To say that Mauro Ranallo has had a roller coaster ride of a year would be a bit of an understatement. Ranallo began the year as the lead announcer for Smackdown Live, then abruptly left the company shortly before WrestleMania 33. Although his contract ran through August, pretty much no one expected he would be back. Rumors began swirling about bullying by Ranallo’s broadcast partner JBL, and a lot of JBL’s past history of bullying was brought back into the public eye.
Ranallo began taking MMA and boxing announce jobs, saying that although he could not call competing wrestling companies’ matches, he was free to announce the other sports. And then he was announced as being the play-by-play man for what will almost certainly be the biggest pay-per-view event ever, the Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather boxing superfight.
And THEN, just last week, we found out that Ranallo would indeed be returning to WWE, and will be the new lead play-by-play announcer on NXT. He made his return at Friday’s NXT tapings (spoilers therein), and will be off to the races.
In an interview with AP, Ranallo wouldn’t elaborate on why exactly he left WWE in the first place, but intimated that something happened that was so untenable, he was willing to give up a dream job.
“I was willing to walk away from my dream job, let’s leave it at that,” Ranallo said. “In order for me to do that, I had to be true to my convictions and what makes you a human being.”
And in a new exclusive interview with his employer, Ranallo said that while he was willing to give up a dream job and willfully gave up a chance of having a WrestleMania moment for himself this year, calling McGregor vs. Mayweather will be his own personal WrestleMania moment.
While the live crowd at Mayweather-McGregor won’t come anywhere near the size, scope, or spectacle of WrestleMania, it’s possible that wayyyyyyyy more people will be watching that superfight than watched Mania. Congratulations to Ranallo who, much like Hannah Montana, gets to live the best of both worlds.
