Eric Bischoff says the Shorty G repackaging of Chad Gable came from Vince McMahon, and that his own role was to take the idea and build it out rather than to originate or approve it.
Bischoff was WWE’s Executive Director of SmackDown from June to October 2019. Gable was renamed Shorty G that October and carried the gimmick until October 2020.
Speaking on 83 Weeks with Conrad Thompson after SummerSlam, Bischoff described how the pitch reached him.
“That was a Vince McMahon idea. It was something that Vince. Here’s my interpretation, because we didn’t spend more than a couple weeks on that idea, from what I remember, maybe a month, month and a half at most. Any serious conversation. I had weekly meetings with Vince, and there was no specific agenda for those meetings other than to bring any issues that I had with creative or ideas or suggestions, and bring them to Vince, and Vince would then I guess, share whatever observations or or challenges he wanted to present to me to work on specifically for my brand.”
He said McMahon laid the character out in one of those meetings and may already have had artwork drawn.
“So it was a regularly scheduled meeting, and in one of those meetings, Vince said, ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea for Shorty G or for Chad Gable, and I see him as this character.’ And he proceeded to lay out the character, and I think he even had some artwork previously done. Not 100% if that’s the case, but I immediately went to, you know, the marketing department because if you’re going to create a brand, you take the what I would do take the basic idea, go to marketing, describe to them the personality, the character in as much detail as you can.”
Bischoff said the process ran back and forth between marketing and McMahon for a couple of weeks, with Gable himself brought in for input at one stage because McMahon liked talent being involved.
“So that process went back and forth for a couple of weeks, and I think one of the steps that I took once we started narrowing down some of the ideas, again, Vince’s idea, I’m there to execute based on my interpretation of his vision as it was.”
He was asked whether that made him a messenger.
“More than a messenger. I mean, I took the idea and developed it. So, like I said, my fingerprints were definitely on it. It’s just that wasn’t my original idea. I didn’t look at Chad Gable and go, ‘Huh, I see him as this, you know, underdog, collegiate, almost Backlund-ish type of white toast milk bread baby face.’ I didn’t see that.”
Bischoff said his read was that McMahon wanted to lean into Gable’s amateur background, and did not defend the concept.
“You know, it’s not like it doesn’t make sense. Obviously, the idea didn’t work and it might have been lame to begin with. It’s a subjective thing. I would tend to agree with that way. But what I didn’t get hired to vote; I got hired to help execute. So there you go.”
He also said he believed WWE moved off the gimmick shortly after he left the company. In practice, Gable carried it for about a year after Bischoff’s exit.
Gable submitted Penta in a little over eleven minutes on Sunday to win the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam, in his hometown of Minneapolis and in front of his family, who joined him in the ring afterward. Bischoff, who watched night two, said the result did not surprise him but the meaning of it landed.
“I was so impressed. I mean, and happy for him too. I mean, obviously impressed. He’s an amazing athlete. I knew that when I first was introduced to Chad Gable in WWE. There’s no question he. He’s an incredible athlete, and he’s so good that you get used to him just being that good.”
“I appreciated how much tonight meant to him, how far his career has come. When you could have, you know, suggested that maybe it was time to pull the plug, right? There just wasn’t a lot of momentum. He doesn’t. Chad doesn’t fit the typical archetype of a WWE superstar, you know. And to see him go from mid-card, maybe working hard at it consistently, to the position he’s in. That’s a cool journey.”
