What Corey Graves has to say about Sasha Banks & Naomi’s walkout without Vince McMahon in his ear

WWE’s response to Sasha Banks & Naomi walking out of Raw this past Monday (May 16) has been as much of a focus as their decision and what may or may not have led to it. Included in the company’s response was how color commentator Corey Graves addressed it on air.

Reports indicate that Graves was fed his lines (that Sasha & Naomi had “summarily and unprofessionally” left the Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia) by Vince McMahon. That didn’t prevent him from getting a ton of criticism online, so much that his wife clapped back at some of it.

What’s Corey’s take when he’s not completely in character as part of the announce team? He laid it out for us at the start of this week’s After The Bell, his weekly WWE-produced podcast with Vic Joseph:

“Everybody is asking themselves this question, there’s a particular set of circumstances that went down this past Monday at Raw. There’s speculation and rumors all over the place. I was on the air when it went down, I only know the information that was provided to me and in the days since, while everybody continues to speculate — I don’t have any more information. I don’t know enough about the circumstance or the situation or which side did what. So I’m just going to avoid it.

“I’m being perfectly honest and transparent with everybody. I would love to dive into this conversation because it’s set the internet on fire, everybody’s got an opinion, everybody’s got a point of view. I don’t know enough facts about what actually went down to speak on it with any confidence. All I know is what you guys know, and I was getting updates throughout the show on Monday — as needed, because we were doing a show. So if there comes a point in point where it becomes something we know facts about, I will happily dive into that for our listener’s pleasure. Until then, we’re just gonna stick with what we know — what we know to be true.”

Probably won’t change anyone’s mind on whether Graves should have risked his job by not saying what he was told to last Monday night, but... there you have it.