Bring Back The 'Bisch'!

If you would have told me 7 years ago that I would be defending Eric Bischoff I would have told you that you were out of your mind. Much like most of the loyal WWF/E audience I used to despise Bischoff. I used to think that he was a piece of rubbish. He is after all, the man who almost ran WWF out of business - The company that I have grown up watching. This is the man who used Ted Turner's bottomless wallet to sign away some of WWF's biggest stars and bring them to WCW.

A few years back when Vince introduced Eric Bischoff as the new Raw General Manager I thought to myself that the apocalypse must be on its way. Vince McMahon & Eric Bischoff working together in the same company? Two men who literally wanted each other dead and would do anything to destroy the other's business were now working together? Granted, Vince was now Eric's boss and Eric served as nothing more than an on air character. Back then I still harbored a generous amount of hate towards Bischoff and thought that the fact that Vince would bring him in was basically and ego booster - Vince just wanted to show the world that he was now Bischoff's boss. Much to Eric's credit he seemed to relish his rebirth in the wrestling industry. Maybe it was the relief that his role would be nothing more than on-air talent and that the headache of being in charge was a thing of the past. Week by week that hate that I had for Bischoff slowly disappeared and he began to grow on me. Believe it or not I actually became a fan of him. He seemed like the perfect foil for all of RAW's superfaces. People like Austin, and more recently John Cena. For some reason or another I actually looked forward to seeing what diabolical plan he would have in store this week. Perhaps it could be attributed to the old saying: "The enemy of my enemy (Cena) is my friend.". No matter what it was I became a fan of him. I could even say a big fan. I found him thoroughly entertaining.

You can just imagine how disappointed I was when I read that we may have seen the last of him on WWE television. After he was 'fired' a few weeks ago I figured that he would somehow be incorporated back into the storylines. Reportedly, he was just taking some time off to work on producing some reality show with Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit. The most talked about possibility that I read about was that he would be returning as the manager of the newly reformed Three Minute Warning after reality show stuff was taken care of. I had no problem with that plan - Before Jamal was fired 3MW was a dominant tag team. They completely destroyed whoever they came into contact with. Especially Moolah & Mae Young. From what I am hearing now, the plan of bringing him back with 3MW has been cancelled although 3MW will most likely be returning sans Bischoff. The reports are now saying that Bischoff's days on WWE television are finished and that WWE may just release him or even just have him stay home until his contract runs out. I sure hope that is not the plan. I think he's a great part of RAW. He plays the role as the villainous GM perfectly. He's a great antagonist to John Cena, although Bischoff usually comes out on the short end of the stick.

There are also reports that a lot of the talent backstage (both former WCW talent and long term WWE talent) would be more than happy to see Bischoff released. They feel that this would be very fitting considering his treatment of some WCW talent back when he ran the promotion and how ruthless he was when trying to put WWF/E out of business during the same period. While I do see the irony of the whole "what goes around comes around" concept I think that they should keep him as an active member of the talent roster.

Candidates for the open GM position left by Bischoff include Dusty Rhodes, Shane McMahon, Steve Austin, Jim Ross, among others. I guess we'll just have to wait and see who ends up as the new RAW General Manager. They will sure have some big shoes to fill.

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