WWE has named Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff as Executive Directors, Sports Illustrated has learned.
Heyman is set to become Executive Director of Monday Night Raw, while Bischoff will fill the same role for SmackDown Live. Both will report directly to WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon.
WWE confirmed the news with Sports Illustrated, with an official announcement expected later today.
The two positions are full-time executive roles, with no plans at the current time for this to be introduced as part of a TV storyline.
Now, these two have to report to McMahon so that doesn't necessarily guarantee things will get drastically better. But would Heyman, who has said he wouldn't work with McMahon creatively again, do this if he wasn't given some assurance he would have a lot more leeway? And really, McMahon's gotta start preparing for retirement at some point.
WWE has been terrible for a long time, but by all accounts its even been worse these last 6 months or so. At the very least, this is the kind of change that will spark up something. I don't care much for Bischoff, but it isn't present-day McMahon at least. And Heyman, if Heyman is allowed to do Heyman, could create an insane show on Raw albeit 3 hours will make it hard to watch no matter what
The source also says when SmackDown comes to Fox, Bischoff will work directly with the network. And it makes sense. WWE can't fuck around with Fox. You can tell WWE is desperate to find a solution to their declining popularity/attendance/creative/etc.