Adnan Virk Reflects On His WWE Run, Relationship With Vince McMahon

Former WWE Raw lead announcer Adnan Virk has reflected on his brief time with the company earlier this year.

Adnan Virk debuted as the announcer the night after WrestleMania on April 12, but was let go by WWE just over a month later.

He hadn’t been trained before debuting and just couldn’t adapt fast enough, and it was clear that it wasn’t working out despite his best efforts.

Despite what happened, he still speaks in good spirits about WWE and doesn’t seem to have any hard feelings. Speaking on Couch Potato Diary, he said:

“The biggest thing for me is, I loved wrestling as a kid but I didn’t watch as much as I got older. I got offered this opportunity to audition and why not, of course I’d love to do this.

“They sent me a few matches to look at and I’m kind of like an actor, so you give me a few scenes and I studied really hard and I nailed those three scenes, but then you actually have to do the whole play on Broadway. That’s a much different thing than doing a scene study of three scenes.

“The biggest challenge for me is that, it’s hard to be really well-versed in the sport when you’re trying to catch a freight train that’s already going 100 miles an hour. I’m running alongside the train trying to catch up. It’s hard to make up for that gap in time.”

Adnan Virk said that one thing that helped him out is WWE’s philosophy that only short-term history is important, so really he only had to remember what had happened throughout the past couple of weeks, rather than memorising the entire history of wrestling.

He also mentioned one difference between WWE and “conventional sports” is that the other sports have researchers that provide notes with facts and stats, whereas in WWE, the announcers have to do that work themselves.

Jim Ross actually recently mentioned that AEW has that system, with Alex Marvez providing research that really helps Ross out.

Virk also praised his broadcast partners Corey Graves and Byron Saxton, as well as Michael Cole who helped him out every week.

Speaking about his relationship with Vince McMahon, Adnan Virk said:

“It was great. I didn’t see him my first show. Here’s the thing, they didn’t give me any training, which some people point out was a little unfair. I don’t think you hire Jason Witten for Monday Night Football and don’t give him training. I recognize that’s the way WWE does things so no excuses, that’s my fault that I wasn’t good enough. It’s not like I met with Vince before my first show. I literally was just prepping on my own, doing my best, and Michael Cole was helping out.

“The first time I met Vince. My first show was April 12, I didn’t meet Vince, I heard his voice in my ear at one point and he was giving direction. I met him after the second show. He summoned me in. I met him, he was very polite and very respectful and he basically gave really good feedback. He went through everything, very detailed. At the end, he said, ‘You’re doing a good job, best of luck’.

“I met with him that time and he was at the meeting – we have a meeting on Raw at noon, oftentimes it would get pushed back. Vince would sometimes be there and sometimes wouldn’t. If he was in the meeting, it had a different tenor. He’s an important guy, he has great presence, whatever he says people are going to do because he’s the boss.

“After the third show, he gave me feedback, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do this, do more of this’. I really appreciate the fact that he was willing to meet with me and give me feedback. Like I said, I wish I could have done better and been there longer, but it was definitely cool to meet him and I have a ton of respect for him. He’s a very smart guy and brilliant businessman.”

Virk was replaced by Jimmy Smith who has maintained his position alongside Graves and Saxton.

Quote via Fightful

To make sure you stay updated with all the latest wrestling news, add WrestleTalk.com to your Google Discover feed and follow us on Twitter!

• Adnan Virk
• Commentary
• Vince McMahon
• wwe

Share this article with friends