Samantha Irvin announced in October 2024 that she was departing from WWE as she had been the Raw ring announcer.
Following her departure, Irvin stated that she wanted to be a manager and never aspired to be a ring announcer. As previously reported, some people in WWE were not happy with Irvin’s social media posts following the news.
While appearing on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, Irvin’s husband, Ricochet, explained that because she broke the wrestling tradition of leaving and that’s what caused the online backlash. Here are the highlights:
On Irvin’s decision to leave: “Because she’s an artist, she’s a musician, like that’s what she naturally does. She’s just not an announcer. And it’s like, it’s like, obviously, there’s no disrespect to any of that. It’s just because that’s not what you were born to do, and that’s not what you love to do. It’s just crazy.”
On Irvin leaving because it wasn’t her dream job: “Absolutely. But again, people take offense to it because, again, I think she just broke tradition. I think traditionally, especially in WWE, they build off of like, I don’t want to say anything that’s going to get taken out of context. But, you know, everything does. Because, you know, they build it off, like, repetitiveness. They want it when you find something that works, yeah? Like, if you smell what The Rock is cooking, he’s going to say it every time because then the fans are going to say it like, why would he change it up? So, even when The Rock quit, everyone was so mad at him because he just stopped doing it and to do movies…..It’s like she found, just like The Rock found, ‘this is great. I love this. I have so much respect for this. I put my heart, my soul, into this. I gave it literally everything that I have to make WWE better because of the love that I have for it. But at the end of the day, it’s just not what I was born to do.’ I told her, if you feel even half the way that I feel like I feel like this isn’t what you know I want to do. This isn’t what I feel like I could. Feel like I could be doing more as well. And that’s kind of why I left. And she just feels like she could be doing more.”
On why there was such a backlash: “I think she, like, broke the tradition of wrestling. You know, again, you have people who are in it for ever again. Like I said, look at Rey Mysterio and AJ Styles because they’ve been doing it for so long, and they’re still in it, you know, they’re still doing that. So I think especially when wrestling fans find something that makes them feel good and makes what they like watching better, they just wanted forever, of course….I understand again. I feel like she broke tradition, wrestling tradition, in a way, by just stepping away.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Insight With Chris Van Vliet with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
