Eric Bischoff discusses new role with WWE

On the first episode of his “83 Weeks” podcast since the news of him becoming executive director of SmackDown broke, Eric Bischoff discussed his new role with WWE.

“I want to let everybody know, the magnitude of this opportunity and the challenge and the commitment that goes along with it is not lost on me. There’s been a couple times over the last few days where I’ve been driving around in my truck or taking my dog for a hike and going, ‘Wow, this may be’ — it’s not maybe, this is the biggest opportunity I’ve ever had in this industry. Granted, when Bill Shaw made me president of WCW, obviously that was a very big moment, but I was learning on the job there. I had nothing to lose there. I was taking a company in WCW that had never turned a dollar of profit, that was such a distant number two to WWF at that time that we weren’t even really number two. A company that was fraught with a bad history and all kinds of internal issues, so I had nothing to lose,” Bischoff said.

“In this situation, this is an entirely different ballgame here. This is a very sophisticated company in WWE. There is a great team already in place. They’re moving the SmackDown show to Fox network, which is going to obviously have a lot of eyeballs on it in every way. So the magnitude of the opportunity is not lost on me. I said this in a tweet, this is probably the only thing I’m really going to say beyond this, and I mean this, almost get a tear in my eye saying it, I’m honored, I’m humbled, and I cannot express, even here, because this is a different kind of excitement for me. I haven’t felt this way, maybe in forever but for at least 20 years. This is a whole different ballgame.”

Bischoff said he’s going to move to Connecticut with his wife and dog on probably the 10th or 11th of July.

Bischoff thanked everyone and said he was overwhelmed by the response he got on social media after WWE made their announcement. He confirmed that his podcast with Conrad Thompson will continue, noting that it’s helped him look at things from a different perspective and has made him more energized about the pro wrestling industry.

WWE announced last Thursday that Paul Heyman has been named the executive director of Raw and Bischoff has been named the executive director of SmackDown. Both will report directly to Vince McMahon.