Why New WWE Lead Writer Had Little Influence On SmackDown
A new lead writer has been appointed to SmackDown by WWE but it seems they didn’t have much bearing on the most recent show.
Triple H has been in charge of the company’s creative direction since Vince McMahon’s permanent exit from WWE and it seems he’s put his faith in a longtime WWE writer to lead SmackDown.
Fightful Select reported longtime WWE writer John Swikata has now been promoted to SmackDown’s lead writer. Swikata is said to have replaced Ryan Callahan who has left the company.
A WWE source has noted that Swikata, who has been with the company for years, has already made a huge impact pointing to SmackDown in Chicago where Jacob Fatu made his shock WWE debut as he joined The Bloodline and CM Punk was left bloodied by a vengeful Drew McIntyre.
But how much of that show was really down Swikata’s new role?
John Swikata Has Minimal Effect On WWE SmackDown In New Role
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that much of SmackDown was set in stone before Swikata’s promotion:
Ryan Callahan was let go, and John Swikata, who was on the writing team, started up on Friday’s show. And Friday’s show was awesome. I think it was maybe the best episode of SmackDown all year.
But most of that episode was written before him, it’s not like – because I said, ‘Man, what a great job for a first episode’, and it was like, pretty much most of that stuff was already there and already set up.
All the Bloodline stuff was set up. He did have one or two things that were new, new twists that were in there. But like the Jacob Fatu thing, that’d been planned for a long, long time. And everything in that angle – Solo saying ‘he’s never coming back’ about Roman Reigns, that was all planned. The winners of those matches were all planned. Drew coming back, that’s been planned for a while.
WWE is believed to have already planned its SummerSlam main event and if it proves to be the case, it seems Swikata has a huge summer ahead of him running creative on SmackDown.