Back in July, WWE made news by announcing Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff would become Executive Directors for Raw and Smackdown respectively.

Since that time, we’ve seen traces of Paul Heyman’s influence take Monday Night Raw into the right direction. Raw has put on some really good shows in the past month with all signs pointing up.

Smackdown, however, is a bit of a different story. Smackdown was once considered by most WWE fans the better of the two shows. With Smackdown’s debut on FOX rapidly approaching, the show has been somewhat disappointing as of late.

FOX

Apparently WWE has noticed Smackdown’s decline. Current Raw head writer Ed Koskey will now take over as head writer under Biscoff for Smackdown.

Jonathan Baeckstrom, former lead writer of 205 Live, will move to Raw and be head writer under Paul Heyman. This according to TheWrap, who have said they spoke with an individual with knowledge of the plans.

Current Smackdown lead writer Ryan Ward, who has been with the company since 2008, will be taking a “short-term leave of absence”. It’s reported that should Ward return, he would likely join the “home team” which is a group of non-traveling writers WWE employ.

Smackdown is no stranger to creative shakeups. Earlier in the year, Road Dogg (real name Brian James) was lead writer for Smackdown, but stepped down, reportedly because Vince McMahon was “tearing apart” his work, and then turning the blame to James for “product continuity issues”.

Comic Book

WWE then fired Steve Guerrieri back in July. Guerrieri had been sharing lead writer roles with Ryan Ward up until the firing.

Smackdown will premier on FOX starting October 4th. It should be noted that The Wrestling Observer reported Bischoff hasn’t really had any creative input on Smackdown as of yet.

TheWrap have also reported that Bischoff made the decision to hire Stevie Long, who was a former writer on “Sons of Anarchy”. According to the insider they spoke to, Michael P.S. Hayes walked into the writing room to find Long asleep on his first day on the road with WWE.

Photo source: sescoops.com

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