Eric Bischoff talks Vince McMahon coming up with Chad Gable’s Shorty G character in WWE
Former WWE Executive Director of SmackDown Eric Bischoff recently discussed Chad Gable’s big win at SummerSlam against PENTA for the Intercontinental Championship. One of the topics brought up during this talk on the 83 Weeks podcast was the Shorty G character, and who came up with/who is to ‘blame’ for it.
Bischoff revealed that it was Vince McMahon who came up with the character, but he also noted that he did have his hands in the creative for the character, so he wasn’t completely shifting blame:
“That (Shorty G) was a Vince McMahon idea. Here’s my interpretation [of it], because we didn’t spend more than a couple of weeks on that idea. From what I remember, [we talked about it for] maybe a month, month and a half at the most. 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. Vince would then share whatever observations or challenges he wanted to present to me, to work on specifically for my brand (SmackDown). So it was a regularly scheduled meeting.
“And in one of those meetings, Vince said, ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea for Shorty G, for Chad Gable. And I see him as this character.’ He proceeded to lay out the character and I think he even had some artwork previously done. 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, I brought Chad into it a little bit to get his input.”
Eric Bischoff on Shorty G character
Bischoff would also reveal that he did have ideas around the character, but it wasn’t his initial idea:
“My fingerprints were definitely on it. It’s just, that wasn’t my original idea. I didn’t look at Chad Gable and go, ‘Oh, I see him as this underdog collegiate type of white toast, milk bread, baby face. The idea [Shorty G] didn’t work, and it might’ve been lame to begin with. I would tend to agree with that. But I didn’t get hired to vote. I got hired to help execute.”
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