WWE Makes Changes To Announce Teams

The move of Smackdown to Thursday nights starting on January 15th means some changes to WWE's broadcast teams. It was announced on WWE.com that both the Raw and Smackdown teams will be changing. The new Raw announce team will be Michael Cole as the lead play by play guy with John Bradshaw Layfield and WWE Hall of Famer Booker T as the analysts. This past week, Booker filled in for Jerry Lawler and apparently management liked what they heard because they have made them the permanent team. It's a promotion for Booker, who was doing commentary on the pre-show although he was a commentator on Smackdown a few years ago. Cole and JBL are in the same positions they were in before. Smackdown's announce team will be Michael Cole, Byron Saxton and WWE Hall of Famer Jerry "The King" Lawler. It's a promotion for Saxton, who has done commentary work on Main Event, Superstars and NXT. Cole keeps his spot while JBL is off and Tom Phillips is also removed. It was August 2014 when WWE moved Phillips to the spot as Smackdown's main announcer. What made them change their mind after only four months? No idea, but he's likely going to be a backstage interviewer. For the 12 annual PPV broadcasts, the former Raw trio of Cole, JBL and Lawler will handle those broadcasts. That could change at any time although that's the plan for now. It's an interesting change for Lawler, who is 65 years old. He is removed from his position on Raw that he has held for the majority of the last 21 years. Aside from leaving the company for most of 2001 and his heart attack in 2012, Lawler has been a part of Raw's broadcast team since 1994. There have been jokes for many years that Lawler never watched Smackdown, so at least now he'll be forced to since he'll be there. This could be WWE's way of phasing him out of things because he will likely retire within the next year or two due to his age. The moves mean that Cole is the only announcer on both of the main shows. He truly is the "voice of WWE" and if you are sick of him or want him to go away, that's too bad. He's going to be locked in that spot for a while. Cole started in WWE in 1997. He's 46 years old and likely going to be the main commentator in WWE perhaps for another decade to come. It's nice to see WWE making some changes leading up to Smackdown's move back to Thursday nights. Perhaps we'll see more changes next week.