WWE News: Corey Graves comments on being reprimanded by Vince McMahon while on camera
What's the story?
Corey Graves recently spoke to Sean Mooney on the latter's "Prime Time" podcast on how he feels having Vince McMahon in his ear during live TV and how he manages it.
In case you didn't know...
Corey Graves started serving as a heel commentator alongside Micheal Cole and Byron Saxton on Raw following the 2016 WWE Draft. In September 2017, he joined SmackDown's commentary team after the departure of JBL, making him the only commentator to be part of both the main roster's brands.
The heart of the matter...
Talking about Vince McMahon, Corey said,
The first time he reprimanded me for anything, I was on camera. It's different when you're not on camera, you can kinda play it naturally and acknowledge it. But when you're staring at the lights, and all of a sudden Vince is yelling at you in your ear, it's like really hard to keep your composure and keep your train of thought, and I'm pretty sure when it happened, I just locked up in the middle of a sentence, because it was like 'oh no, I'm dead! What's happening?'
He also felt that Vince was now comfortable with him considering he had worked long enough and had earned his trust to do his own thing. Corey admitted that it was difficult getting used to it initially, but now he has adapted to it.
Talking about the success of NXT and its early days, he added that many indie wrestlers like Tyler Black, Seth Rollins, and Jon Moxley enhanced the product in the early days because people knew about them from different promotions.
We had something that was ours, and at that point, I think the focus no longer even became 'Hey, we're gonna go to Raw and SmackDown', it was 'We're making NXT. This is ours!' All the way up through those first Takeover and Arrival and; when those first started happening, I think it was so organic, because it was real to us.
What's Next?
Corey Graves has been a regular on WWE TV since his appointment and has been getting a lot of compliments from the backstage staff and fans for his work and style of commentary.