by Corey Graves started his WWE commentary journey in 2016. Corey and Michael Cole are the two top commentators in WWE right now.
Corey Graves and Michael Cole were the commentator for WWE SmackDown on Fox from the inaugural episode(October 4, 2019). Corey was doing a great job but was replaced by Pat McAfee as SmackDown commentator in April 2021. But somehow in the end Corey is the commentator for SmackDown now.
Corey Graves recently was on ‘The Kurt Angle Show‘ podcast, where he talked about Pat McAfee. Corey Graves was not happy with Pat McAfee replacing him on SmackDown.
“I never worked with J.R. on the air. I think that would be interesting, and Taz is another guy… I think we might butt heads, we might be a terrible commentary team because we both sort of fill the same space… I can’t believe I’m saying this publicly, I would love to work more with Pat McAfee. I think Pat, he adds a whole new element that maybe nobody has seen before in the game and I have more fun being me when he’s there than a lot of other people.”
“So believe it or not, I’m blowing up my own stuff here. I think the world of Pat (McAfee). He, again, is such a strong persona, it’s easy for me play off of and rib him and get under his skin. I was a little upset professionally, that I found out, hey, you’re going from Friday Night SmackDown on FOX, the network show that you kicked off with Michael Cole and then, I took it a little personally (when McAfee replaced me).”
“Not because of Pat but it was sort of, I’ve paid my dues here. I’m the guy that shows up week after week. I’m the guy that did both Raw and SmackDown for two years straight, never complained and this is how you do me? And again, I remember I was talking to my wife and just going, ‘This isn’t right. I have to do something about this. This isn’t fair.’ I really took it hard. It had nothing to do with Pat being Pat. It was just sort of a professional issue and she talked me off a ledge and I had a few conversations with Cole.”
“Michael Cole is my boss slash therapist. So he talked me off the ledge as well and looking back, it’s business. Kurt (Angle), you know better than anybody here. Sometimes you gotta do the stuff you don’t wanna do so you can do the stuff that you do… It was a shock that I didn’t see coming but, you know what? I dealt with it. We’re all better off for it I think.”
(H/T: Post Wrestling)
