WWE Rumors: Backstage details on Eric Bischoff's unexpected exit

Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp is reporting that Eric Bischoff is no longer with WWE in any capacity after Bruce Prichard was announced as his replacement as the Executive Director of Friday Night SmackDown.

A source told Sapp that Prichard already resumed his role as “Vince McMahon’s right-hand man” – a position he held for the best part of two decades between 1987 and 2008 – since returning to WWE earlier in 2019, while Bischoff’s exit has “been building for weeks”.

Writing on Fightful Select, Sapp added that the former WCW executive’s departure was a call made by WWE, not Bischoff.

Meanwhile, Sportskeeda’s Tom Colohue noted after the news broke that Bischoff’s position was already “practically vacant” as he was not given the backing that he expected to oversee the creative direction of SmackDown.

Eric Bischoff’s short-lived WWE return

In June 2019, WWE announced a behind-the-scenes shake-up, with Paul Heyman becoming the Executive Director of RAW and Eric Bischoff returning as the Executive Director of SmackDown.

WWE revealed at the time that Heyman and Bischoff would have the same role on their respective brands, with both men overseeing creative direction and reporting directly to Vince McMahon.

Since then, there have been no signs that Bruce Prichard, who was promoted from the creative team to Senior Vice President in March, would step into the SmackDown role or that Bischoff would leave the company entirely.

The former on-screen General Manager’s last WWE-related tweet came on October 2, two days prior to the first episode of SmackDown on FOX, when he mentioned how grateful he was to be part of WWE at a time when the company was moving to a new channel on Friday nights.

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