Eric Bischoff says Vince McMahon will do what's best for business, even if it practically makes him sick.
McMahon returned to the WWE Board of Directors on January 6, a few months after he retired amid an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and hush money. He was then voted the Executive Chairman of the Board on January 10, the same day Stephanie McMahon resigned as Chairwoman and Co-CEO. Alongside these moves, rumors of a potential WWE sale started swirling, including some that suggested Vince will take the company private again.
On the newest episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, former WCW President Bischoff was asked to share his thoughts as to how WWE potentially going private could change the business. He responded by noting that the question was hard to answer, as it required getting into Vince's head, which is hard to do. Bischoff then referenced Vince's pattern of doing surprising things, such as hiring him to WWE and bringing the Ultimate Warrior Back. He stated that Vince will do what's best for business, even it makes him throw up in his own mouth.
“Hard to say. You have to get inside of the head of Vince McMahon, and trying to do that is daunting. He’s a complex dude. But let’s just look at the patterns. What’s best for business? One of the things that we know is Vince McMahon makes decisions that all of us, at some time or another, were surprised at. Whether it was bringing me in, after years of competing against him and almost putting him out of business, and I had some pretty crappy things to say, I did some pretty crappy things. I was the enemy, I was the Antichrist. Had I walked into WWE headquarters back in 1997, I don’t think I would have walked out until I got hired, and I was one of the key figures on-camera for whatever it was, three or four years. Nobody thought that would happen, including me. Nobody thought that he’d bring back Ultimate Warrior. But this has been part of his public persona, is that he will do what’s best for the business, even if it’s distasteful as hell, even if it makes him throw up in his own mouth in his private time. If it’s best for business, that’s what he’s gonna do," Bischoff said.
The WWE Hall of Famer then shared his belief that allowing the existing writing team to continue would b best for business. For this reason, he stated that he could see Vince allowing the current process to continue, even if WWE goes private, as long as it continues to be successful. He cited Vince's decision to hire him as the Executive Director of SmackDown as an example of his willingness to do what's best for business.
"Now if you accept that, and you go, ‘Yeah, that’s probably true, maybe it’s 100% true, maybe it’s 70% true, but it’s true,' if you accept that and you step back and you take your emotion and your wrestling fandom out of the equation, what’s best for business? Currently, I think the existing creative team, with Triple H and Bruce, all the way down to a lot of writers that I do know personally that are fantastic talent, what’s best for business is you let them keep doing what they’re doing because it’s working. So there’s a part of me that says, ‘Yeah, even if Vince takes it private, I could see him continuing to allow that process to exist as it does as long as it continues to be successful. I believe that in my heart, having worked with Vince. Hell, he brought me in as executive director of SmackDown. Come on. It didn’t work out for a lot of reasons, most of them because of me, doesn’t matter. It didn’t work out. Maybe I just didn’t meet his expectations, I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. The fact is, that was a big position, and maybe he hated my guts, I don’t know, but he brought me in [and] gave me an opportunity. I think that aspect of Vince’s nature is what allows me to believe that even if takes the company private, I don’t think you’re going to see a radical change in what we’re seeing right now, when it comes to creative," Bischoff said.
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