experiences as like a tell all or anything negative, because it worked for them and it worked for Vince McMahon, I wish I could have figured those out. But you have heard the stories of showing up to television at 1 o’clock, tearing up the script and starting from scratch. Those aren’t exaggerations. That process, or lack thereof, is not conducive to great creativity. And I think, I’m guessing on this, because I don’t know Paul Levesque well either, I have worked a long time around him. Paul had been a part of that creative process long enough to know what the weak points were, to know what was holding it back, to know what was frustrating the people that were charged with coming up with good creative. I think that Paul made a lot of those changes very quickly, and I would imagine that the quality of the writing and the quality of the creative got much tighter. Writers got more confidence, because it was a more predictable environment, just the quality went up, that’s my take.”
Bischoff also commented on McMahon’s traditional retirement situation. He said, “I don’t know, like I said I don’t really know him. I know he is interested in cars, he’s got nice cars. But I have never heard a story of him like going golfing, yachting or fishing. I don’t think he did anything but work or workout.”
For those who missed it, click here for Bischoff’s recent comments on CM Punk and click here for his comments on the recent heat between him and Ric Flair.
You can check out the complete interview below:
