Opinion: Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff should bring their real-life positions to WWE TV

The wrestling world has been rocked once more in 2019. WWE has made the shocking announcement that two of wrestling's all-time most creative geniuses, former ECW owner Paul Heyman and former WCW Executive Vice President Eric Bischoff, will now be full-time Executive Directors of RAW and SmackDown.

WWE had reportedly been courting Paul Heyman over the position since before WrestleMania, while had speaking with Eric Bischoff about it over the past few weeks.

Paul Heyman was, of course, the owner of ECW for it's final five years of operations and ran all of its creative.

Heyman later joined WWE in 2001, where he was a member of the creative team and often lead writer, from when he joined and then on and off until late 2003.

Most notably, Heyman's booking saw SmackDown beat RAW in the ratings in 2002, thanks to his ideas for Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Edge, Rey Mysterio, Chavo and Eddie Guerrero, and The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar.

Eric Bischoff on the other hand, was never actually involved in WWE creative during his original run with the company as an on-camera talent.

However, his creative decisions in WCW, most notably the NWO, have been well documented. Bischoff was also behind some of TNA Impact Wrestling's better ideas, including the 'TNA vs. Aces & Eights' storyline and creating the secondary Abyss brother character, Joseph Park.

WWE's press release noted,

"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.

While Bischoff and Heyman are still reporting to Vince McMahon, they are essentially running RAW and SmackDown Live now. But in my opinion, more could be done with them, and that is bringing these real life positions to WWE TV.

Wrestling's three greatest minds, and three best non-wrestling characters

Other than the creative geniuses that are Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff, they are also two of the greatest TV characters in WWE history.

Paul Heyman is still an active character on WWE today as the advocate of Brock Lesnar, however, due to The Beast's limited appearances, Heyman is less frequent on TV. Although he has made a few appearances over the years, Eric Bischoff has not been a permanent WWE TV character since 2005.

Both Heyman and Bischoff were used as characters on WWE TV for mostly around the same time, with Heyman from 2001 - 2004 and 2006, and Bischoff from 2002 - 2005.

In terms of the WWE TV Authority Figure role, they reached some pretty great heights. Bischoff was the General Manager of RAW and while Heyman served mostly as a manager, he was also the GM for SmackDown and WWE ECW for a while too. Both men excelled in these roles, which made for some pretty great television.

Late last year, WWE decided to scrap TV General Managers, and have the McMahon's and Triple H appear as authority instead.

Vince, Stephanie and Triple H have been mostly inactive in this role ever since, leaving just Shane McMahon. And as great of a character as Shane O'Mac can be, we have been having a little too much of him lately and mostly inside the ring rather than calling the shots.

This is where I think WWE should jump at the chance to bring Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff back full-time to TV, where they can contribute in tremendously, just like they probably will in their director roles off-screen.

Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff are two of the best characters in WWE history and their talents on-screen are very much needed in today's authoritative figure state on WWE TV.