On March 5th, 2026, it was reported that WWE SmackDown co-lead writer Brian “Road Dogg” James departed from WWE, he decided to leave the company after receiving his annual performance review, which he was reportedly unhappy with.
During a recent virtual signing with Billy Gunn, Road Dogg directly addressed his departure from the company.
“It was moving too fast. It was just moving too fast for me. We talked about my brothers and their grandkids. I didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with mine. I’m gonna do more of that now.”
Road Dogg also appeared on the WWE: Unreal series on Netflix during a creative meeting. When asked if that show exposes the wrestling business too much, he said,
“As an old timer, I think we always feel that way (that it’s exposing the business too much)… The idea behind it, in my opinion, is it’s an on-ramp or an exit ramp into the actual episodic television show, and I don’t know if there’s a metric that can tell you whether that works or not.”
Road Dogg also shot down the idea of him going to All Elite Wrestling when he was asked if he could know more about AEW’s production process in the future and he simply said, “No.”
