WWE Rumors: Backstage Update On Mauro Ranallo’s Availability For This Week’s ‘NXT,’ Per ‘Post Wrestling’
The latest update on Mauro Ranallo following his alleged issues with fellow announcer Corey Graves suggests that he will remain absent on Wednesday night’s episode of NXT, despite earlier claims that he would be available.
In a story published Tuesday night, Post Wrestling‘s John Pollock wrote that Ranallo will not be reporting to Full Sail University in Florida to call this week’s episode of NXT. While the circumstances behind this move remain unclear, Pollock added that there has been recent “communication” between Ranallo and WWE officials, who reportedly decided that it would be best if the announcer doesn’t return to work just yet after missing Sunday’s Survivor Series pay-per-view.
As recalled by Post Wrestling, Ranallo was originally scheduled to appear at Survivor Series to call several matches but didn’t show up. During the event’s broadcast, veteran announcer Michael Cole explained that Ranallo had “blown out his voice” after calling NXT TakeOver: WarGames the night before, adding that his colleague would be returning on the following Wednesday’s episode of NXT. The outlet pointed out that this was merely a “cover reason for the real story,” which is purportedly related to a pair of tweets from Graves that were seen as being critical of Ranallo’s commentary at TakeOver: WarGames.
Per The Inquisitr, the tweets in question included one where Graves seemed to accuse Ranallo of overshadowing the rest of the announce team, particularly WWE Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix and former Ring of Honor World Champion Nigel McGuinness. Later on, Graves replied to a post from one of his followers, noting that the NXT lead announcer made “far too many” references to the Chicago hip-hop scene while calling TakeOver: WarGames on Saturday night. Shortly after those posts, Ranallo deleted his Twitter account.
While Ranallo has yet to publicly comment on the situation, this isn’t the first time that he has taken time off from WWE programming due to alleged acts of bullying from his colleagues. Originally hired by WWE in 2016 and assigned to the SmackDown announce team, Ranallo missed several episodes of the blue brand’s weekly show early in 2017. As previously noted by Forbes, his extended absence came amid allegations that he was regularly being picked on by color commentator John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL). After briefly parting ways with WWE, Ranallo returned to the promotion in June of that year as part of the NXT announce team.
As of this writing, it’s unclear who will be replacing Ranallo, if he will indeed miss NXT as reported.
