X-Pac welcomes Road Dogg to the show.
Road Dogg admits that it’s quite difficult to write two hours of television every week. His run as Head Writer of Smackdown was fun but also challenging. He enjoyed putting the shows together each week but notes that you have to “keep the lights on” while adhering to sponsor guidelines. He knows that fans want the attitude era back, but that time is gone and it won’t be returning.
He says he didn’t want to feel like he quit on the company or himself, but he knew that if he didn’t make a change he was going to crack. He’s proud that he stood up for himself and made a change. He notes that his position with NXT/the Performance Centre is not set in stone and is constantly evolving but he’s really enjoying it.
Recently he’s been working with NXT talents on their entrances. He admits that he was never the best technical wrestler but he could always understand the television entertainment side of the business. He points out that when he started in the business nobody told him how to do a proper entrance so he had to figure that kind of stuff out on his own.
He’s worked with Triple H and NXT talents on their entrances in the past, and it’s their goal to get the talents thinking about these types of things on their own.
X-Pac points out that talents have to be creating their own content now and Road Dogg agrees, noting that the rise in social media allows talent to create their own content, as long as they adhere to WWE’s policies of course. This in turn helps WWE’s creative team, because a talent may bring out a different side of their character on their own and give the creative team some fresh ideas.
Road Dogg says it feels great to be a WWE Hall of Famer. He always thought that maybe he and Billy Gunn would be inducted as the New Age Outlaws some day, but he doesn’t even care about that now that all of DX has been inducted. He says his favourite part of the entire thing was being on that stage with all of his friends.
Road Dogg admits that it frustrates him when people speak of DX and only mention Triple H and Shawn Michaels. X-Pac agrees, adding that he and the New Age Outlaws really added something important to that group.
Getting back to his new position in NXT, Road Dogg says he really missed being involved with talent on a day-to-day basis while he was Head Writer of Smackdown Live. In the Head Writer position, he was busy in the writer’s room all day, as well as in meetings with Vince McMahon. Now he gets to interact with talent again and he enjoys that.
He’s not directly involved in NXT creative right now. Instead, he’s working with a class of talent who are “next in line” for NXT television. He’s also been doing some producing and recently produced the Matt Riddle/Roderick Strong match that kicked off the most recent Takeover event.
He says it was an honour for him to produce that match. He told Riddle and Strong that they could work circles around him so he didn’t want to tell them how to put together the match. Instead, he told them to do what they do best, and just asked them for a layout. This would allow him to direct the cameramen to be in the correct positions to get great shots so the match would look great on television.
While he knows that he’d never be able to keep up in the ring with this new style of wrestling, he still thinks there’s room for old school psychology. For example, he doesn’t think talents should be no-selling Superkicks when that move retired Ric Flair.
Road Dogg says the Street Profits have really turned into breakout stars in NXT. He loves those guys and points out that they’re only getting better. Even though they’re the Champions now, much like he and Billy Gunn during the early part of their tag team run, the Street Profits are still learning in the ring.
Road Dogg points out that every match seems to follow the one before it on Takeover shows. He thinks every Takeover benefits from only having 5 matches on it, as well as the fact that they only occur once every few months. The length in between shows allows NXT creative to tell interesting stories.
Road Dogg says his favourite match was a hardcore match against Big Boss Man. He loved Boss Man, and they were always able to have great matches while making each other laugh in the ring. He’ll never forget wrestling Boss Man one night and at one point a bag of marijuana fell out of Boss Man’s pocket.
Road Dogg thinks anything that R-Truth touches turns to gold. He thinks the 24/7 Title should continue to be focused around R-Truth because he’s very entertaining.
That sums up today’s episode of X-Pac 1, 2, 360. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!
