Adnan Virk had no training and never met Vince McMahon prior to his Raw commentary debut

Adnan Virk was hired by WWE in April to become the new voice of Raw. His tenure on the Raw commentary table was doomed from the start, and he was released by WWE in late May. How could WWE choose someone for such an important role who was clearly not ready?

During an interview on Coach Potato Diary with Peter Klein, Virk explained that WWE didn’t train him for the job, and he never even met Vince McMahon prior to hearing Vince in his ear at the commentary table for his first episode calling Raw. Here’s the transcript of Virk’s explanation, courtesy of Fightful:

“I didn’t see [Vince McMahon] my first show. Here’s the thing, they didn’t give me any training, which some people point out was a little unfair. I don’t think you hire Jason Witten for Monday Night Football and don’t give him training. I recognize that’s the way WWE does things so no excuses, that’s my fault that I wasn’t good enough. It’s not like I met with Vince before my first show. I literally was just prepping on my own, doing my best, and Michael Cole was helping out. The first time I met Vince. My first show was April 12, I didn’t meet Vince, I heard his voice in my ear at one point and he was giving direction. I met him after the second show. He summoned me in. I met him, he was very polite and very respectful and he basically gave really good feedback. He went through everything, very detailed. At the end, he said, “You’re doing a good job, best of luck.’ I met with him that time and he was at the meeting — we have a meeting on Raw at noon, oftentimes it would get pushed back. Vince would sometimes be there and sometimes wouldn’t If he was in the meeting, it had a different tenor. He’s an important guy, he has great presence, whatever he says people are going to do because he’s the boss. After the third show, he gave me feedback, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do this, do more of this.’ I really appreciate the fact that he was willing to meet with me and give me feedback. Like I said, I wish I could have done better and been there longer, but it was definitely cool to meet him and I have a ton of respect for him.”

In some ways it feels like the Adnan Virk era of Raw was a very long time ago. Some of that is due to the fact that he lasted less than two months on the job, and some of that is because Jimmy Smith has seamlessly taken over the gig. Looking back on it, though, it’s still quite remarkable that WWE seemingly had no idea just how ill-equipped Virk was for the job, and that they didn’t even put in the bare minimum effort to prepare him for the lead commentary position on Raw.