Road Dogg has officially stepped back into a key creative leadership role in WWE, now serving as co-writer of SmackDown alongside John Swikata.
The WWE Hall of Famer previously held the head writer position for SmackDown from 2016 to 2019 before resigning but remaining with the company. From May 2019 to January 2022, he worked as an NXT coach before being released. However, WWE brought him back in August 2022 as Senior Vice President of Live Events.
Speaking on Chris Van Vliet’s Insight Podcast, Road Dogg reflected on his first run as SmackDown’s co-head writer and how things have evolved.
Meanwhile, in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that SmackDown’s writing team was expanded due to WWE’s current workload, explaining why Road Dogg now shares writing responsibilities with Swikata.
“We were told that there is so much going on right now that one lead writer on the show wasn’t enough. Raw has Ryan Ward and Jon Baeckstrom. Ed Koskey is there overseeing and editing the scripts, Bruce Prichard is the buffer between them and Paul Levesque.”
Swikata took over as SmackDown’s co-lead writer in June, replacing Ryan Callahan, marking another shift in WWE’s creative team.
With Road Dogg now back in the creative fold, it will be interesting t
