Mauro Ranallo Addresses His WWE SmackDown Live Departure

While promoting his upcoming documentary on Showtime, Mauro Ranallo spoke with Ariel Helwani of The MMA Hour about his departure as the lead announcer of WWE SmackDown Live. Here is what he had to say (H/T to Pro Wrestling Sheet for the transcribed quotes):

“I was on the road every week. You add MMA and boxing and kickboxing to it. The road travel destroyed me. So, rumors and all this other stuff, what happened, honestly — and Ariel, you know how honest I’ve been in this thing — I had a breakdown in the Chicago O’Hare airport on my way to Pittsburgh to do SmackDown Live. And again, Frank Shamrock … God bless him … Bas Rutten, man. Guys who fought each other are my biggest supporters. But, I had to phone them and I said ‘I’m done. I cannot do this anymore. It’s going to kill me.’ And I thought I was done with the entire company.”

“As much as there’s two sides to every story, the actual truth from me was my mental health wasn’t going to allow me to maintain that schedule much longer.”