JUST IN: Corey Graves seems like the obvious choice to succeed him Michael Cole stated That…
You probably belong to an elite group if you composed the music for professional wrestling. Few people have voiced the major wrestling promotions since the 1980s. When WCW and ECW started to be phased out around the turn of the century, that number only got smaller. Michael Cole and Jim Ross are essentially it. The 1990s ECW stint of Joey Styles is most noted for its limited duration.
To his credit, Tony Schiavone continues to be active at All Elite Wrestling and served as the main voice of WCW. That supports the argument, particularly because J.R. runs the booth at AEW as well. It was therefore quite surprising when WWE announced that Corey Graves, who has worked as a color commentator for almost ten years, had been hired. However, nobody behind him seems to be discouraged by it.
Michael Cole, the WWE’s lead voice since 2008, chatted with Awful Announcing ahead of Graves’ upcoming assignment on Friday Night Smackdown this week in Dallas. Cole discussed the decision to assign Graves as the lead voice of Smackdown, why he believes he’s the right man for the job, and why he will have sustained success.
As a color commentator, Graves has been practicing his art for over ten years. He had been a competitor in early 2014 and had been a part of WWE’s developmental proving ground brand, NXT. Then, the hour-long WWE NXT program served as the focal point of the avant-garde WWE Network’s debut. Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, NXT was just months away from seeing a meteoric rise that would fundamentally alter professional wrestling in the United States.
Concussions took a toll on Graves, however, and he was forced to retire from in-ring competition in Winter 2014. He made his debut as a commentator at NXT TakeOver: R Evolution in December 2014, and he was instantly popular, with some fans even comparing him to the legendary Bobby “The Brain” Heenan as a potential future heel commentator who would succeed. While Heenan is in a class of his own as an announcer, Graves has been a regular on WWe.