In June 2019, WWE announced Eric Bischoff would be returning to the company as the executive director of SmackDown.
His stint as executive director lasted four months as he was replaced by Bruce Prichard in October.
As the executive director, Bischoff was present for the production meetings to get everyone on the same page heading into television. According to him, they were a big waste of time.
"My first visceral reaction was, 'this is a fucking waste of a lot of time.' You do not need all of those people in one large meeting," Bischoff told Renee Paquette on Oral Sessions when asked about the production meetings. "When you're going through a format, I don't give a shit. I don't need to know when a graphic is going to hit. The guys in the truck need to know that. They should have their own production meeting. To spend two hours going over that stuff where you really only needed an hour, tops, 45 minutes if you're focused, to get through. To tie up all of that staff, who are not doing other things that they could have actually been doing. We worked out all of that stuff during the week, before we got to TV. You sit through the two or three hour production meeting and while you're sitting there starving because you haven't had lunch and you're watching Hunter [Triple H] and Vince (McMahon) piling down filet mignon and sushi while you're sucking down warm coffee in a Styrofoam cup. I thought that was a real waste of time. Here's the best part; everyone does get to eat lunch and they go off and start doing the things they are assigned to do at the end of the elongated luncheon for the McMahon family and then you find out....we're tearing shit up and we're going to start all over again at five o'clock. We're not talking about, 'let's take this match and move it from segment three to segment six' or 'somebody got hurt and let's rebook a match and figure out a way to explain it and make sense.' It's not that, it's [ripping paper]. There were times like 15 minutes before the show and we're re-writing scenes."
Renee would confirm that shows would often be re-written minutes for the show and the announcers would be waiting for the new format just as they were going on the air.
Bischoff continued by saying, "Here's the other side of it. I'm grateful for that experience, I know it sounds like I'm slamming them, but I'm not, I'm telling the truth. You asked how it made me feel, I don't know how it made everyone else feel, they may have dug it and felt it was valuable, I'm just telling you from my perspective. I was thinking, 'what would I do if I was taking this over.' First thing I would do is change the meeting format because we're wasting tons of time, but it's working for them. It's a tough formula for people to adapt to and tough for someone like me because of the way I think and prefer to work and it's tough on talent, but it's working."
Bischoff closed by saying that if Prichard called him to return, he knows what his answer would be and that money would have nothing to do with it.
Bischoff continues to co-host his own weekly podcast on AdFreeShows and has appeared on AEW television since his WWE departure.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
