WWE confirms new Raw commentary team
Starting this coming Monday, WWE Raw will have a new commentary team.
ESPN/ABC announcer Joe Tessitore will make his WWE play-by-play debut on the Monday, September 2 episode of Raw. Sports Business Journal has confirmed that Wade Barrett will be Tessitore’s broadcast partner. Barrett had previously called SmackDown with Corey Graves.
Michael Cole and Graves will be the SmackDown team when the show moves back to USA Network starting on Friday, September 13. However, WWE plans to shuffle the announce teams again when Raw moves to Netflix in January 2025. Cole and Pat McAfee will be back as the Raw commentary team on Netflix.
McAfee is currently on hiatus from WWE due to his role on ESPN’s College GameDay but will return to WWE when college football season ends.
It was announced this July that Tessitore — who is a pro wrestling fan — had been hired to do WWE commentary. He will remain with ESPN and ABC in his roles calling college football and boxing. Tessitore was previously an announcer for Monday Night Football.
Monday’s Raw is taking place from Ball Arena in Denver and will feature the fallout from Bash in Berlin.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.