4 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (Feb 19 - Results & Review)

DOWNS…

6. Awful Announcing

In recent days, WWE Hall-of-Famer Bully Ray called out Pat McAfee, suggesting that the new Raw color commentator was “forcing his stuff” during the program.

That was on display Monday night, as McAfee talked over Michael Cole multiple times and generally filled every second of silence. He was particularly bad when WWE turned to various celebrities in attendance, notably when UFC fighter Michael Chandler apparently removed his shirt off-camera and Pat kept calling attention to it as Cole tried to move on. Later, he yelled “Yeet!” repeatedly and shouted encouragement during Jey Uso’s quest to dethrone Gunther.

McAfee definitely has an audience, and his style must resonate with a lot of people, or else ESPN would not have plunked down as much money as they did to land him. But he certainly has become more overbearing during this run, and unless it’s leading to someone trying to silence him in storyline, it’s just something that is going to drag down Raw each week.

He did have one cute moment, as he was on the announce desk vibing with Jey Uso when Gunther shot him a death stare and he froze. Now that was actually a good moment, because it allowed Gunther to be the stone-faced heel shutting down McAfee.

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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.