5 greatest authority figures in WWE history
On-screen authority figures have been part and parcel of the professional wrestling industry since time immemorial and WWE, being an upscale professional wrestling promotion, has not been an exception to the rule.
At first, WWE used to have on-screen "President" figures. This tradition started from the foundation of the promotion in 1963 and continued until 1997. While Jack Tunney is the most well-known and memorable of these presidential figures, personalities such as Willie Gilzenberg, Hisashi Shinma and Gorilla Monsoon monitored the position with great success.
Vince McMahon's real-life ownership of WWE was first acknowledged in 1996 and soon the landscape of authority figures in WWE altered. The "Presidents" were ceremonial characters with not much influence on the direction of storylines.
However, the new breed of personalities who replaced them were more effective. They were reasonable as faces and discriminatory as heels. Due to their antics and active participation in storylines, they became more prominent than ever, championing their motive and even entering the ring on certain occasions.
Here is a list of the top five authority figures in WWE history.
#5 Former WWE General manager Eric Bischoff
In 2001, WCW finally lost to WWE and the Monday Night War was over. Eric Bischoff's last gasp attempt at saving the promotion by endeavoring to purchase it, proved to be unsuccessful. On July 15, 2002, Eric Bischoff debuted on Monday Night Raw as its general manager, a moment that astonished the audience and persists to be as fascinating as it was back then.
The former WCW boss remained the GM of Raw for a period of three years. Bischoff exhibited to the audience for the first time the Raw Roulette and the Elimination Chamber, of which the latter came to be a perennial feature in WWE's annual event list. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2021.