Eric Bischoff on How His Relationship With Vince McMahon Has Changed Over the Years

– Eric Bischoff discussed his relationship with Vince McMahon and how the way he’s scene the WWE Chairman has changed over the years on the latest 83 Weeks. The two have of course had a drastically changing dynamic over the years, from being rivals during the Monday Night Wars to Bischoff eventually coming to work for McMahon as a talent and now as the Creative Director of Smackdown. Bischoff said that how he’s viewed McMahon has changed as he’s gotten to know him more personally instead of just by reputation and what other people have told him.

The highlights are below, along with the full podcast:

On how he viewed Vince during the Attitude era: “That’s a great question. My relationship now — I have to say this, and I know this is gonna sound like I’m pandering, because I work here and I work with Vince, but I’m just gonna be honest and I’m going to say it anyway. You know, in WCW, I had so many people that would come over from WWE. And of course, everybody that came over — and this is just human nature, right? They would come over, and they would tell me basically what they thought I wanted to hear. Which means there were a lot of negative things that people would say about Vince or what was the WWF at the time and all that kind of thing. And I always took it with a grain of salt, because I knew what it was. These are people that are coming in, and they want to kind of ingratiate themselves into the new company and develop a great relationship with me and the other people on the staff and so forth. So of course they would come over and they would tell you all the negative things they thought that we wanted to hear. But even with all of that, one of the things I would hear consistently is, ‘Vince McMahon is this, he’s that,’ all the negative things they think I want to hear, but they would always kind of end it, ‘but he is kind of a genius.’ And I thought, ‘Well, you know, come on. These guys are trying to keep the door open in case they want to come back.’ Or I would read often times, things people would say about Vince and talk about what a genius he was and that type of thing. And again, I would always take it with a grain of salt, and think, ‘These are guys who are just trying to keep the door open.’ Which is good business, I get it. And when I worked with WWE as a talent, I never really worked closely at all with Vince. Occasionally if we had scenes to do together and things like that. But I had very few one-on-one type of conversations with Vince. Just a small handful, to be honest about it.”

On he views Vince now: “Now that I’m working here, and I’ve been here a couple of months now and I’m working fairly closely with him. He is one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever worked with. And I don’t through the word genius around lightly, because that means different things to different people. But I think Vince in his own way is definitely a genius of sorts, however you want to define that. And that doesn’t mean that he has all the answers. In my opinion, he doesn’t have all the right answers to every situation. I think even Vince would recognize that he’s made some bad decisions, creatively and otherwise, throughout his career. But there are times, honestly — you know, in the middle of a meeting, he’ll say something, or he’ll look at a story or he’ll look at a character, and he’ll pick out something that seems so small. A detail, either in a story or a character, or a way of presenting a character that seems so small when you first hear it. But when you think about it, and you start expanding on that, you realize that it makes all the difference in the world. And I find him to be — like I said, I hate to throw the word genius around, but I think he is one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever had the opportunity to work with. I like the fact that he’s very direct. You know where you stand with Vince, and I’ve always appreciated that in anybody.”

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