WWE surprised the fans with a sudden announcement, earlier this week as they removed the current Smackdown creative head cum executive director from the post. Eric Bischoff had to leave the company as WWE released a press statement to confirm that Bruce Prichard will be replacing him,
“Stamford, Conn., October 15, 2019 – WWE (NYSE: WWE) today announced that it has named Bruce Prichard the Executive Director of Friday Night SmackDown, reporting directly to WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon.
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Prichard will oversee the creative development of Friday Night SmackDown on FOX and ensure integration across all platforms and lines of business, replacing Eric Bischoff.
Prichard brings nearly 40 years of experience in sports entertainment with an extensive background in character development and creative storytelling. Over the course of his career, Prichard has served in a variety of roles including announcer, producer, agent, and on-screen personality. Earlier this year, Prichard returned to WWE as a member of the company’s creative team.”
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WWE also confirmed to the media that Eric Bischoff no longer works for them:
“Bischoff is no longer with the company and has been replaced by Prichard.”
Bruce is a great producer, good friend and I am certain he is going to thrive in his position. He’s going to be working with a great team of the most dedicated and hard working people I have had the pleasure of working with and getting to know. https://t.co/aMKk8d3Rx7
— Eric Bischoff (@EBischoff) October 15, 2019
The move was quite surprising as it was just before Summerslam that Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff received the duties of Executive Director for Raw and SmackDown, consecutively. So we left wondering what could possibly happen that forced a veteran producer like Bischoff to step down from his position. Well, we received an update on this.
According to Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer, one of the main reasons why Eric Bischoff got released from WWE is that he wasn’t putting enough effort into his role. He had zero influence backstage as well as a lack of communication among the talents. They could barely obey the WCW owner and some of them also denied to work under him. Also, rumors suggest that some backstage employees also quit the company due to his negative influence. Here’s more from Bryan,
“I heard that he just didn’t know anybody. He didn’t know any of the talents. He didn’t go out of his way to learn about anything. He would leave and nobody could get ahold of him. I heard zero, zero good things about Eric Bischoff when he was doing whatever he was doing, I don’t even know what he was doing.
He was doing some stuff and honest to god when I asked I don’t even know what he was doing, but I know he was doing enough that nobody liked working under him.
I heard of people that wanted to quit who were working under him.”
The good news for the WWE is that they received a great backup name when it comes to handling SmackDown instead of Eric Bischoff. Prichard has a vast experience while working for WWE as well as around the independent promotions. Hopefully, he will be able to do justice to the role given to him and deliver impactful episodes of SmackDown on Friday nights.
