Real Reason For WWE Commentary Changes

WWE

With changes to both the WWE Raw and SmackDown commentary teams, further details have emerged on what it’ll mean to the respective shows.

The return of Pat McAfee at the Royal Rumble has seen him take up the desk next to Michael Cole on WWE Raw, with Wade Barrett sitting alongside Corey Graves on SmackDown.

Writing about the changes in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer stated:

With Kevin Patrick being gone, and Pat McAfee being brought in, the announcing teams are now Michael Cole & McAfee on Raw and Wade Barrett & Corey Graves on Smackdown.

The idea is that Graves will be the play-by-play guy, and he’s never technically been that but has in actuality had to carry that for a few announcers they’ve brought in.

Traditionally the play-by-play guy is the voice of the babyfaces and the color guy can be the voice of the heels or straight. Barrett & Graves have always been heel side announcers so it will be interesting because if the announcers both continually put over the heels, they become the faces, so Graves will likely have to adjust somewhat.

Essentially the changes were because McAfee agreed to come back. He must really love wrestling because with the money he makes ($17 million per year) and having a family, and having a daily studio show means he has to do a show and then fly out to wherever Raw is late every week.

Look, if you’re WWE and he’s up for doing it, you absolutely use him. He’s super enthusiastic and his name value is huge right now. But he can’t be the play-by-play guy and Cole or a Vic Joseph would have to be with him.

Barrett did a great job with Cole and they didn’t want to get rid of him and Patrick was the weakest link. The one thing is it would be far tougher for McAfee continuing on that schedule during football season, particularly since for his talk show he would have to be watching Monday Night Football for his Tuesday show and his schedule is much tighter doing the added college football related programming like GameDay that he’s on. But that’s eight months away.

Kevin Patrick was removed from the WWE SmackDown commentary team on January 22, 2024, in what was described as a “last-minute decision.”

On January 25, 2024, it would emerge that Patrick had been released by WWE with Sheamus praising the reportedly much-liked commentator.

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• pat mcafee
• RAW
• corey graves
• michael cole
• Wade Barrett
• Smackdown
• wwe

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