Eric Bischoff comments on Vince McMahon's return and a potential WWE sale.
On January 5, the Wall Street Journal reported that McMahon was taking actions to return to WWE and participate in media rights negotiations. McMahon subsequently confirmed these plans. Vince McMahon officially returned to the WWE Board of Directors, and WWE then confirmed the news. Former WCW President Eric Bischoff discussed the news before it became official, and now he has taken a deep dive into McMahon's return.
Speaking on 83 Weeks, Bischoff shared his thoughts on the situation. First, when asked whether he thought McMahon would be backstage at the SmackDown taping on Friday, the WWE Hall of Famer stated that he didn't expect that to be the case. He emphasized that he doesn't think McMahon's primary focus will be returning to his previous role as the head of creative. Instead, he expects McMahon to focus on making sure that the company is stable, especially as he gears up for a potential sale.
"I just can’t imagine that Vince’s primary focus right now is to jump back in the creative saddle. I mean there’s a ton on his plate, of a magnitude that I just don’t think even Vince McMahon, who notoriously works 20 hours a day, I think that would be a little bit much. I think Vince is gonna be focused on stability, particularly outward-facing stability, which is why I think he went to great lengths to acknowledge Nick Khan and Stephanie and Paul Levesque in their roles and assure everybody, he did three times in one press release, or maybe in different comments, whatever, there were three different occasions that Vince made a point to say, ‘Hey, Paul and Nick and Stephanie are doing a great job. All the confidence in the world in them. Nothing is going to change.’ If that’s true, I think showing up at TV would be, even just from perception-wise, even if he just showed up and hung around backstage, it wouldn’t add to the stability of the situation right now. Couple weeks, maybe, once things settle down. But right now, I can’t see it," Bischoff said.
When co-host Conrad described how he thinks McMahon's return is is about controlling the money and is a business play, rather than a creative-based move, Bischoff agreed. However, he pointed out that McMahon isn't necessarily a typical businessman, so what might make sense for others may not apply to the former CEO. Bischoff made it clear that he believes control is the primary motive in McMahon's return, and he looked back on the decision to take WWE public in the first place as an example.
“Absolutely. That’s why I said I just can’t see the primary motivation here, even a secondary motivation in this whole thing, and again, I’m setting myself up to be absolutely wrong because we’re talking about Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon is not your typical human being and not your typical business person. What would seem to make sense for most people may or may not apply to Vince here. The word we’ve used in the last minute or two is control. I think one thing we can all agree on, regardless of how we feel about Vince McMahon one way or the other, control has always been kind of the foundation upon which Vince McMahon operates. Go back to when he took the company public. I think your average person doesn’t necessarily understand , probably doesn’t even know that there are A shares and B shares. There are two different classes of shares. One class has voting rights. That’s the one Vince owns the majority of interest in, majority of shares. The other one is along for the ride. They don’t get to vote. I find it fascinating, among many other things, that Vince structured this company [this way] and was able to do so successfully…," Bischoff said.
The WWE Hall of Famer continued by describing how he has experience structuring a company in a similar way, and he noted that doing so is a matter of control, as he helps protect the core team from external influence when outside money is brought in. He went on to describe how he is fascinated by the way McMahon has structured WWE and ended up in this position. Bischoff also stated that, to him, McMahon's return is one of the most interesting situations of the past twenty-plus years.
"I find it fascinating that Vince, so many years ago, took the company public and was able to do with the two classes or shares architecture, and be able to be so successful with it because that structure typically turns investors off. People are generally not inclined to throw a lot of their money into a company that they know they know they don’t have a voice in, unless it’s very successful. Initially, nobody knew if this public offering from WWE was gonna be a success. But the fact that he did it, and he set himself up to be in the position that he’s in, he has the ultimate hammer. I am so fascinated by all of this. Other than Musk and Twitter, I find this to be one of the most interesting things in media and business in the last 20-30 years. I can’t think of anything, that, in my opinion, is as interesting as this," Bischoff said.
WWE reportedly hired JPMorgan to advise on a potential sale. More information is available here.
Fightful Select reported that WWE held an employee meeting after the news of McMahon's return was confirmed.
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