"Nobody spent more time in catering than Paul Heyman" - Eric Bischoff on his time on WWE SmackDown
Last year, Vince McMahon appointed two WWE Executive Directors, one each on RAW and SmackDown. Each Executive Director was the person supposed to be in charge of the creative department of each show. This was done as it was expected that Vince McMahon would be taking a step back with the XFL debuting. Paul Heyman became the Executive Director of WWE RAW and Eric Bischoff was the one for WWE SmackDown.
Unfortunately, this would not last. Only a few weeks into being in charge of WWE SmackDown reports emerged that Vince McMahon was very unhappy with Eric Bischoff, and then he was released from his role, with Bruce Prichard taking up the mantle instead. Eventually, Paul Heyman lost his place on WWE RAW as well, with Bruce Prichard taking on both shows. Now, Eric Bischoff has answered accusations that he faced that he spent too much time in catering and took a shot at Paul Heyman instead, on his 83 Weeks podcast (h/t 411Mania).
Eric Bischoff addresses 'catering' accusation; says Paul Heyman spent more time in WWE's catering
One of the reports that came out about Eric Bischoff regularly during his time in WWE was that he spent a lot of time in catering. Now, the former WWE RAW General Manager has addressed this rumor.
“More often than not, you’ve had six, eight, ten, twelve people crammed into a room that was built for three, and everybody is talking amongst themselves, across themselves, to each other, to others that aren’t even in the room on their cellphones and things like that, you’ve got this constant state of communication chaos going on that was all necessary, but it’s kind of hard to have a conversation with somebody, especially if it became a serious conversation, by serious I mean something creative that a talent wanted to talk about, maybe they had an idea or a concern, whatever the case may be, a conversation that required a little bit of privacy or at least quiet enough that you could actually have a conversation and hear yourself in the process of it. So occasionally, before catering would start, before they actually started serving food which was usually 11AM or 1PM depending on where you were, it was empty. There were these big, round tables in catering and often times they were empty or at least not overly crowded, and you could actually sit and have a conversation at those tables. That’s when I’d be in catering."
Eric Bischoff went on to talk about Paul Heyman and said that he spent far more time in the WWE catering area.
“By the way, nobody spent more time in catering than Paul Heyman. Nobody, other than the people preparing the food, but Dave has a different relationship with Paul Heyman than he does with Eric Bischoff.”