More on WWE’s Creative Shake-Ups & Bischoff’s Start Date

As noted before, two high-level writers from WWE’s creative team were released by the company last week. The reason for the releases was reportedly coming for a while, according to PWInsider, and was said to not have been directly related to the recent hiring of Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman as the Executive Directors of RAW and SmackDown.

WWE also made a change involving their backstage producers as part of their recent creative shake-ups, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported. Going forward, all of the company’s producers will be assigned to a specific brand instead of being able to shift back and forth between brands. This is due to instances of communication issues involving producers traveling to live events only to then be sent home because they were not needed and having to wait until the end of a tour loop to return for television tapings.

Eric Bischoff will officially begin his backstage duties as the Executive Director of SmackDown starting with tonight’s episode.

In a recent episode of the 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff clarified reports on his current status in the company and confirmed that he will officially begin working for SmackDown starting this week.

“My start [with WWE] was never supposed to be before July 22. That was the understanding across the board. And it was reported wrong. Anything written and reported so far has been wrong as far as what my role actually is and will be and what my start date will be. This is such a big job. There is no way that me, or anyone else, is going to walk in and take control of anything, immediately. It’s going to be a long process. It’s going to take time. It’ll be an evolution over time. My process started a little bit this week in terms of integration. It’ll become even more tangible on Tuesday, which will be the first time I’ve attended a production meeting.”