Replacement For Pat McAfee On WWE Raw Confirmed

Published: Jan 18, 2025 by Liam | Last Updated: Jan 18, 2025 by Liam

Liam has been reporting & analyzing wrestling news for over eight years, and is currently the Managing Editor at WrestleTalk.com. Immersed in wrestling for 18 years, he has over 11,000 published articles in addition to leading and overseeing WrestleTalk.com's coverage.

Replacement For Pat McAfee On WWE Raw Confirmed

The replacement for Pat McAfee on an upcoming episode of WWE Raw on Netflix was confirmed tonight during SmackDown.

Pat McAfee will miss the January 20 episode of Raw in Dallas as he’ll be part of ESPN’s College Football Playoff National Championship coverage.

During SmackDown tonight, Wade Barrett confirmed he will be replacing McAfee as Michael Cole’s partner for the January 20 Raw.

This brief switch comes in the midst of Corey Graves voicing his displeasure about being moved to the NXT announce team as of the start of the year.

After calling the New Year’s Evil episode of NXT on January 7, Graves tweeted a few days later about how he was told he wasn’t “famous enough” to reap the rewards of the hard work he’s put into being an announcer over the past few years since he was forced into retirement due to injury – essentially suggesting he was unhappy about being moved off the main roster.

Graves was then absent from the January 14 episode of NXT as well, with reports suggesting he was seen leaving Orlando (where the show took place) earlier the same day.

Although some people initially assumed Graves’ comments were part of a planned creative direction potentially even leading to an in-ring return, all signs point to it being legitimate frustration and not part of any ‘plan’ from WWE.