WWE Announcer Future Endeavored

[Jack-Hammer]

According to PWInsider.com, WWE commentator/announcer Josh Matthews has been released by the company sometime within the past 24 hours. His profile's already been removed from the roster page and has been placed in the alumni section. Matthews has been involved with the company since the original season of Tough Enough. Ironically, the show's debut episode hit the air approximately 13 years ago this past Saturday.

I'm more than a tad surprised by this. I figured if WWE was gonna release an announcer, it'd be someone like Todd Phillips, Byron Saxton or Scott Stanford rather than somebody that's been there for well over a decade.

 

[Y 2 Jake]

Yeah, Matthews seemed like somebody who'd have a job for life. And WWE certainly have worse. I always admired Matthews enthusiasm and I thought he was perfectly acceptable by todays standards.

That said, it's Josh Matthews. I'm confident we'll all be able to move on.

 

[Tyrant25]

I can't say I'm surprised. I can say that it's a shame Matthews was released, because now WWE doesn't a backstage ring announcer that can take bumps.

 

[KitsuneDreamer]

It's not earth shattering, but I didn't see this one coming.

I always liked Josh, and thought he had this job forever. I liked what he did,his delivery, and thought he was great on the post and pre show discussions and roundtables.

How the hell does Scott Stanford stay over him? Must be his connections with Zack Ryder, lol.

Good Luck in your new endeavors I guess.

 

[HeenanGorilla]

All this guy did was introduce someone, hold the mic and then stare off into the distance as they walked away...such a stupid thing that all of these backstage idiots do. See ya!

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

Josh Mathews....RELEASED? Say it isn't so! Pffft...

I'm not devastated by the news, I am not thrilled by it either. However, I was never a fan, and the bland, vanilla appearance of him is what makes me long for the days of varied personalities like Bobby Heenan, Jesse Ventura, Gorilla Monsoon, Gordon Solie, and the pre-evil owner Vince McMahon.

I won't lose sleep over this dead weight being cut from WWE's announcing team. Sadly though, he's an interchangeable part like the rest of the bland, vanilla announce team. WWE's main product is all cookie cutter blandness and that disappoints me. If only they treated their main shows like NXT with the brilliant insight and charisma that someone like William Regal espouses.

All in all, no huge loss here. Plain and simple.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

I liked Josh Matthews. He seemed like the kind of guy that could work any type of announcing role and not be dull as fuck about it. There are plenty of others in his position that deserved the boot more than him at least from an outsider's perspective. His work on Are You Serious? was great, and he had more staying power than Cole I thought.

Little bit surprised he's gone. Least we can gawk at Renee Young more now.

 

[PeterSellersSTL]

not happy about this, I thought he shined on pre-show panels. You wanna save money, trim the number of ppv's down to 8 and fire fuckboy buckethead

 

[WarroBODFan]

I can't say I'm surprised. I can say that it's a shame Matthews was released, because now WWE doesn't a backstage ring announcer that can take bumps.

Byron Saxton? He was signed to a developmental WWE contract as a wrestler initially.

not happy about this, I thought he shined on pre-show panels. You wanna save money, trim the number of ppv's down to 8 and fire fuckboy buckethead

Someone's been watching Bruce Blitz.

Anyway, it's a shame for Josh Mathews, but without trying to sound like an asshole, it won't even be noticeable for us as WWE fans. I quite like Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton though, maybe they'll take on more prominent roles now. Good luck to Mathews though, I read he's going to commentate for Booker T's ROW promotion.

 

[PeterSellersSTL]

if they move Renee to the panels I'll manage. Not really a big fan of Phillips or Saxton.

 

[~Heup©~]

Soo? What happened with Josh? Did he want out or was it a future endeavor thing? I thought he was doing well but maybe I'm blind? I kinda liked the guy. He was very humble and even as a face commentator he was generally neutral. Just confused I guess. Anyone know anything about this?

I see my topic was moved to this thread, thank you as I honestly missed this thread prior to starting mine. Sorry guys.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I'm legitimately shocked to find out about this. Matthews is one of the best announcers they had and I expected him to take over for Cole one day as the main announcer. Why would they get rid of him? Did he make too many speaking mistakes on the live talk shows after Raw or something? Who is going to take over as host of the talk show panel with Riley and Booker now? Riley will probably take over as the main host of the talk show panel, but it will be interesting to see who steps up to replace Matthews. He will be missed. I liked him a lot more than most of the other announcers.

 

[Viola Moonlight]

Don't want to knock on Josh Matthews but they made a good call to release him. He wasn't really doing much with himself for a while. He had his run as a commentator but with Tom Philips hanging around, he won't be needed as play-by-play and they've got enough (good) colour commentators as it is... and with Renee Young also in the company, every other position Matthews could fulfil she can do at a much better rate.

Sorry for him to lose his job but the other announcers were stepping up and he was casually cruising along.

 

[Softcore Holly]

I've always liked Josh, he has that sense of constant professionalism while putting on the emotion when the match called for it, unlike SOME announcers that seem to have no trouble finding stupid crap to talk about instead of what's going on in the ring. The current Raw team will most likely be there until one or more of them retires, but I would've been more than happy with Josh and Regal on SD.

I also loved Josh's story on how he was in a competition for a wrestling contract, lost yet ended up staying in the WWE far longer than any of his competitors including the winners. Talk about making the best out of something. But with so many other guys getting the axe it makes sense that at least 1 announcer would be given the pink slip, (they do seem to be accumulating quite a bit of them back there) especially they mainly just use Jerry/Cole/JBL most of the time.

 

[Cena Is A Punk Rocker]

Is it possible that he got an ESPN/Fox or some other mainstream sports gig? Coach and Grisham got ESPN jobs. It's not outside the realm of possibility he got hired on by one of the big sports networks.