Former WWE Executive Producer Eric Bischoff reveals the person who made his WCW run 'not work'
Eric Bischoff is one of the top names in the history of wrestling, with his time heading WCW and later as the General Manager of WWE RAW remaining rather iconic runs. However, Bischoff, during the most recent '83 Weeks' Podcast, talked about how during his second run with WWE, he could not quite get invested in the product as he thought that it was not working.
Eric Bischoff says that second run in WCW was not working
Talking about his run in WCW, Eric Bischoff said that there was really a big difference between his first run with the company and his second run with the company.
In September of 1999, Bischoff was released from WCW and his first run as the leader of WCW ended. However, later he would be recalled to the company when Vince Russo could not do better in the position. At that time, when he came back he thought that he would be working well with Russo to figure out how to make the show better. While initially, he was very enthusiastic, later on, he would realize that this was not possible and that it was not going to work. He had tried to work with Russo, but it had not clicked.
"...when I came back to WCW after they let me go in September of 1999 and I got a call a couple months later saying we f*cked up with Vince Russo, would you mind coming back? What will it take? I came back with a hell of a deal. Shortly after I got back, the first few weeks were good. It felt good. My intentions and motivation was good. I came back because I figured I could work out a way to work with Vince Russo and change things so that WCW would have a better foundation creatively. After having worked with him for several weeks, I realized it was not going to happen. Rather than saying to Brad Siegel, it’s not going to work, it’s not going to happen, I just showed up. I didn’t really put forth the effort. I was not emotionally invested. I was fulfilling an obligation…I can’t think of a better way to say it other than I took the money.” - h/t Wrestling News Co
He admitted that he did not tell anyone that he knew it was not going to work, as he received a good deal from the company, but instead he showed up despite not being invested.
Eventually, WWE would buy out WCW, and Bischoff would be hired as the General Manager of RAW. You can see Bischoff being hired here.
Eric Bischoff as WWE SmackDown's Executive Producer
2019 saw an enormous change made by Vince McMahon to the creative department in WWE, where he hired Paul Heyman as the Executive Producer of WWE RAW and Eric Bischoff as the Executive Producer of Friday Night SmackDown.
While Heyman has retained the position on WWE RAW and is apparently doing really well, Bischoff parted ways with the company due to things not really working out.