10 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE Extreme Rules 2019

4. Muzzle Graves

Becky Lynch Seth Rollins
WWE.com

The more the announcers talk, the more this writer is tempted to just mute the play-by-play and just watch the PPV in silence. Sure, you might miss a key plot point, but is anyone else really listening for that amongst all the sniping and chirping for four hours?

Corey Graves has reached intolerable levels with this. He seemingly had a new-age Bobby Heenan role down perfectly when he was in NXT and was first called up to WWE, but that has morphed into an argumentative, sniping hypocrite (the character), who spends more time verbally battling the other commentators than actually calling the match.

It doesn’t add to the event – in fact, quite the opposite. Graves spends most of his time arguing with Renee Young and Byron Saxton in unconvincing fashion, which does nothing to put the product over. Even when that seems to be the goal, it falls short.

During the main event, Corey kept prattling on about Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch’s relationship and how it would be their downfall, and blah, blah, blah. Yes, Graves clearly is getting his marching orders for what to focus on, but we still have to hold the show accountable.

If the announcers stopped talking 30%, it would make a tremendous difference. Any chance we could make this happen?

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.