WWE names Paul Heyman & Eric Bischoff as Executive Directors

Can only see this as a positive, even if it’s not “better”, it’ll hopefully be a bit different.

Vince being 73 with a football league starting in 8 months, hopefully, he’ll be a little less hands on.

Bischoff and Heyman also, hopefully, have a bit more of Vince’s respect than the 400 jabroni writers they currently have on staff.

Proof’ll be in the pudding. This is an attempt to signal to the public that the old man is letting go of the reins, but whether that’ll actually happen remains to be seen.

In real sports, there’s a separation between the general manager and the team owner. The former gets to dictate the philosophy and structure of the franchise’s direction and needs, and the latter only gets involved when pursestrings are in play. But baseball is full of horror stories of meddlesome owners who are quick-tempered and thin-skinned, and end up undermining by fiat long term projects and team building (sound familiar?). It would not surprise me to learn that no matter what his official title becomes, Vince’ll be calling audibles on a whim from his deathbed.

As for the specific people, I’m kinda curious to see what Heyman can do in 2019, but is Bischoff really up to date on what the lapsed or casual fan wants in 2019? I’d suggest he’s more there on name recognition:

“Bischoff is a valuable addition to WWE.”

Now there’s an example of JL Austin’s performative utterances if ever there was one. Getting that sentence printed in a mainstream outlet like SI -is- Easy E’s value.

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Creatively, I don’t think Heyman is past it. Bischoff is a different story, not sure I trust his ability to consistently come up with good angles. Even during the “Monday Night Wars”, the angles were usually shit.

As long as this means there’s a more obvious line between the two shows then that on its own improves their product by a lot.

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If the “Executive Director” position is more than just head writer, then I would expect Heyman, Bischoff or theoretically Levesque to be able to make changes to the writing teams, production and roster that they want.

Basically Vince won’t be in charge like everyone wanted. I wonder if Fox asked for this? Or the board. It is similar to how NXT is run with them having the final say for both brands. Vince probably will still book PPV etc

I like it, and I’ll like it even better if they stick with this and not have Vince just arbitrarily change Paul or Eric’s plans week to week. Hopefully this means they abolish the silly wild card rule as well.

I also wouldn’t mind if they did another draft, allowing Heyman and Bischoff to pick who they’d like on their shows. And then keep it that way.

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That would be great if it was Paul Levesque indeed.

This is like the Avengers now.
Vince, Paul and Eric (Iron Man, Capt America, Thor) are all teaming up to go against the big evil Thanos in Tony Khan/AEW.

Thanos has to be Vince and the Avengers on the indy side.

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Side bar: is Conrad Thompson the king of Pro Wrestling.
Starrcast
AEW
Pritchard back to WWE
Bischoff back to WWE

What’s the commonality in all those🤔

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I really think this is a great move by WWE. The last few weeks I have been annoyed that Raw and Smackdown have been way to similar to each other. I really hope that this means the wildcard rule will be phased out and we have two completely different shows now. I also hope that both Paul and Eric will have enough power to be able to let the wrestlers be a bit more unscripted. I am looking forward to seeing where each show goes from here, and it has been a long time since I have said that. I would also not put much stock into what Eric did with TNA, He was basically told to rebuild an engine with toothpick, so I will give him a shot at creating something fun to watch.

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I would have high hopes for raw if Heyman had a high % of control (I know he won’t). I’ll always have a boner for his booking of 95-98 ECW

They are saying him and Eric have total control like HHH with NXT

Hard to believe but hopefully

As long as Vince McMahon is breathing, I will not believe this at all.

And honestly, why would they give these two that job? Heyman I can appreciate and understand as somebody who still contributes creatively. But what has Bischoff done in wrestling that has made a positive impact in professional wrestling in nearly two decades.

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You legit think that will happen?

:joy_cat:

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Vince doesn’t watch anything else so he doesn’t know about this TNA stint. He remembers Eric being good with network executives which is key for the big Fox move

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What was Eric’s last good idea in wrestling?

I can’t even think of what it would be.

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TNA Reaction. That show was great.

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Does the breakdown of the Brand split make this job infinitely more difficult? Part of the issue right now with story lines is that we are getting the same stories across both shows featuring the same cast of characters. I’m for the end of the brand split but if the shows have any chance of feeling different and having unique creative properties then we need to stop having segments on both shows dedicated to the same programs.

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