Bruce Prichard Praises Eric Bischoff After Replacing Him on WWE SmackDown

After replacing Eric Bischoff as the executive director of Friday Night SmackDown this week, Bruce Prichard addressed the situation on his podcast.

On Friday's episode of Something to Wrestle (h/t Wrestling Inc.'s Ross Kelly), Prichard said the following about Bischoff:

"Eric and I aren't ... 'Oh my God Eric is gone! I could never talk to him again.' Absolutely not and sometimes in business things happen for whatever reasons and you don't know the reasons but you have to move on. But I do believe Eric Bischoff is one of the smartest guys I've ever met and worked with. I think he's one of the nicest guys and he also is a human being."

Prichard then added: "I want to publicly wish Eric the absolute best in business, life and everything else because he's a good friend and I'm proud and happy to say that he's my friend."

WWE announced in June that Bischoff had been hired as executive director of SmackDown, while Paul Heyman would serve as executive director of Raw.

Bischoff hadn't been part of a wrestling company since serving in a backstage role with Impact Wrestling in 2014, but he was brought in by WWE primarily for the work he did with WCW in the mid-to-late 1990s.

As president of WCW, Bischoff helped WCW Nitro beat WWE Raw in the Monday night ratings battle for 83 consecutive weeks. WWE eventually bounced back, though, and purchased WCW in 2001.

Aside from his on-screen work as Brother Love, Prichard is best known for being a key backstage figure for WWE from the late-1980s through the late-2000s. In the early 1990s, he was part of WWE's three-man creative team along with Pat Patterson and Vince McMahon.

Prichard was fired by WWE in 2008, but WWE brought him back as a member of the creative team in February.

It is unclear precisely what led to Bischoff's removal from the executive director role and his departure from WWE, but Bryan Alvarez of Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t Wrestling Inc.'s Marc Middleton) reported that many within WWE didn't like working with Bischoff since he was often difficult to find backstage at SmackDown.

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