Paul Heyman And Eric Bischoff Named Executive Directors Of Raw And SmackDown

WWE will be getting a pair of veteran voices to help oversee creative for Raw and SmackDown in the forms of Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff.

The news came on Thursday from Sports Illustrated, who broke the story ahead of any official statement from WWE.

Each will be returning to the company to serve as Executive Directors for each show, overseeing creative and reporting directly to Vince McMahon. Heyman will be overseeing Raw while Bischoff will serve the same role on SmackDown Live. And while these are executive roles, there has been no word if these would lead to on-screen personas.

Heyman has a long history with WWE creative and overseeing the shows. He joined WWE after ECW shut down in the early 2000s and would eventually oversee the creative direction of SmackDown. While he would be let go, Heyman would eventually be brought back to oversee the rebooted ECW in 2006 until he was let go again before the end of that year. Since then, he made spontaneous appearances until he returned in a more notable fashion as the on-screen manager of Brock Lesnar. It was reported he helped contribute to creative during this time, most notably with Lesnar’s angle with Goldberg and helping Ronda Rousey with her promos.

Bischoff has just as long a history with WWE, going back to his time as president of WCW during the Monday night ratings war in the 90s. After WWE bought WCW in 2001, Bischoff would be brought into the company as the on-screen general manager of Raw until 2005. And with his new position as SmackDown’s executive director, he will be working with FOX executives directly in a manner similar to Turner Broadcasting during his time WCW.