There are plenty of changes coming to WWE right now, and it seems as if not everyone is going to necessarily benefit from them. NXT has landed on network television and SmackDown is jumping to Friday nights on FOX. At the same time, the next Superstar Draft is taking place in just a couple of weeks and moving everyone around. Unfortunately for some of the talent in WWE, they aren’t all ending up where they may have expected.
As reported by The Inquisitr earlier on Thursday, WWE announced some huge happenings for their “Premiere Week.” There will be at least eight hours of TV programming for fans to enjoy as the new year kicks off, but there was some other big news as well.
WWE has now confirmed that the announce teams for Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown are changing. NXT will keep its current team, but here are the new teams for the red and blue brands:
- Raw : Vic Joseph, Dio Maddin, Jerry “The King” Lawler
- SmackDown : Michael Cole, Corey Graves, Renee Young
Friday nights will have the veteran team from the red brand, but Mondays will have an entirely new look all around. Some fans will also have noticed that Tom Phillips is nowhere to be found. Fightful has learned that he’s been taken off of television.
I’ve heard that as of right now Tom Phillips will be doing some “producing.” That term is very broad and vague in WWE
— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) September 26, 2019
So, it appears as if Phillips has not only been taken off of the announce team for SmackDown , but off of television entirely. He will be moved into the role of producer, but it’s not completely clear as to what that will entail with a company like WWE.
Phillips has served as the lead play-by-play announcer for SmackDown Live for quite a while now, and it is shocking to see him gone.
He started out as a backstage interviewer in WWE before moving up and commentating for 205 Live , NXT , occasionally Raw , and SmackDown . It’s not known if this is going to be a permanent move, but with the new teams being revealed by WWE, it doesn’t appear as if Phillips will be back on one of the major brands anytime soon.
There have been reports that 205 Live will be moving to Friday nights and airing after Friday Night SmackDown . It wouldn’t be out of the question for Tom Phillips to end up as the announcer for that show again, but only time will tell. For now, he is totally off of WWE television and moved on to do some “producing” after years on the screen.
