Kevin Patrick had been on the hot seat with some people within WWE after he was no longer working alongside Michael Cole, and now a change is being made.
Past changes
In August of last year, it was revealed that Michael Cole and Wade Barrett would be commentators for Raw. While Cole continued his duties on SmackDown, he was joined by Kevin Patrick and Corey Graves. This change came after Patrick and Graves had been working together for the Raw brand, while Cole and Barrett were paired up on SmackDown.
During this transition, it was reported that WWE had high hopes for Patrick and believed working alongside Cole would contribute to his growth as a broadcaster. As the new year began, the teams were changed to consist of two-man booths, ultimately ending Cole’s time on SmackDown.
The decision
As previously reported, some people within WWE were watching to see how Patrick does on SmackDown without Cole steering the ship as the lead play-by-play guy, and the feeling was he needed to step up if he wanted to keep the spot.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted Patrick is no longer the lead announcer of SmackDown.
“Kevin Patrick’s gone. Yup, unless something changes. I don’t know the details; I don’t know who’s gonna be replacing him. I’m not surprised. They just did an announcer change at the start of the yeah….Corey Graves has been totally carrying the SmackDown announcing. I don’t know who they’ll bring in. It could be Vic Joseph. [WWE President] Nick Khan likes to hire sports people, but the problem is, announcing sports and announcing wrestling are very different.”
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