Eric Bischoff Already Out on WWE Smackdown, Replaced By Bruce Prichard

Eric Bischoff was just announced as the executive director of WWE Smackdown in late June, and he's already been ousted from the role. WWE announced today that Bruce Prichard will helm the show, which just moved to Fox's broadcast network two weeks ago.

From the outside, this feels wildly abrupt, and would seem to be a sign that things went awry almost from the get-go in Bischoff's return to the company. It remains to be seen if he will be reassigned for something else, or if this means he's already out of WWE entirely. [UPDATE: According to Fightful, Bischoff is out of the company entirely.]

Prichard is in his third stint in WWE; he spent years there from 1987-1991 and 1992-2008; he returned to the organization last year working in creative after a decade away. Both Prichard and Bischoff are co-hosts of popular wrestling podcasts with Conrad Thompson.

Can't wait for the leaks to start coming out about how and why all this went down.