Road Dogg Discusses WWE Creative Frustrations With Vince McMahon

He was the head writer for WWE Smackdown from 2017 through 2019.

Road Dogg expressed creative frustrations working under Vince McMahon. / WWE.com

WWE Hall of Famer Road Dogg is reportedly leading the way on the Smackdown writing and creative staff these days.

While the move was seen as controversial to some due to his past run as head of the show's creative from 2017 through 2019, many have come to his defense.

Road Dogg was guest on Insight With Chris Van Vliet this week and discussed some of the creative frustrations he faced while working under Vince McMahon, specifically after WrestleMania 35 in 2019.

"That's the WrestleMania that broke me, that kind of broke my spirit and was the kind of one where I went home after that," he said. "There was a lot of all that leading up to it, a lot of talk about I'd been writing the show for a while, and it had been successful and not successful and successful. We were in a good place with it. But the times they were a changing and I felt a little less like it was my show, and when I fought for it I always lost. It was just one of those things where I said, Yeah, I'm done fighting this fight.

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"It was really fun at first. I feel like I had a lot of creative freedom at first. I don't know if you remember, but that first Backlash when Dean Ambrose was the SmackDown Champion, and it was, and it was Heath Slater and Rhino were the Tag Team Champions. It was a fun little wrestling show, a little two-hour fun wrestling show that was gaining some traction, and then it just felt like it drew the attention of everybody, then everybody wanted to play, and the sandbox that was mine was not mine anymore. That's hard."

The 55-year-old former WWE Superstar noted it became difficult for him to grapple with losing his vision for the show, but was confident in his instinct in writing it.

"I knew it wasn't my show. I know the deal," Dogg said. "But if I'm the head writer and this is my creative that I'd like to close the show ending like this, on the build-up to that Kofi Mania, I'd like to end it like this, and I don't get good reasons why we not doing that. And again, me maybe being cocky and narcissistic. I think I know better than everybody.

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"But here's the truth about me, and this is cocky and narcissistic. I'm good at this wrestling crap. I'm not good at the physical aspects of it, 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 know what I come up with for this segment, for this show, is gonna work. I know that for a fact. What you come up with the show, I don't know if it's gonna work. I can watch it work and go like, 'Damn dude, good. That was awesome.' It worked, but I didn't know it was gonna work because it wasn't mine.

"But because I know how to go out there 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 being given that opportunity at the end. And so it was frustrating. It was creatively frustrating. And I think that's the maybe creatively frustrating should be the era of that, because I'm sure I wasn't alone in that."

Dogg stepped down as head of creative for Smackdown following that WrestleMania, and remained with the company in a myriad of roles until being released in 2022.

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