5 things you didn't know about Michael Cole
To many people, Michael Cole is considered the Voice of the WWE. He earned the moniker by being the lead play-by-play announcer for Monday Night Raw since 2008. Prior to that, he was Smackdown’s voice for nearly a decade. There are mixed signals in the world of WWE about Micheal Cole. Some people think he is great at what he does, while others would strongly disagree with that statement.
Whether you love the man’s work or hate it, it’s hard to deny that he plays a major role in WWE.
Here we look at 5 major things you may not have known about WWE’s mouthpiece, Micheal Cole.
#5 He initially replaced Jim Ross for health reasons
Michael Cole initially started off in WWE as a backstage interviewer. His role within the WWE gradually increased over time.
He was occasionally put on a three man announce team in the late 90’s as an experiment by WWE. In 1998, Jim Ross, who was the lead announcer for WWE at the time suffered a serious attack of Bell’s Palsy on the same day he learned his mother had died. This meant that “Good Ole” JR obviously needed some time off to deal with his personal tragedies, and ultimately Michael Cole was chosen as his temporary replacement.
J.R. returned to WWE a few months later and eventually resumed his position as the lead voice of the WWE. This was a start for Cole in which he gradually built up his profile calling other WWE programming on TV such as Sunday Night Heat, and eventually became the voice of Raw once again in 2008. Ross continued making occasional appearances before officially retiring/getting fired in 2013.