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WWE Monday Night Raw announcer, Jimmy Smith, says he doesn’t know what the executive culture is at WWE, but that the investigation into Vince McMahon will detail that environment.
On Smith’s Unlocking the Cage show, he opened up on the McMahon investigation and detailed what he thought would eventually be revealed, as well as what his relationship with Vince McMahon is like.
“There are two places you can be in a production meeting: you can sit next to Vince McMahon, or you can sit across from Vince McMahon,” Smith said. “I am one of the people that sits across from Vince McMahon. All the producers, the commentators, we all sit on one side and they go over the matches. People are sitting next to Vince and people are sitting across from Vince. What is going to get investigated over the next couple of months is the culture and communication between the people who sit next to Vince McMahon. That is what is going to get looked at. Why? A culture is hard to hide. You can hide an act. You can do something, you make a mistake and you can make amends for that mistake and all these things, you can do that. It’s what is going on communication-wise behind the scenes, that’s what this investigation is going to be looking at. They’re going to be looking at the executive culture of the WWE. The good news from my perspective is I have spent five minutes total talking to any executive of WWE. They don’t have any reason to talk to me.
“It’s all about the nuts and bolts of the show,”Smith said of his relationship with McMahon. “It’s never, ‘Hey, let’s hang out and get something to eat.’ Doesn’t work that way folks. I never did that with anybody, not Dana White, not Scott Coker. There’s a real line in sports and sports entertainment to the people sitting at the top, the executives, and the people doing their job in a particular place.”
Vince McMahon stepped aside as WWE CEO last week due to misconduct allegations that surfaced regarding hush money payments to a WWE employee over an alleged affair.
Jimmy Smith joined the WWE as a Raw commentator in April of 2021. He has considerable experience on various MMA announce teams including UFC and Bellator.
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Ahh Jimmy… Vince owns the majority stock and 3/12 board members are him, Steph and HHH. Nothing is going to happen in spite of the wrestling websites wanting it to. But Jimmy… you just went into coveryerarse mode on Vince… I wonder who the next lead announcer for Raw will be in 6 months.