WWE told Peter Rosenberg they’re not using him for Kickoff panels any more

You may have noticed WWE hasn’t been using New York City DJ Peter Rosenberg on pay-per-view (PPV) Kickoff shows lately. Rosenberg, who’s also hosted post-shows like Raw Talk and several episodes of the WWE Network show Bring It To The Table, recently explained when he found out that he was no longer in the company’s pre-show plans.

“The End of an Era” episode of Rosenberg’s Cheap Heat podcast on ESPN isn’t exactly Jon Moxley on Talk Is Jericho, but dish is dish.

After eluding to some personal issues he’s been dealing with but didn’t want to discuss which led to him taking a break from traveling with WWE, the Hot 97 morning host broke down what happened:

“When I came back to WWE and I was ready to work WrestleMania, those who make the decisions on those things - Michael Cole - were no longer interested in using me for that. So WrestleMania came to New York City where I’ve been promoting it for four-five months prior, even when I was no longer traveling. And they said, ‘We don’t have a place for you on WrestleMania.’ They couldn’t even squeeze me on that fakakta Watch Along show with eighty people talking at the same time. Still didn’t have room for me there. Couldn’t put me anywhere. Ok.”

While he admits to being taken aback by the decision, Rosenberg says he understand and doesn’t take it personally. He also tries to make it clear his criticism of Watch Along isn’t personal:

“As much as it sounds like I’m even mad at Cole - not even mad at Cole. Cole and I were never super tight. He’s got the way he sees things. If I don’t fit into that, I don’t care. There’s a lot of things that I don’t - as you can hear, I think the Watch Along show is literally the worst - an embarrassment to the Network.” That’s not a veiled shot at Pat McAfee. I don’t think anyone can do that show and make it good. You can’t have ten people talking at the same time. It’s not good.”

The payoff for this was the announcement Rosenberg will continue to do Cheap Heat with his co-host Stat Guy Greg. And while he says he’d love to work with WWE and WWE Network in the future (and believes they’ll be interested, too, because of his presence in the NYC market and profile in the hip-hop community), we’re now in the “Shoot Era” of the podcast, as Rosenberg will be able to offer his opinions on WWE products without having to report to work on one of them the next weekend.

Sounds fair enough to me, on all sides. Now about Sam Roberts...