PARKS’S TAKE: What’s going on with Corey Graves and what could the fallout be from here?

Work or shoot?

That seems to be the question right now surrounding the Corey Graves situation in WWE. Graves, the former color commentator for Monday Night Raw, has been “demoted” to NXT for the time being – not for performance issues, but to make room for celebrity-at-large Pat McAfee. Graves took to social media to share his disappointment in the move (the posts have since been deleted), and reports surfaced Tuesday that he was no longer planned for that night’s NXT after promising, again on social media, to have some interesting things to say on the broadcast.

The prevailing wisdom seems to be “shoot” at this point, with the possibility that it’ll eventually be turned into a work. The theory that this was a work from the jump doesn’t make a lot of sense – what’s the end game? Graves getting back in the ring, perhaps at the Royal Rumble? It seems a long way to go for a one-off match by an announcer, but WWE hasn’t been above using social media to run angles in the past.

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Graves has a history of going on social media to either air grievances or to make pointed comments, so this isn’t exactly out of character for him. What’s perhaps most interesting about this situation is it’s one of if not the first examples of unrest backstage that will have to be addressed by Triple H. WWE’s locker room has been largely peaceful since the transition from Vince McMahon to Paul Levesque. There will be a lot of eyes, both inside the company and out, to see how he diffuses this situation.

Graves is an important part of the broadcast team and he’ll likely be called upon again to step in when McAfee departs for football season, if not sooner. As we’ve learned over the years, there are a finite number of people who can do that job and do it well. WWE and Levesque would be wise to hang on to Graves, though it does seem like it’ll take a little work to get everyone back on the same page.