Eric Bischoff On the Lawsuit & Allegations Against Vince McMahon, His Personal Reaction To It

On the latest episode of Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff talked about the sexual abuse and sexual trafficking allegations made against Vince McMahon from former WWE employee Janel Grant in a new lawsuit. You can check out some highlights below:

{Editor’s Note: For timeline purposes, these comments were made before John Laurinaitis’ lawyer’s statement on the lawsuit.]

On looking back at his initial thoughts regarding the allegations made against Vince McMahon: “Look, I reacted very viscerally, emotionally to what I’ve read and had been reading. And the one thing I don’t want to get lost in all of this is we’ve heard one side of the story. There will be more to come — unfortunately, because I don’t want to read anymore. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. To be very honest with you, if this would all go away tomorrow and everybody walk away, go to their separate corners, and be happy for the rest of their life — however happy they’re able to be under these circumstances — that would be great, but that’s not real. What’s real is this is going to continue to drip out, and we’re gonna get more information. And depending on how far this thing goes, I mean, this could end up in front of a jury. I don’t think it will, but it could. And the details of the allegations — and that’s what they are, they’re allegations. The word I used I was evil. And if these allegations are true, evil is a good word. If these allegations are not true, evil’s a good word. And I just want it to be done. I know I sound like a six-year-old kid, but I just want it to be over. And I’m sure a lot of people feel that same way. And yeah — I mean, the only people that don’t feel that way are the attorneys that are making money in the process.”

On the dark shadow over WWE right now: “There’s nothing I said that isn’t true — whether the allegations are true or whether the allegations are not true, innocent people are being affected by this. There’s a dark shadow over WWE. And I can only imagine, but I think I can imagine it fairly accurately, what must it be like working in WWE with this kind of thing hanging over you. And the children involved, children of children involved, friends, family members; everybody’s suffering as a result of these allegations. And we’ll hopefully find out, or there’ll be a resolution one way or the other. But this is so ugly, and I just wish I could just make it go away. I could, I could disconnect. And I actually thought about it for, I don’t know, didn’t time it but maybe moments. There was a point in time when I was thinking through all this, knowing that I was going to have to talk about it, where I thought, ‘Waybe it was time to just stop talking about wrestling.’ And I know it would make a lot of people happy if I would. Most of them in Jacksonville, Florida. [chuckles] But, you know, that was just an emotional reaction, and I got over pretty quickly. But I just hopefully — I can’t wait to talk about Brutus Beefcake and firing Honky Tonk Man. Give me something light and fun.”

On not defending McMahon: “I’m going to hope that people are listening and understand what I’m saying. By no means am I coming to anybody’s defense or supporting anything or anybody in this situation, other than the innocent people involved. Because there are a lot of them. But you said it clearly, man. Vince has three weeks to tell his side of the story. We, all of us, reacted and are still reacting really, to her allegations in that complaint. We haven’t seen the other side of that coin yet. And you say it’ll take about three weeks to get there. That’s when things, in my opinion, are going to really get interesting. And interesting in a sad way. We’re probably going to end up deeper, we’ll probably learn more. This isn’t going to go away anytime soon. And I guess that’s my point. And we still haven’t heard from the other side of the other side of the table. And that’s interesting. It’s the only word I can come up with right now.”

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