Former WWE announcer Rich Brennan talks surprise release & more

Recently-released WWE announcer Rich Brennan (Rich Bocchini) says there were signs that he was being phased out of his role as interviewer and announcer, but he did not recognize it at the time.

Without getting into specifics, Rich said he’s able to look back on his time in WWE and see where changes were being made that led to his ouster.

“Sometimes you can look back and you can say the writing was on the wall for certain things. ‘Oh, I get that now. That makes sense now.’ Certain things that maybe don’t make sense at that time,” Rich told Brian Fritz for Sporting News in an interview reflecting on his career at this point.

Rich also said being moved to the Smackdown announce team in 2015 might have been too much too early in his WWE run.

“NXT was where I felt at home. Obviously, getting to call ‘Smackdown,’ I’m so thankful for that. I really am. To answer the question, there’s two sides to that. NXT was continuing to grow and I still did NXT until the end of 2015 but there are other things that go into maybe that when I look back, maybe would have been better to stay at NXT and just continue developing. I don’t know,” Rich said.

Rich says that when he was bumped from a lead announce role on Smackdown, he was told there was still a place for him as backstage interviewer. But, that did not pan out.

“I don’t really want to go too much further into it but my mantra was there’s plenty of work for everybody and that’s what I thought, what I felt. I was told certain things that for one reason or another turned out not to be the case,” Brennan said.

“I don’t necessarily know why. I don’t know. It’s part of the business. You know that going in. You know that there’s going to be politics. You know that there’s going to be things of that nature that can hurt you. You also know that going in, for whatever reason, they may change their mind about what they want. You accept that going in.”

Brennan said he has not watched wrestling in the month since he was released. He’s still a fan and would work for another organization down the road, but right now he’s evaluating his career options.

“I’ve seen how the sausage is made, right? I haven’t watched much wrestling at all since I got released. I haven’t had the desire to. I’m on a bit of a wrestling sabbatical. That said, I enjoy what it is when it’s good, when it’s done well. I enjoy the art form. There’s a lot that I enjoy about it. At heart, I’m still a fan. I still enjoy it,” Rich said.

“If there’s an opportunity to continue doing stuff in wrestling, I haven’t ruled that out. I would enjoy that in many ways. Again, it’s been a month or whatever it is since I’ve been released, a little bit more than that. I’m just kind of on a sabbatical. It’s kind of like breaking up with a girl. You don’t want to look at pictures of her. Maybe next year you can look back. If Ring of Honor called me tomorrow and said, “Do you want to come call a show?” Done. I’m there. I like Ring of Honor. Then again, for the most part, it’s kind of taking a breath.”