Eric Bischoff Recalls Pet Peeve That Vince McMahon Had Regarding Rough Drafts Of Scripts

Many wrestling fans are aware that when Vince McMahon was CEO and head of creative in WWE, he had certain pet peeves when it came to scripts.

"You go to Vince with a rough draft, because maybe you've only had 20 minutes to produce it before you have a meeting," WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff said during a recent episode of the "Strictly Business" podcast. "It's a rough draft, but there is a comma missing. 'G*ddamn. A third grader wrote this.' It's a rough draft! Come on, we'll put a common in the final chapter, I promise! You know, but that's a pet peeve, and I think some of the banned words and banned terminologies, some of it makes sense."

Bischoff is referencing McMahon's known tendency to ban specific words such as "belt," "wrestling," "strap," "blood," "hospital," and wrestler, along with rumored off-screen actions such as sneezing. McMahon had also been known to tear up scripts for both "WWE Raw" and "WWE SmackDown" at the last minute and rewrite entire shows by himself. Of course, McMahon no longer has the power to either demand commas or rip up scripts, as he announced his retirement in July amidst a swirl of allegations surrounding hush money payments made to female employees in exchange for their silence on matters of sexual misconduct and abuse. Paul "Triple H" Levesque has now taken over creative, and several of McMahon's banned words have already returned to WWE programming.

Bischoff worked under McMahon twice — as an on-screen character from 2002 to 2005, with sporadic appearances in the two subsequent years, and again from June to October of 2019, when he was hired as the executive director of "SmackDown." He was replaced in that role by Bruce Prichard not even six months after taking the position.