5 Reasons why WWE released Eric Bischoff

The biggest news of the week is the surprising breaking story that Eric Bischoff has been replaced as the Executive Director of WWE SmackDown by Bruce Prichard, and rumors are that Bischoff is finished with WWE after only several months.

Bischoff was hired by WWE over the summer to help spearhead SmackDown's premiere on FOX, but after just two episodes of the show on the new network, the former President of WCW is finished with the company and assuming his role will be Vince McMahon's longtime right-hand man Bruce Prichard.

Bischoff's future following his WWE release remains uncertain, but given everything we know about his departure from the company, let's look at five reasons why he might have been released from SmackDown.

#5 Week two of SmackDown on FOX lost 1 million viewers

One of the most anticipated premieres in WWE history was that of SmackDown's premiere on FOX on October 4th, and the show was certainly a newsworthy event, featuring the crowning of a new WWE Champion in Brock Lesnar, plus appearances by celebrities as well as WWE Hall of Famers and legends.

Ahead of SmackDown's move to FOX, WWE announced during the summer that Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff had been hired to be the new Executive Directors of Raw and SmackDown, respectively.

When it came time for SmackDown to premiere on FOX, the show took in a great number averaging nearly 4 million viewers. However, in its second week on FOX, SmackDown lost one million viewers, which certainly had to be seen as a bad sign by WWE, especially considering the company, for weeks, had been hyping the 2019 roster draft kicking off on the broadcast.

With such a big loss of viewers in the second week of SmackDown on FOX, WWE might have been looking to place the blame on someone for the dramatic viewership loss, and Eric Bischoff might have been that scapegoat.