Eric Bischoff Thinks Kurt Angle ‘Was The Best Choice’ To Be New Raw GM
Eric Bischoff thinks that WWE found a great fit for its new Raw general manager by choosing Kurt Angle.
The former President of WCW discussed the move on the latest episode of his podcast, "Bischoff On Wrestling." Bischoff also was Raw GM himself for more than three years–from the summer of 2002 until December of 2005.
“If anybody would have engaged me in a conversation I firmly believe that Kurt was the best choice," Bischoff said. "I’ll tell you why. In that role, I lasted way longer than I thought I would. To be honest I didn’t think I’d last six months or a year. I thought it would be a very short-term position for me. The fact I lasted two or three or four years, I don’t even remember, was a shock to me. The thing that makes that general manager role so hard for someone like me or Mick [Foley] or even Teddy Long, as great as he was, is that you can only go so long as a figure that can’t physically back it up that you run out of creative rope. All of a sudden you feel yourself doing things that were kind of the same as you did three months ago. You may spin it a little, the stories are a little different with maybe different people, but your creative tools as an authority figure are very, very limited. The thing about Kurt is that he is believable as a general manager. He’s smart. He has credibility. He’s entertaining as hell and everybody in the world knows he can back it up.”
Bischoff, who appeared at Axxess and inducted his friend Diamond Dallas Page into the WWE Hall of Fame during WrestleMania week, noted that many fans approached him, thinking he was going to be the next GM on Raw.
"I must have signed 3,000 autographs that weekend and about 1,500 of those 3,000 asked me if I was going to be the RAW general manager," he said. "When I told them, ‘No,’ they winked at me and said, ‘Ok, we’ll see you Monday night!' "
The induction of DDP marked Bischoff's first on-screen appearance on WWE programming in almost a decade, since he appeared on the Raw 15th Anniversary special, back in December of 2007.
