Eric Bischoff Addresses His WWE Exit, Praises WWE’s Creative Teams

– On the latest 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed his exit from WWE and his experience as Executive Director of Smackdown. Bischoff’s release and Bruce Prichard’s promotion to the Executive Director position was the big news of last week and Bischoff took some time at the end of his show to address his release, as well as praise the creative teams at the company.

Highlights from the discussion, and the full podcast, are below:

On his brief tenure with the company: “I’m gonna say a couple things. And I’ll have a lot more to say at some point in time, but my feelings right now are, number one I was really grateful for the opportunity to work in WWE. And it was an opportunity. It didn’t work out the way I wanted it to work out. It clearly didn’t work out the way Vince McMahon wanted it to work out. But that happens. And I’m not taking any of it personally. Professionally, you know, I’m taking a hard look at it and thinking it through. But more than anything, I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

Eric Bischoff on the creative teams in the company: “Part of the reason I am is, I had a chance to work with a great team of people. The writing staff for Smackdown in particular, as well as a lot of the other writers who are on Raw. They are a very, very talented and unbelievably hard-working and dedicated group of people. And just to have the opportunity to work with people like that in and of itself was worth this experiment.”

On leaving so quickly: “I didn’t come here thinking I was going to be in WWE for five or 10 years. I looked at it as a relatively short term opportunity, meaning two to three years. I didn’t think it would be quite this short term, but sometimes that happens. WWE is a great company with a very defined culture and process. And I didn’t necessarily fit into it, and that’s just the way it is. I’m not sad, I’m not disappointed, I’m not angry, I’m not any of those things. Just looking forward to the next opportunity, whenever and wherever that may be, and kind of digging the idea of packing up the truck and getting back to Wyoming. So all in all, very positive, got nothing but great things to say about the people at WWE and the company as a whole. It’s an amazing company.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 83 Weeks with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.