By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
WWE.com announced the following broadcast teams for their weekly television shows for next week’s “premiere week” events.
-Raw: Vic Joseph, Dio Maddin, and Jerry Lawler.
-NXT: Mauro Ranallo, Beth Phoenix, and Nigel McGuiness.
-Smackdown: Michael Cole and Corey Graves with Renee Young as a special contributor.
Powell’s POV: It’s crazy to see Raw undergo such a radical change with the entire broadcast team moving to Smackdown, and newcomer Dio Maddin getting a shot as a color commentator after a brief run on 205 Live. Smackdown Live lead voice Tom Phillips and his color commentator Byron Saxton didn’t make the cut for the company’s top three shows.
Definitely not gonna miss that noodle Byron Saxton, but that does suck for Phillips. Why are they taking another risk with Lawler like this? He can’t do 3 live hours every week with travel anymore
I’ve been interested in seeing this, mostly because I’ve been curious how they’d value the shows with the Fox move. Smackdown is clearly the “A” show now if they’re moving Cole over because that’s their guy. It’s odd seeing RAW become the “B” show, arguably with a weaker announce team than NXT.
The commentators for RAW season premiere absolutely suck. So the A show team has now moved to FOX making Raw the B show now! Please fix this!!!
Raw is the B-Show now that Smackdown is on Fox. WWE will never admit that, but it’s the truth.