Longtime WWE Announcer JBL Stepping Away From WWE To Focus On Charity Work

There have been some huge names working as announcers for the WWE over the years. The two biggest names of the Attitude Era, Jim Ross and Jerry “The King” Lawler, are both still with the company but neither man is in a prominent role anymore. Replacing them were the team of Michael Cole and JBL, although the WWE split them up with Cole staying on Monday Night Raw and JBL working SmackDown Live.

JBL is leaving WWE commentating

With that said, JBL just announced on Twitter on Friday that his time as a WWE announcer is coming to an end. In his post, JBL stated that he has given the decision a lot of consideration and decided to step down in his weekly role as the SmackDown Live color commentator.

This came after a year of controversy where JBL was accused of backstage bullying and pushing former SmackDown Live lead commentator Mauro Ranallo out of the company. JBL denied the allegations and Mauro refused to acknowledge them.

Since that time, Ranallo came to an agreement to return to the WWE and is now working for the WWE NXT brand, while also calling the recent Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather fight on Showtime pay-per-view.

In the meantime, fans have booed JBL more and more when he came out and made appearances on SmackDown Live. It is likely that the fan reaction played no part in his decision to step down as the SmackDown Live color commentator, though, as he has lived the life of a heel throughout his WWE career.

JBL’s next career steps

JBL does not really need the WWE at this point in his life. He has become very successful financially thanks to investments and business decisions, and his wife is also independently successful as well. JBL did say that he will remain part of the WWE family and that likely means that he will keep his roles on the WWE Network shows that he takes part in as well as promotional appearances.

He also said that he will remain closely involved with Tribute to the Troops, which he helped found, as well as WrestleMania events.

However, JBL said that his main goal when it comes to freeing up time by stepping down from SmackDown Live is to focus more attention on his charitable work that he started back in 2010 for communities and at-risk kids.

JBL founded Beyond Rugby Bermuda in 2010, and he said that it was one of the top charities to work with at-risk kids as well as gang focused youth intervention. It sounds like JBL will be keeping busy and finally came to the decision that helping kids is more important at this point in his life than calling WWE action.

The WWE has not announced who will replace JBL on the SmackDown Live announcing team.

[Featured Image by WWE]