After Kevin Patrick stopped working with Michael Cole, he was under fire by some in WWE, but things are starting to change now.
In August of last year, it was announced that Michael Cole and Wade Barrett would be RAW commentators. Kevin Patrick and Corey Graves joined Cole on SmackDown as he continued his duties. This change occurred after Patrick and Graves had worked together for the RAW brand while Cole and Barrett were paired on SmackDown.
During the transition, it was reported that WWE had high hopes for Patrick and believed that working with Cole would help him grow as a broadcaster. As the new year began, the teams were changed to two-man booths, effectively ending Cole’s time on SmackDown.
As PWMania.com previously reported, some WWE employees were watching to see how Patrick fared on SmackDown without Cole as the lead play-by-play announcer, and the feeling was that he needed to step up if he wanted to keep the position.
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer mentioned that Patrick is no longer the lead announcer for SmackDown.
“Kevin Patrick’s gone. Yup, unless something changes. I don’t know the details; I don’t know who’s gonna be replacing him. I’m not surprised. They just did an announcer change at the start of the yeah….Corey Graves has been totally carrying the SmackDown announcing. I don’t know who they’ll bring in. It could be Vic Joseph. [WWE President] Nick Khan likes to hire sports people, but the problem is, announcing sports and announcing wrestling are very different.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
