Road Dogg recently appeared on Insight with Chris Van Vliet to reflect on his tenure as head writer of WWE SmackDown, a role he held until 2019.
Dogg first joined the SmackDown writing team in 2016 and was later promoted to lead writer. Despite his position, Vince McMahon ultimately had the final say, often making last-minute changes—including tearing up scripts just minutes before the show aired.
After stepping down as head writer, Dogg remained with WWE, transitioning to a coaching role in NXT from May 2019 to January 2022. He was released from the company but later rehired in August 2022 as Senior Vice President of Live Events.
“Yeah, that WrestleMania [25] kind of broke me. It broke my spirit. I went home after that and said, ’I’m heading home after that one.’ It was all the lead-up to it. There was a lot of talk. 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.’ You know what I mean? 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. You know what I mean? 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. Yeah, you know what I mean? And that’s hard when… 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. I’m good at it. I don’t know where I was going with that, Chris, but I am good at it. Let’s just stop there. Take a breather….. I’m good at it, and I know what I what my what I come up with for this segment, for this show, is going to work. I know that for a fact. What you come up with the show, I don’t know if it’s going to work. I can watch it work and go like, Damn dude, good. That was awesome. It worked, but I didn’t know it was going to work because it wasn’t mine. Yeah, you know what I mean. But because I know how to go out there in me and make the people talk about me for a second, or get their attention and keep it for a minute, I feel like I can do the same here, and I wasn’t as….for the show as a whole, and I wasn’t being given that opportunity at the end, yeah. And so 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.”
Road Dogg is currently working as the SmackDown co-head writer again.
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
