Eric Bischoff Says He 'Failed' To Adapt In His Role As WWE Executive Director

During a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff discussed his time working for WWE in his short-lived executive role, and how he failed to adapt to the company's way of working.

Here is what he said:

For the most part, the writers – the people I worked with every day – a lot of them were from New York City and took the train in every day. The mornings didn’t really get going until 10 o’clock. I’d show up and get gassed up and hit the coffee machine and get my day going. Then it was, for me, the morning always started with meeting with the writing team and picking up where we left off the night before or attacking a new assignment. In most cases, that new assignment would be, ‘OK, you have a meeting with Vince on Tuesday night at 6 or 8 and he wants to see what we have in mind for X.’ Part of the team would work on what needed to be done for television, and part of the team would work on preparing for the meeting with Vince. My role wasn’t really creative in a sense that….I wasn’t really day-to-day in the writers’ room. I managed the writers’ room. I would also be meeting with the head of licensing and promotion or on a phone call preparing for the FOX launch……the rest of my day would be working back and forth with writers. We were constantly interviewing new writers and production assistants. That would usually take you through the day and then most of it was preparing for or meeting with Vince.

This is the part that drove me batshit crazy, and this is one of the things I didn’t really adapt well to is I don’t like sitting around waiting. I just don’t. It’s a waste of my time and I get bored with myself. The mental energy in my head when I’m sitting around doing nothing is not healthy. It was me and [Triple H] and Bruce [Prichard] and half a dozen other people – as we’re preparing for this meeting all day with Vince at 6 or 8, inevitably, you’d get that call that Vince is running late. OK cool, how late? He should be ready by 8. Great, we’ve got work to do and can keep ourselves busy. Quarter until 8, ‘Vince isn’t ready yet.’ We’re all still here, let us know…..’Honey, I know it’s midnight and I told you I’d be home but we’re waiting to go into this meeting with Vince.’ There were often times the 6 or 8 meeting with Vince didn’t start until midnight. That’s the culture. It’s hard to be productive or go off in a direction if you haven’t gotten the approval you need or the buy-in you need along the way…..oftentimes what wore me down wasn’t the call at 3 in the morning, it was knowing that I have to be prepared for a call at 3 in the morning. You’re never really away from anything. I took my phone to bed with me. That’s the part that really got to me. I’m not blaming Vince McMahon or WWE. That’s their culture, and my job was to adapt to it. I failed at that.