Vince McMahon Loved Working With R-Truth, Eric Bischoff Reacts To R-Truth’s WWE Departure Before It Was Revealed He’d Be Returning

During a recent edition of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff commented on R-Truth’s departure from WWE. For what it’s worth, this podcast was recorded before Truth returned at the 2025 Money in the Bank pay-per-view event.

You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:

On R-Truth’s WWE exit: “I was disappointed. If you remember, before the last PLE we were talking about the Ron Cena-John Cena match. And you asked me what I thought the finish might be, and I think I told you I was hoping that they would put Ron over. It wouldn’t have hurt John. It could have been a great story. John could have got his heat back immediately. I was hoping that was going to happen because I knew that Ron had such a strong fan base. People just love that guy.

“So I was surprised. And I’ll be honest with you — and this is having spent too much time in the wrestling business to become cynical and never take anything at face value — I’m still not 100% sold. I would not be surprised to see R-Truth back in WWE. I would not be surprised at all to see this situation as the basis for a storyline. I don’t know what it would be, I don’t even want to speculate on it, but I’m still not taking it at face value.”

On things being different in the TKO era: “I can understand; this is business, this is real life. I don’t know what Ron’s contract was. From what I’ve heard — I don’t know this to be a fact — Vince was a big, big fan of Ron. So Ron may have been making a boatload of money, but he was only used occasionally. It wasn’t like he was in a weekly storyline and all that. So it may have been a situation where he was just making way more than WWE could justify in terms of a return on the investment.

“Everything is a return on the investment… If you’re paying somebody $20 an hour to produce a product, you want to be able to sell that product for at least 50% more than you’ve invested in it. You’ve got to get a return on an investment. You’re a publicly held company. That’s the nature of business, especially a publicly held company. So I could see where Ron was making significantly more than was justifiable based on his current use. He is 53 years old, so there’s that. But he’s still one of the most entertaining characters on television, and that’s why I just don’t believe the story’s over yet.”

During a recent edition of his “The Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy” podcast, Matt Hardy commented on R-Truth working with Vince McMahon, Truth’s approach to comedy, and more.

You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:

On Vince McMahon loving R-Truth: “Vince loved Ron. Vince loved R-Truth. I mean, that’s something that is a very well-known thing. Vince loved working with R-Truth. He loved his comedy, he loved the bits he would do. And he understood he could go out there and he could eat a [loss]. But if he did the comedy bit, and people remember that, it was still a win in his book. Because he was such an entertaining character, and Vince loves entertaining characters, especially characters that are over the top. And with his comedy he could do that.”

On R-Truth’s being willing to do comedy: “Yeah, I think so. I think he’s pretty open. I think he’s pretty much down to do whatever. He’s not someone that’s locked into like, ‘I have to be this serious wrestler. I have to be this serious wrestler and go out, and I have to have serious matches. And there can’t be funny bits in it, it’s got to be very serious all the way through and through because I want to be a big, credible wrestler.

“He doesn’t think about that. He just thinks about like entertaining the fans. He thinks about having fun, and if he’s having fun he thinks the fans are having fun. And if he’s singing or dancing, rapping — whatever it may be — or wrestling, He’s trying to make it fun, a fun experience. And I think his comedy, he just took to a whole another level. Where he was so committed to what he was doing, and it was so authentic I think people just fell in love with it.”