The news recently broke that WWE Hall of Famer Road Dogg has been appointed the head writer of SmackDown. It's a position he's held before, albeit at a time when Vince McMahon was calling the shots and frequently disregarded anything and everything his writers came up with.
After resigning from his position on the blue brand, Road Dogg spent a few years working as a coach in NXT before being released. Triple H brought his old D-Generation X running mate back into the fold months later, making him Senior Vice President of Live Events.
Talking to Chris Van Vliet, the WWE Superstar-turned-writer explained why he felt he had no other choice than to step away from his role as SmackDown's head writer.
"I’d been writing the show for a while, and it had been successful, then less so, then successful again. We were in a good place with it, but times were changing, and I felt like it was a little less my show. And whenever I fought for something, I lost. It was just one of those things where I said, ‘Yeah, I’m done fighting this fight.’ It was really fun at first. I feel like I had a lot of creative freedom initially."
"I don’t know if you remember, but that first Backlash. I don’t even know when it was, but Dean Ambrose was the SmackDown Champion, and Heath Slater and Rhino were the tag champs. It was a fun little two-hour wrestling show that was gaining traction. Then it felt like it drew everyone’s attention, and everyone wanted to play the sandbox that was mine, and it wasn’t mine anymore."
"I knew it wasn’t my show. I know the deal. But if I’m the head writer, and this is my creative vision - I’d like to close the show like this to the build up to KofiMania. I’d like to end it like this. ‘No, you don’t.’ And I don’t get good reasons why we’re not doing it. And again, maybe I’m being cocky and narcissistic, but I think I know better than everyone else. But here’s the truth about me, and yes, it is cocky and narcissistic: I’m good at this wrestling crap. I’m not good at the physical aspects, but I’m good at putting it together. I’m good at thinking about what will get good reactions."
"It was frustrating. It was creatively frustrating. And I think, look, I think that’s the maybe creatively frustrating should be the era of that, of that because I’m sure I wasn’t alone in that."
Those early SmackDown shows were fantastic, though Road Dogg admitted that he made one major misstep later on in his run and that was pushing for Big E to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania instead of Kofi Kingston.
"Well, I’ll tell you this, and I’d love to have a conversation with you about it. It worked out exactly how it was supposed to work out, but I was wrong. I wanted Big E to win the title at KofiMania. I thought Big E was the guy. And a guy on my writing team, who now writes for NXT, said, ‘You’re wrong, boss, you’re wrong. It’s Kofi.’ And I didn’t realize that Kofi had such a personal connection with the fan base."
"I was just looking for who’s the next guy. I didn’t think, ‘Oh, the guy’s sitting right here.’ You know what I mean? I was trying to make this guy over here. And, yeah, I’ve never been so happy to be wrong, though. Man, what a moment! Yeah, what a moment. And you can go back in time and fuss about what happened the next week, or the next year, or whatever. Who cares? Man, Kofi won the title at WrestleMania, and nobody can ever take that away."
"It was just a matter of time. I saw something there; it just wasn’t the right moment yet. The timing was right for Kofi. It was Kofi’s time. And, man, I’ve never been so happy to be wrong. I couldn’t be happier for the guy it happened for. And if I were writing it again, we’d do it one more. 100% think it would work again."
It's easy enough to see where the WWE Hall of Famer is coming from here, especially as Kingston was at a much later point in his career at the time. Big E did eventually win the title in 2021, though both he and Kingston lost their respective championship to Brock Lesnar in disappointing matches.
You can watch the full interview with the WWE Hall of Famer below.