Eric Bischoff says Vince McMahon is “in the same neighborhood” as Bill Cosby when it comes to baggage
While speaking on his 83 Weeks podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff addressed TKO (parent company of WWE) potentially giving Vince McMahon a board seat back. Here is what Bischoff had to say…
“From the little bit that I’ve been exposed to Vince McMahon, I can’t imagine a world where he doesn’t want to have the last say about his legacy and his reputation and at least make an attempt to resurrect it or reposition it. Let’s put it that way. Rewrite history probably will flow into it as well because he’s very good at that. We’ve seen that over the years. Vince is quite capable of rewriting history.”
“I mean, I don’t know the rest of the board, right? I don’t know Ari Emanuel. I don’t know any of them. So, it’s hard to really say. From my perspective, I don’t see that either. In fact, I see that even being more remote.
What added value does Vince McMahon bring to the board?
He doesn’t. I just—and he brings baggage. I mean, he’s not Harvey Weinstein. He’s not quite there. He’s not Bill Cosby, but he’s in the same neighborhood. It’s the same zip code, and that’s baggage.
And look, I want to be clear about this. I don’t like talking about it much because there’s a lot of inferred judgment and I don’t want to do that, right? I don’t judge people’s actions like this. But I will say that the judgment that Vince demonstrated he lacked by having whatever the relationship was, consensual or otherwise, having it on corporate property and corporate time, using corporate funds and resources to one extent or the other, involving another executive in the company—these are fatal flaws from a corporate judgment perspective.
And introducing someone with such a high-profile laundry list of fatal flaws from a character perspective, I mean, how do you rationalize having someone on your board that was willing to put the company at as much risk as Vince McMahon was willing to put not only himself but the company?
I don’t know. Maybe there’s some value in a Vince McMahon board seat that I just don’t understand. And that’s quite possible. I mean, I’m aware of the world. I kind of understand it, but there’s levels to everything. And now we’re talking about a multi-billion-dollar public company, and that complicates everything.
But I, for one, I can’t see the upside. I can see the downside, but I can’t see the upside.”