Eric Bischoff Details Conversation With Vince McMahon About Joining WWE In 2002

Eric Bischoff has detailed his first conversation with Vince McMahon about joining WWE and becoming Raw general manager in 2002.

Bischoff shocked the world when he appeared on WWE television just over a year after McMahon's promotion put WCW out of business, taking kayfabe charge of Raw.

The former Smackdown executive producer has now offered an insight into how that first chat with McMahon went in regard to him signing with WWE, saying how excited he was to work purely as an on-screen character and how much sense the idea made from a story perspective.

Speaking to Metro, Bischoff said: "You know, on the call, I spoke to Vince and it was the first time Vince and I had really spoken at any length. Vince called me, we had a nice couple of minute chat, just generally speaking and getting caught up, so to speak.

"And then once Vince laid out what he was thinking, I knew within about two minutes that I would take the job. I was excited about it. For me, it was an opportunity to end my wrestling career on a positive note.

"Prior to that, I’d gone through the whole TimeWarner thing, our opportunity to buy WCW fell apart at the last minute. I had a little – I don’t wanna say a bitter taste in my mouth, but a bad taste in my mouth about wrestling.

"When the call came from Vince, it was like, this is an opportunity to get out there and perform, which I knew as I was good at. Not to brag, but I knew I was.

"It made sense from a story point of view, I knew the audience would react to it in a really powerful way so I was excited about that. But most of all I was just excited to work with a bunch of people I’d never worked with before."