Corey Graves: From an outside perspective, a lot of people think they can do my job

Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2021/11/02/corey-graves-from-an-outside-perspective-a-lot-of-people-think-they-can-do-my-job/

Corey Graves gives his thoughts on some of the criticism his work receives via social media.

Current Monday Night Raw commentator Corey Graves has been a color commentator for WWE for nearly eight years. He’s been on the call for NXT, 205 Live, NXT UK, Raw, SmackDown and is a co-host of WWE’s After The Bell podcast.

Graves recently chatted with Ryan Satin on the Out of Character show and they dove into some of the negative comments about Graves’ work on commentary via social media. He explained that his role is more layered than just talking about wrestling and being a fan of the sport. Graves added that a lot of people have the idea that they can do his job.

But I think particularly for me, the issue that I have is from an outside perspective, a lot of people think they can do my job. My job is to be the snarky, smart aleck bad guy who talks about wrestling, who acts like an expert and acts like I know better than everybody else so a lot of people at home don’t realize that yes, just as much as anybody else on TV, I’m portraying a character. It’s me with the volume cranked up but people go, ‘Oh, I could be a sports commentator, I could do this, I could do that.’ Do you know why there’s only one Joe Buck? Because he’s the best, because people can’t do what Joe Buck does, you know what I mean? Across the board, there’s a lot more that goes into our jobs sitting at ringside than just talking about wrestling and being wrestling fans.

Corey was present on the 11/1 Raw and to get a recap of that show, check out the latest Rewind-A-Raw episode.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit ‘Out of Character’ with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.

Another reason nobody else can be Joe Buck is because his father is legendary sports broadcaster Jack Buck. I like Joe Buck and I’m sure he’s worked his ass off to get where he is, but it’s no secret that 95% of sports broadcasters are either former athletes (colour commentators) or products of nepotism (play by play). Not sure Joe Buck is a great example of pulling oneself up by their bootstraps.

Yeah The argument here is stupid. It’s not that nobody can do what Joe buck can do, it’s just that a lot of people wouldn’t be given that opportunity. This isn’t like an athletic talent where you can compete and they select the best. A lot of these positions are by nepotism or because you are an ex player. It’s not like other people would lack the ability to do this if given the proper opportunity.

Have to think that his selection of Buck is intentional here. He knows it’ll piss people off.

ETA: My favourite Graves quip came when Elias was still doing the drifter gimmick on NXT. Graves was questioning his authenticity, saying “My contacts in the drifter community have never heard of this guy.”