Report: Why Eric Bischoff Was Sacked By WWE

It was reported yesterday that Eric Bischoff had been sacked from his role of SmackDown Executive Director and has been replaced by Bruce Prichard.

According to several reports, the sacking has come as a surprise to very few people, as it was widely known that Bischoff was not performing to the expected standards.

When Bischoff was hired just a few months ago, it was reported that Prichard would be the person helping him settle in the role, but that doesn’t seem to have happened, or at least if it did, it didn’t go very well.

Prichard has been working as WWE’s Senior Vice President, and is one of very few backstage personnel that has been attending both Raw and SmackDown shows regularly.

It was reported shortly after Bischoff was appointed as SmackDown Executive Director that FOX were hoping to have Paul Heyman fulfil that role, but for whatever reason, WWE went for Heyman on Raw and Bischoff on SmackDown.

According to Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Live, several people expected Bischoff’s departure as morale backstage was very low, and that the “boom period” that was predicted to coincide with SmackDown’s move to FOX never happened.

Alvarez also noted that he was aware that a lot of people didn’t like working under Bischoff, and that a number of them were close to quitting. He went on to say that from what he understood, Bischoff barely did anything and was often spotted in catering.

Alvarez said he always heard “zero good things” about Bischoff, at least from his sources, and that there was always a lot of negative talk.

Dave Meltzer reported following Bischoff’s hiring that people in WWE were shocked by his lack of knowledge of modern wrestling, and that he was taking a lot longer to settle in that hoped.

It is widely thought that Bischoff was hired as a scapegoat by WWE so that they would have someone to fire if someone went wrong. It is also thought that this could be the first of a number of firings due to a backstage shake-up.

So it seems that Bischoff’s sacking was a long time coming, and that it has come as a surprise to almost no-one in WWE.

 

• Sacked
• eric bischoff
• Smackdown
• wwe

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