Road Dogg has plenty to say about why he is no longer with WWE.
The WWE Hall of Famer, who stepped down as co-head writer of SmackDown in March, opened up about his exit during an appearance on the Busted Open Podcast, framing his departure as a break from a company he felt had drifted away from what drew him to wrestling.
“I still love wrestling, and I want to do wrestling, and I want to do it for somebody that wants it and needs it, and I feel like the WWE didn’t want it or need it anymore,” James said. He described feeling stagnant during a record-setting stretch for the company. “They were firing on all cylinders and making money and records… and I was complacent. I felt like I wasn’t earning, I was getting a check, but I felt like I wasn’t earning it, and I wasn’t having any fun either. It got to be so much work that it stopped being fun.”
James, who has been candid about his recovery, said fear kept him in the job longer than he wanted. “I actually stayed longer than I wanted to, just out of fear of unemployment,” he said, crediting a conversation with his wife for pushing him to finally walk away. She told him she would “live with you in a tent,” he recalled, “and I said, ‘I’m coming home right now.'”
He did not soften how the company felt to him by the end. “It felt like it turned into the business wrestling instead of the wrestling business,” James said. “It just feels like WWE right now, for me, was a money grab… it didn’t feel right. I wanted to step away.” He acknowledged the company’s results are undeniable, adding, “The facts don’t give a f*** about your feelings, and that’s the facts.”
Now calling his own shots, James said he wants to land somewhere smaller. “I’m going to help somebody before this year is up… somebody that’s smaller, and that not only needs the help, but wants the help, wants to learn,” he said, before pitching what he brings. “I am good at television wrestling. I’m not Brian Danielson, and I’m not the Rock, but what I can do is put on a great television show with wrestling involved in it, and make it pretty.”
He did a little teasing of his own about where that might be. Speaking from Jacksonville, Florida, James noted, “I’m coming to you live from Jacksonville, Florida, the home of AEW. But there’s no breaking news there. I’m just here doing a signing,” appearing alongside his New Age Outlaws partner Billy Gunn.
James spent more than a decade inside WWE’s creative structure, including the years AEW launched and grew into a national competitor, which gives his read on how the company sized up its rival some weight. Asked whether WWE saw AEW as real competition, he admitted it did not take the threat seriously enough.
“No, no, no, we didn’t, and we probably should have, to be quite honest with you, but instead it was, I think it was looked at like, oh, that’s this other little money marks company, you know what I mean? I honestly think that’s how it was kind of looked at, and I would argue, however long we are now into their tenure, that was wrong to be looking at it that way.”
Years later, James said, that read looks like a miss, and he believes AEW has only strengthened its hand behind the scenes, pointing to a key production hire as evidence.
“Here, they’re still here, they’re still strong. They’re, I would argue, they’re getting stronger. I would argue adding Mike Mansuri to their team, who runs their truck now, was a huge step in the right direction. He’s a smart guy with good instincts.”
The appearance coincided with James promoting Ohio Valley Wrestling’s 1,400th television episode, set for June 11 in Louisville, where he said he plans to handle commentary for the entire show. He praised the promotion’s young, hungry roster and Al Snow’s booking, and worked in a critique of WWE’s current product along the way. “Everybody seems like a top guy, like there’s no mid card entertainment,” he said.
For James, the takeaway was that leaving lifted a weight he had carried for years. “I’ve been nervous, job scared for 15 years, and then I quit,” he said, “and it’s like, oh, that’s all I had to do.”
