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Ah the life of a WWE commentator.
As part of the main roster commentary team since 2016, Corey Graves has called nearly every type of match and situation that WWE could ever offer. After two years working the booth down in NXT, Graves was assigned to the Raw announce desk following the 2016 draft.
Now the lead heel commentator on both Raw, SmackDown, and every major pay-per-view, Graves has a ton of experience under his belt. But what is it like doing live television with Vince McMahon right in your ear anytime he wants?
Appearing on the Prime Time with Sean Mooney podcast this week, Graves gave an interesting answer on working with McMahon.
“The first time he reprimanded me for anything, I was on camera. It’s different when you’re not on camera, you can kinda play it naturally and acknowledge it. But when you’re staring at the lights, and all of a sudden Vince is yelling at you in your ear, it’s like really hard to keep your composure and keep your train of thought, and I’m pretty sure when it happened, I just locked up in the middle of a sentence, because it was like ‘oh no, I’m dead! What’s happening?’”
Graves continued:
“It just trumps everything that’s going on in the world. I think I’ve been doing it long enough now with him that he’s comfortable with me, and I think I have sorta earned his trust, and a lot of times he gives me plenty of rope to kind of work with, and do my own thing. I think he gets that I generally understand the story, even if I don’t know where we’re going with it, which I try not to know. So I think I’ve earned his trust to a point, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still moments where I’ll say something and he’ll, you know, I can’t necessarily repeat what he says to me all the time, but it’s definitely an experience. It was definitely hard to get used to, but now I think I am as used to it as I will ever get.”
Seems like a completely normal working environment.
When working down in NXT, Corey Graves’ work behind the mic was almost universally adored. Now with three years of time working on the main roster, what is your opinion on Graves as a WWE commentator?