WWE Hall of Famer Brian "Road Dogg" James was confirmed to be the co-head writer of "WWE SmackDown" last week, with James sharing the role with John Swikata. This isn't the first time that James has occupied this role, and in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer revealed the reason why James has returned to the role and how Paul "Triple H" Levesque factors in to everything.
To put it bluntly, with the three-hour episodes of "WWE SmackDown" and so much going on in the company right now, Meltzer claimed that having one lead writer in charge of "SmackDown" simply wasn't enough, resulting in James, who had acted as the company's Senior Vice President of Live Events since the summer of 2022, to resume the role he originally occupied between 2016 and 2019. "WWE Raw" still has Ryan Ward and Jon Baeckstrom writing the shows, with Ed Koskey overseeing and editing scripts, All of the writers will have Bruce Prichard act as a buffer between them and Levesque, who will have the final say on everything that goes on the show. It's unclear whether James and Swikata will remain as co-lead writers when "SmackDown" returns to a two-hour format in the summer,
Once the WWE Hall of Famer had resigned from his role in 2019, he remained with the company as a utility player where he helped teach classes at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida about in-ring promos and character development. However, he was initially released from the company at the start of 2022, but was re-hired later that same year after Vince McMahon initially "retired," and took the aforementioned role or Senior Vice President of Live Events, a role previously held by Jeff Jarrett who departed the company the same month James returned.
