WWE Rumor: Corey Graves To Join ‘SmackDown’ Announce Team On July 19
Former NXT Tag-Team Champion Corey Graves is widely considered to be the best announcer in WWE today. But, WWE has yet to call the NXT color-commentator up to the main roster. But that could change when SmackDown goes live on July 19.
At this point, everybody knows that the July 19 show will be the WWE draft, and it’s unclear if Graves will actually be a draft pick, or if he’ll just be named as the show’s new color commentator by SmackDown’s new general manager, which will presumably be Shane McMahon.
It’s also unclear if Graves will replace Jerry “The King” Lawler, who was just reinstated by WWE on Friday, or if he’ll replace Byron Saxton. If you ask most WWE fans, they would probably say that they hope Graves will replace Saxton, because he’s considered to be the worst announcer in the company. But, if Graves does replace Saxton, we’ll still probably have to hear Saxton’s commentary every Monday night on Raw.
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If Graves does, in fact, join SmackDown, he’ll be joining Mauro Ranallo, who is the best play-by-play man WWE has had since Jim Ross.
There is some concern about how the SmackDown announce team will sound after the draft, because it’s being reported that Vince McMahon will be back producing the show when the brand extension happens. Everybody has heard the stories about how Vince is constantly telling his announcers what to say during the shows, which has turned great commentators into horrible commentators, and some are afraid that he’ll do the same to Ranallo and Graves.
There have been rumors going around that Saxton will be sent back down to NXT if Graves is called up after the brand extension, and that could very well happen. So, we could end up seeing a two-man announce team on Raw, and a three-man announce team on SmackDown.
Also, you can’t rule out the possibility of WWE removing Lawler from the announce desk. He’s been with the company for the better part of 20 years, and it’s no secret that Vince McMahon doesn’t like to have old guys make regular appearances on his television shows, which is why he limits his own appearances.
Graves is a heel commentator on NXT, and Lawler has just recently made the switch back to being a heel on SmackDown, so it’d probably be overkill to have two heels and one babyface on commentary. But, we’ve seen WWE do stranger things in the past.
WWE could also be looking at bringing someone new in to do color commentary for NXT. But, as of this writing, we haven’t heard of anybody that they’re actively pursuing to fill that role.
In the past, the head trainer at the performance center – Matt Bloom, better known as Albert – has done some color commentary for NXT. He wasn’t the greatest at it, but he’s someone who can replace Graves if he leaves. But, come mid-July, we could be looking at an NXT commentary duo of Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton, and that doesn’t really sound like a great duo.
[Image via WWE]
