Vince McMahon made a surprise appearance on SmackDown 1000 last Tuesday and according to Dave Meltzer in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, this is a rare thing these days as the boss is rarely seen backstage at the blue brand.

Vince is known to be one of the most hardworking people in the professional wrestling industry and in years gone by attended all of his television broadcasts, but his absence for SmackDown doesn't mean he isn't in control. SmackDown is still very much Vince's show and he will oversee the scrips and makes changes as he sees fit, but he allows others to run the broadcast backstage while he is either at home or in WWE offices.

There is some speculation from Meltzer that McMahon may attend more SmackDown tapings in 2019 when it moves to FOX, but he also has the relaunch of the XFL in 2020 to focus on, but McMahon reportedly won't allow this to take his focus away from WWE.