Heath Slater says storyline was meant for him to win his job back by beating Miz for the IC Title

In his interview with Chris Van Vliet Heath Slater revealed that his free agent storyline back in 2016 was meant for him to win his job back by beating Miz for the IC Title. But it changed to him winning and becoming first ever Smackdown tag champs with Rhyno:

“I loved working with Rhyno but I had been tag champs 3 times up to that point. I was like let me swim here a little bit. But in WWE they’re like these three shelves. And I was on that 2nd shelf I felt like they would leave me there for a while but eventually they would use me and then put me back on that shelfs. I could never go out there and shine and I’m like dude I can have good matches with people. But then again they might think of me as a West Virginia country boy with 30 kids.”