In the beginning, the General Managers of Raw and Smackdown were named after Vince McMahon beat Ric Flair for total control of the company (around the time Austin just left WWE for a while). Vince McMahon was originally Co-Owner with Ric Flair being Ric ran Raw & Vince ran Smackdown. After Vince won the match, he was handling both shows untill he came up with the to hire two GM's, one for Raw and one for Smackdown. In this column I am going to talk about each GM, the feuds with the two GM's, and the good and bad about having GM's. After you have read this column please email your feedback on whether or not having General Managers is a good thing or a bad thing.

The Announcing of the two new General Managers was definitely a shocker to most people. When Vince McMahon came out and announced the new GM of Raw to be none other than Eric Bischoff. My Initial thought was has "hell officially frozen over" or am I dreaming and I haven't woke up yet. The main shocker of it was the hug between Vince & Eric, that officially in my mind was just to much to bear. Throughout the time when the GM's were announced I would have to say Eric was a surprise choice for Raws General Manager. The next few days on Smackdown, Vince announced none other than Stephanie McMahon as the Smackdown GM. I wasn't really surprised to see Stephanie announced as GM of SD. I knew it had to be a McMahon to be a GM and I didn't feel that it would be Shane so Stephanie was the best choice.

There have been three good General Managers and they are Eric Bischoff, Stephanie McMahon, & Paul Heyman. I am going to talk about Eric Bischoff first. Eric Bischoff is a very good man when it comes to business. Most people think Eric Bischoff sucks and that he was the cause for WCW's downfall, well for those people you are dead wrong. Eric wasn't cause for the downfall of WCW it was AOL/Time Warner and Ted Turner, I won't get into that but I just want to let all the people know it wasn't Eric's fault WCW went down. Eric Bischoff as GM of Raw at first didn't appeal to me but Eric kinda grew on me so to speak. Eric Bischoff really impressed me with the creation of the Elimination Chamber. Eric Bischoff in my mind is a creative mastermind and I enjoy his perspective on the business by watching him on Raw each week. Another GM, I wanna talk about is Stone Cold. He wasn't officially a full GM, he was only a Co-GM. Stone Cold did some good stuff by keeping Eric Bischoff at bay and other stuff like that but I think short term Stone Cold as GM was good but long term not so good. The next General Manager I am going to talk about is Stephanie McMahon. I don't have alot to say about her as GM but I did enjoy seeing her as GM. She brought back WWE to an old and familiar aspect an that is she brought back WWE to the wrestling aspect on SD. What do I mean you say? Well its simple, she focused Smackdown on what the business is all about wrestling. When she was GM, Smackdown was all about wrestling while Raw was all about drama and smut. The final GM I am going to talk about is Paul Heyman. When Paul Heyman was announced as the New SD GM I was all for it and happy. Paul Heyman is definitely a creative genious when it comes to the business. He took over as GM after Vince beat Stephanie at No Mercy 03. Paul Heyman in some peoples eyes is stupid and annoying and shouldnt be on tv. Well for those people, all I can say is "What in the blue hizzell are you smokin". Since Paul Heyman took Stephanies place as GM, Smackdown has been the best product or brand (whichever ya wanna call it). I enjoy Smackdown alot and the main reason is because of Paul Heyman. Paul Heyman is also sticking to the wrestling aspect of the business and thats why I think Smackdown is a huge success right now.

Now I am going to talk about the feuds between the three GM's. First feud I am going to talk about is Eric versus Stephanie. This feud between the two was ok IMO. They both invaded each others shows and stuff like that. The one thing that I did enjoy from this feud was the talent switching shows. I thought that was awesome seeing Eric taking some SD talent and Stephanie taking some Raw talent. They also tried out promoting each others shows on each others show. Now onto the current feud between Eric & Paul Heyman. I think this feud is very good because there are still bad feelings from the top three federation war era.

Eric says on Raw that he has a better product than that other GM Paul Heyman. Paul Heyman says he wants his SD to be better than Erics Raw. Personally I would like to see an Eric versus Paul match happen and we can see once and for all whos better.

Now onto the Good and Bad of General Managers. I will start off on the Good things. One good thing that I know of right off the top of my head is that having General Managers is good for the ratings. Another good thing would have to be seeing each others philosophy on running each show. Eric has done alot of good things for Raw and Paul Heyman has done a tremendous amount of good stuff for Smackdown. Now onto the bad of having General Managers. One bad thing I could think of is that having GM's takes away the spotlight of the up and coming talent that deserves a chance to shine. The thing of having GM's taking up time and holding down some great wrestlers is very bad for business.

This is my opinion on General Managers and if you agree or disagree feel free to email me and share your opinions.

by Chris Chambers..