WWE is moving ahead following the decision to remove Kevin Patrick from his duties as SmackDown play-by-play commentator as Michael Cole replaced him on last week’s SmackDown before WWE released Patrick.
The moves
On Monday’s Raw, Pat Mcafee replaced Wade Barrett as the color commentator on the show, noting the move was permanent.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted the plan is for someone to be introduced as the new SmackDown play-by-play announcer soon and Cole won’t be permanently in the role as he will eventually just call Raw and PLEs. The new announcer could be introduced as soon as SmackDown this week.
Plan
Bryan Alvarez: “Wade Barrett was not on Raw. He was replaced on the show.”
Dave Meltzer: “Pat McAfee is back for good.”
Bryan Alvarez: “They announced that Pat McAfee and Michael Cole are the permanent Raw team, which means that Michael Cole has a terrific travel schedule.”
Dave Meltzer: “He’s not gonna be doing he’s not doing Friday much longer. He might not even be doing it this week. At the beginning of the show on Friday last week, Michael Cole said for one week only. So, you know, I mean, I don’t know what that means. When I asked about Michael Cole. I was told he’s got it for now. But absolutely this is not a permanent thing. I don’t know who the new guy is. But I was just told that you know that that is not the case. Michal Cole doing SmackDown [full-time] is not the case. It’s like, again. Yeah, it’s a one-time thing.”
Pwinsider reports the plan is for Barrett to be paired with Corey Graves on the SmackDown team, Graves being the new lead announcer, while Barrett would remain as a color commentator.
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