WWE Monday Night RAW commentator Jimmy Smith recently appeared on the “Unlocking The Cage” podcast to talk about the events that led to him being called in to audition for a broadcast position in the WWE and eventually led to him being signed to the company.
Jimmy Smith said:
“An executive that I worked with at Spike TV when I was in my Bellator days moved to WWE like 7 or 8 years ago.”
“While I was in Bellator, this guy, who I got along with really well, a great guy, went from Viacom Spike to WWE. The WWE was reloading talent. They just signed the Peacock deal, they had all these shows they were doing, and they wanted to make sure they had enough on air talent to handle all their demand. So I got a call from Michael Cole who said, “Hi. This is Michael Cole from WWE. So-and-so who you worked with at Bellator gave me your information. He said you are a very good broadcaster. Can you come in and audition?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’, and the rest is history. I did my audition and here I am, the voice of Monday Night RAW every week.”
Jimmy Smith also talked about how he believes the WWE will never partner up or cross-promote an event with AEW because a bigger promotion will not want to partner up with a smaller promotion as they have more to lose and it implies that the WWE is on the same level as AEW.
Jimmy Smith said:
“Here is the rule of thumb. The smaller promotion doesn’t hesitate to cross promote because they have less to lose. If Kayla Harrison loses to Cyborg, okay, fine, Cyborg is the bigger name anyway. If Cyborg loses to Kayla Harrison, there is the implication that, ‘Hey, maybe PFL is just better than Bellator.’ It’s always better to shoot up and miss then shoot down and hit. If you’re the UFC and WWE, you’re the top dogs. You have no reason to bring up another product and make them look like they are on your product’s level.”
“If so and so from AEW, and I don’t know because I don’t have time to watch AEW, but if somebody came up from AEW and it was WWE vs AEW, what you’re implying is they are on the same level. This champion from AEW, whoever it is, I know CM Punk is the champion right now so lets say CM Punk gets in there against Roman Reigns, what you’re saying is this guy is on Roman Reigns’ level, and the WWE will never, ever do that, and why should they? UFC is never going to do that with anybody at any other level. Will we see more of it? Yes. Is WWE and UFC worried about it? No, they are not.”
You can check out Jimmy Smith's full comments at this link. H/T to WrestlingNews.co for transcribing the above quotes.
