Smith, 43, was the host of Fight Quest and American Ninja Warrior and later joined the Bellator organization in an analyst position. Smith parted ways with Bellator at the end of 2017 and joined the UFC immediately after, which lasted for one year. He currently hosts SiriusXM’s Unlocking the Cage program.
Virk’s run as the lead voice of Raw lasted less than two months after joining the company and debuting on the April 12th episode alongside Corey Graves and Byron Saxton and finished with this past Monday’s program.
Completely unfamiliar with Jimmy Smith other than the one NXT preshow. I’m not really someone obsessed with the idea of getting more sports-like in my wrestling presentation, so if that’s how Vince feels, I’d be similar. I would have preferred they go back to something familiar that works with Phillips/Graves/Saxton. A lot of things bouncing around on that show these days…I’d rather something comfortable than yet another voice and chemistry we need to get used to. Hopefully this works.
Cant wait for Pierre McGuire’s inevitable run as lead commentator on RAW. Seems like everybody gets a chance eventually. Or what about Michael Landsberg? They could dust that guy off and throw him to the wolves for a couple weeks.
There were some minor timing issues, but for a first show, I thought Smith did really, really well. This immediately seemed a lot closer to the level where a Raw team should be. In a vacuum, the change feels like a success.
