WWE annonuces change to commentary team on SmackDown

Changes are being made to WWE’s announce teams.

Michael Cole and Corey Graves opened Friday’s WWE SmackDown and welcomed us to the program. Cole informed viewers that they would be the announce team going forward in the coming months as Joe Tessitore covers college football, which just started.

The announce teams for both Raw and SmackDown have shifted in the last year. When Tessitore came on board with WWE, he and Wade Barrett were made the SmackDown announce team while Michael Cole and Pat McAfee served as the voices for Raw. However, earlier this summer McAfee announced that he would be taking a break from doing WWE commentary, with Graves being called back up from NXT as a fill-in.

Graves was initally moved from the main roster to NXT as a result of Tessitore joining the broadcast team last year. He voiced his frustrations with the move online and was briefly removed from NXT commentary before eventually returning.

Barrett did commentary with Cole for the Clash in Paris PLE and this past Monday’s Raw in Lyon, France.