WWE Announces Bruce Prichard is the New Executive Director of Smackdown Replacing Eric Bischoff

The following press release was sent out by WWE today.

WWE® NAMES BRUCE PRICHARD EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SMACKDOWN®

Stamford, Conn., October 15, 2019 – WWE (NYSE: WWE) today announced that it has named Bruce Prichard the Executive Director of Friday Night SmackDown, reporting directly to WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon.

Prichard will oversee the creative development of Friday Night SmackDown on FOX and ensure integration across all platforms and lines of business, replacing Eric Bischoff.

Prichard brings nearly 40 years of experience in sports entertainment with an extensive background in character development and creative storytelling. Over the course of his career, Prichard has served in a variety of roles including announcer, producer, agent and on-screen personality. Earlier this year, Prichard returned to WWE as a member of the company’s creative team.

Friday Night SmackDown airs at 8 pm ET/PT on FOX.

Congrats to Bruce on the promotion. Bischoff was announced as being hired as Executive Director of Smackdown in June (along with Paul Heyman for Raw), but maybe WWE felt like it would be better if Prichard was in that spot.

According to The Wrap, Bischoff has been let go by WWE. This was also confirmed by PWInsider, who noted that Bischoff is no longer with WWE. The official statement from WWE is: “Bischoff was not re-assigned. The WWE statement on the matter is: “Bischoff is no longer with the company and has been replaced by Prichard.”

Bischoff tweeted about it this afternoon.

Bruce is a great producer, good friend and I am certain he is going to thrive in his position. He’s going to be working with a great team of the most dedicated and hard working people I have had the pleasure of working with and getting to know. https://t.co/aMKk8d3Rx7

— Eric Bischoff (@EBischoff) October 15, 2019

On a recent Wrestling Observer Radio show, Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez were talking about Bischoff and said that people in WWE didn’t really know what Bischoff’s role was. It’s possible that Bischoff just wasn’t a good fit for that job.

Prichard and Bischoff both have successful podcasts hosted by Conrad Thompson. Prichard’s show “Something to Wrestle” has also been on WWE Network and Bischoff’s show is called 83 Weeks, which covers his run with WCW in the 1990s.