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What’s the story?
After a rather strong episode of Smackdown Live following a lacklustre and disappointing Battleground PPV, Smackdown head writer ‘Road Dogg’ Jesse James aka Brian James took to Twitter to address the ‘haters’ and critics’.
In response to the tweets from the fans with the hashtag ‘Fire Road Dogg’, the former WWE Tag Team Champion took to the social media platform and put the Twitterverse on a blast.
In case you did not know…
Sunday’s Battleground PPV was considered by fans as the worst PPV the has company delivered in 2017 and one of the worst ones they have put on in a long time. The general opinion among the fans was that the show was riddled with a lot of bad finishes to the matches, barring the opening contest.
Road Dogg is the creative head of the Blue brand and as a result, received the brunt of the wrath of wrestling fans on social media, with many calling for his dismissal from his position at the helm of the Smackdown’s creative team.
The heart of the matter
This week’s episode of Smackdown Live was well received by the WWE fans. The show had a great opening segment which featured the return of Chris Jericho.
The overall quality of this show was much better compared to the recent weeks, during which Road Dogg became the subject of criticism on the internet and things only exacerbated following Battleground PPV just two days ago.
Here are some of the tweets from the fans to which Road Dogg responded by blocking them.
What’s next?
Last night’s Smackdown Live was a massive improvement on Sunday’s Battleground event. The show featured a great opening segment between WWE United States Champion Kevin Owens, AJ Styles, and a returning Jericho.
Shinsuke Nakamura and Baron Corbin probably their best one-on-one match. We then witnessed the face-off between John Cena and WWE Champion Jinder Mahal, teasing a feud between the two, leading to a title match at the annual summer pay-per-view.
The show also built anticipation for next week’s show where Cena will battle Shinsuke Nakamura to determine who would go on to face the Modern Day Maharaja at SummerSlam.
We also have a United States title match to look forward to between Owens and Styles, who won his second US title in the main event after he pinned Chris Jericho.
Author’s take
While Road Dogg is generally well-respected by the fans, some of his recent statements on Twitter, where he manages to put a positive, pro-WWE spin on everything, have not sat well with them.
After the brand split, Smackdown was viewed as the better of the two brands for the most part but in the past couple of months or so, the flagship show, RAW, established an advantage over it.
While it is commendable that Road Dogg takes the time to interact with fans on social networking sites, not all of the remarks and suggestions made by the fans are unjustified.
