EARLY LOOK: The Pros and Cons of WWE's Heyman/Bischoff Hiring

By Jimmy Van

When WWE’s latest “Internet breaking” news story came to light on June 27, SRS asked me to do a news podcast with him but time didn’t permit so he did it alone.  I’ve gathered my thoughts on this one and decided to share them in written form!  

First to ensure nothing is taken out of context, here is the release posted by WWE on their website on June 27:

WWE has named Paul Heyman as Executive Director of Monday Night Raw and Eric Bischoff as Executive Director of SmackDown LIVE, newly created positions reporting directly to WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon.

In their executive roles, Heyman and Bischoff will oversee the creative development of WWE’s flagship programming and ensure integration across all platforms and lines of business. The creation of these roles further establishes WWE’s ability to continuously reinvent its global brand while providing two distinct creative processes for its flagship shows.

With more than 30 years of experience in the sports-entertainment industry, Heyman served as President of ECW from 1993 to 2001, securing pay-per-view distribution for the company as well as a national cable television deal with TNN. After his time with ECW, Heyman joined WWE’s Creative team and is widely credited with helping launch the careers of many current and former WWE Superstars.

Bischoff is a former WCW President and New York Times bestselling author. During his WCW career, Bischoff oversaw the signing of some of the biggest names in sports-entertainment and helped create and develop the nWo storyline. He was also instrumental in securing a television deal for WCW Monday Nitro on TNT and WCW Thunder on TBS. After WCW, Bischoff co-founded Bischoff-Hervey Entertainment, a production company that launched TV reality shows and mobile games.

The immediate reaction from a lot of wrestling fans as well as wrestling journalists was, “Vince is out of touch” and “why not Triple H?” and even, “Triple H got screwed”.  So I’m going to try to tackle this as nonpartisan as possible.

Vince’s track record for years has been to address the future by going back to the past
This has been an annual Wrestlemania trend forever and continues to this day not just with Mania, but with WWE’s big-money Saudi shows as well.  When they need to pop a big house, given that they haven’t successfully created a proven box office star since John Cena, they’ve looked to The Undertaker, or Triple H, or Hulk Hogan, or Batista, or Goldberg, or even The Rock or Shawn Michaels to move the needle.  And so this week’s decision is the latest in that trend.

It has been suggested for years that McMahon lives in a bubble, unaware of the outside world.  He allegedly only knows of non-WWE wrestling based on what he’s told by others or what he lived through past experiences.  Call it “out of touch” if you will.  That being said, it has to be concerning to WWE talent and management alike that he’s chosen Eric Bischoff to lead the creative for what will become WWE’s most important brand in the Fall once the Fox deal kicks in.  Bischoff by his own admission has not kept up on the current wrestling product.  He is likely unfamiliar with much of the WWE talent roster and ongoing storylines.  And while he was wildly successful for a short time building WCW in the mid-90s, a lot of that success was built on the backs of stars from the past, much like McMahon.  His subsequent tenure with TNA/Impact from 2010 through 2013 is generally considered a forgettable failure, as much of what he presented was again in line with what he’d always known – a heel authority figure (Bischoff himself) and a big star from the past (Hulk Hogan).  Of course, McMahon probably isn’t aware of any of that aside from high level points such as “Eric used to work for Impact Wrestling”.

Though the hiring of Heyman makes more sense (more on that later), he much like Bischoff is a former McMahon real-life adversary who had short-term success running a national wrestling promotion 20 years ago.   This also isn’t Heyman’s first go-around in a creative position with WWE, as he previously worked for McMahon in a creative capacity in 2002 - for about a year - then in 2005, also for about one year.  But in 2012 he returned to WWE alongside Brock Lesnar and since then, he’s had a good relationship with both WWE and Vince McMahon.

Eric Bischoff’s corporate experience can’t be understated
Again come the Fall, WWE’s relationship with Fox will be its most important one.  Given Bischoff’s background, there may not be a better person with wrestling experience to manage the Fox relationship than Bischoff.  He always maintained a good relationship with Turner executives during his time in WCW and knew how to navigate those waters.  With Impact he was the company’s conduit with Spike TV and there’s an argument to be made that his departure from Impact contributed to Spike’s eventual decision to end its relationship with Impact.  Bischoff also has experience working with a number of other television networks through his Bischoff-Hervey Productions company.  So with respect to Fox network relations, Bischoff is a definite asset.  It’s only his selection with respect to SmackDown creative development that’s a head-scratcher here.  

Paul Heyman’s appointment actually makes sense
Heyman is at WWE television most weeks and has been for years.  He is not only plugged into WWE talent and creative, but he’s also aware of the landscape and knows modern-day wrestling.  He is respected by the locker room, and sought out for advice regularly.  He is a believer in giving talent the freedom to flourish and if given the chance, it wouldn’t surprise me if he weans talent off of the word-for-word scripted promos and teaches them how to let their own voices be heard.  I believe that there is a lot more optimism internally with Heyman’s hiring in a creative capacity than Bischoff’s hiring, and understandably so. 

What about Triple H?
For all the hot takes on social media and even from some respected wrestling journalists about how Triple H was supposedly overlooked for one of these roles, to me the explanation is much more simplistic and much less dramatic than that.  It has nothing to do with Hunter being too busy with NXT, or not being ready in Vince’s eyes.  Quite simply, if Triple H had been named Executive Director of either Raw or SmackDown, it would have been a demotion.  Vince McMahon has bigger things in store for Triple H than to have him oversee one WWE brand.  Hunter is already #2 in company hierarchy and runs television whenever McMahon is absent from a taping meaning that in theory, Heyman and Bischoff will report to him in McMahon’s absence on Monday or Tuesday (soon to be Friday) nights.

Ultimately… all roads still lead to Vince McMahon
Probably the key part to that press release was the last part of the first paragraph: “reporting directly to WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon.”  What that means to me is that WWE will maintain status quo unless Vince swallows his pride and legitimately takes a step back and allows these guys the creative freedom to implement change.  Paul Heyman could come up with some revolutionary ideas but they won’t matter if McMahon overrules him on everything.  

With WWE popularity free-falling, television ratings likely to decline further come football season in September, and live event attendance in the low four-digits for TV which is scary, something had to be done.  Will this be the answer?  Time will tell.