As many people are well aware, a massive winter storm affected a lot of people last week and the snow caused plenty of issues, including a lot of flights canceled. It played havoc with the travel plans of everyone in WWE as well, but all of the talent found a way to get where they needed to be. Well, almost all of them as one big name on SmackDown Live ended up missing Tuesday night’s show and rumors are circulating that there could be much more to his absence.
With this being prime WrestleMania 33 season, everyone in WWE needs to be on top of their game and performing at an exceptionally high level. Most everyone has a very strong work ethic anyway and the same can be said about SmackDown lead announcer Mauro Ranallo who leads a team of four.
That’s why the story of his absence from last week’s show is so confusing and is only getting stranger as the days go on.
Anyone watching SmackDown Live last week could see that the announce team was a little short and as recapped by the official website of WWE , there were reasons why. John Bradshaw Layfield and Tom Phillips were the only two of the four-man team there as David Otunga was off shooting a film and Mauro Ranallo had been snowed in.
Interestingly enough, Ranallo even tweeted back to a fan late on Monday night and early into Tuesday morning about the show. It was almost as if he knew what was coming.
Maybe. Snow may stop that from happening. https://t.co/Smd7zAQ7i8
— Mauro Ranallo (@mauroranallo) March 14, 2017
On an even more interesting note, it was also the last time he had any activity on his Twitter account at all.
Not only did the fans notice the issues with the change in the broadcast team for SmackDown Live , but some past WWE announcers did as well. Josh Mathews and Taz were not ones to keep their mouths quiet either as they decided to jump all over the situation.
With @OfficialTAZ in the car, I once drove us 2 days to Indianapolis to make a TAPED Smackdown show from NYC. #JustSayin ‘
— Josh Mathews???? (@realjoshmathews) March 15, 2017
Very dangerous driving conditions, @MichaelCole & myself. U drove the whole way. Gotta make the SHOT! Thats how it use to be… I guess. https://t.co/tFKeBXqwAe
— TAZ (@OfficialTAZ) March 15, 2017
On The Taz Show , Taz also brought up the subject of Mauro Ranallo missing the broadcast and decided to talk much more about it. Taz mentioned how missing a show is something you can’t do because “you get heat with the locker room, you get heat with your boss, you get heat with your broadcast colleagues.”
Speaking of his colleagues, Wrestling News World pointed out how JBL had tweeted out about Ranallo missing SmackDown Live . It may be needless to say, but the tweet has since been deleted.
“I made the show, everyone made the show, everyone. Maybe he shouldn’t have bashed me if he wasn’t going to show up.”
Ever since Ranallo missed last week’s show, he has been completely quiet and said nothing regarding the situation. While he has said it was due to the weather, The Wrestling Observer by way of Wrestling Inc. is reporting that there may be much more to it as Dave Meltzer said.
“What they said on the air was that the weather prevented Ranallo from coming and he’d be back next week and that Otunga was out filming a movie. At least half of that was true since Otunga was out filming a movie.”
It is not known what else could be the reasoning behind Ranallo missing the episode, but Tom Phillips said on the last broadcast that the lead announcer would be back this week on SmackDown Live .
Mauro Ranallo hasn’t been with WWE for a very long period of time, but he has instantly rocketed to the top of the announcer ranks. He is the lead on SmackDown Live and has received high praise for his work and making the matches seem like big-time fights. When he didn’t show up last week due to the snow, many found it strange and now, there are rumors circulating that there could be much more to his absence and it needs to be cleared up soon with WrestleMania 33 around the corner.
[Featured Image by WWE]