Now everybody knows that Mauro Ranallo is done with the WWE and that he is officially going to leave the company on August 12th when his deal expires. Until then, he is going to work for other non-wrestling promotions as an announcer waiting for his contract with WWE to expire. That means that he is going to have to wait for a couple of months before he calls another wrestling match.
Many people believe that things that happened between Ranallo and JBL were the main reason for Mauro not being on Smackdown Live a couple of weeks before Wrestlemania. What seemed like a one-time hiatus from this guy turned into him never coming back.
When Ranallo was hired last year, it was to give a Smackdown Live a different feel than Monday Night Raw. There is no doubt that Mauro has a different style than WWE’s lead commentator Michael Cole. But, just a couple months later, Vince McMahon wanted for Ranallo to be more like Cole, which was something that the main guy in the commentator booth on the blue brand couldn’t do.
The chairman of the WWE became a bit frustrated with Ranallo as he wasn’t able to do what he wanted. The first public sign of that frustration was adding Tom Phillips to the commentating booth on Tuesday nights in order to have a few lines that Vince McMahon wanted to be thrown into the mix on Smackdown Live.
There is no doubt that Mauro really wasn’t the kind of commentator that WWE wanted. Michael Cole sounds scripted on Monday Night Raw, and that is just not Ranallo’s style. JBL incident was just something that was the last straw. The company was getting ready to put Phillips in the position that Mauro was in as he is more their kind of a guy. If this thing with JBL didn’t happen, it’s hard to imagine WWE re-signing Ranallo.
