Backstage Reaction To Corey Graves WWE Outburst

Backstage Reaction To Corey Graves WWE Outburst WWE

Corey Graves recently vented his frustration over his WWE role and some details of the backstage reaction have now been revealed.

On Monday January 13, 2025, Graves took to Twitter to seemingly share his thoughts about being moved from the WWE SmackDown commentary team to NXT.

It was later reported that there had been “rumblings within (WWE) for the last week that Graves wasn’t happy” with the move to NXT.

Dave Meltzer has now provided further insight into why Graves acted in the way that he did, noting that some WWE sources even believe he was “trying to get fired”.

On Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer addressed the Graves situation, saying:

“I’m gonna say this is September-ish, maybe early October. I just remember when they first made the announcement of the announcing changes and that Pat McAfee would be back and everything.

“So, basically, when Michael Cole had moved to SmackDown, but it was only gonna be temporary, and Joe Tessitore was starting with Raw, and we were told it’s only temporary, he’s gonna be moved to SmackDown. At the time I was told that the Raw announce team would be, in January, Michael Cole and Pat McAfee, and the SmackDown team would be Corey Graves and Joe Tessitore.

“So, then, I’m gonna say maybe a couple of weeks ago, not that long ago, I just kinda asked, ‘So is it Joe Tessitore and Corey Graves that are gonna be the hosts of SmackDown?’, since that’s what I had already been told. And the answer was, ‘To be determined. It’s not determined’.

“Now I guess it was a couple of weeks ago when Corey Graves got the word that Wade Barrett was gonna replace him on that show, and he wasn’t happy. I don’t know if he got the word he was gonna start in January in NXT, I don’t know the situation there. I just know that that’s when he found out that he wasn’t gonna be on SmackDown as he presumed he would be. So he was genuinely unhappy.

“Now why you would go on Twitter and do all this, I can’t answer that question. There’s people there who think that he was trying to get fired and that’s why he did it.

“If he was trying to get fired, they probably aren’t gonna fire him, because I don’t think they want him going to AEW if they give him a release. They could also suspend him, which maybe they’ve done for all we know. It doesn’t have to be announced that they’ve suspended him.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

Former WWE commentator Jonathan Coachman took issue with Graves’ initial comments, pointing out that many top commentary members had moved roles multiple times.

Graves was not only absent from the January 14 episode of WWE NXT, which he’d previously said he’d be appearing on, but also wasn’t on commentary for the most recent episode of Speed.

Since posting the original frustrations, Graves has deleted the tweets addressing his frustrations with his WWE role.

Meltzer noted that people in WWE do believe the situation is legitimate and not part of any angle or creative plans for Graves, so if it is a work, people in the company have been fooled by it.

We’ll keep you posted with any further updates.

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3 weeks ago by Dave Adamson

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