The presentation of Byron Saxton and the Raw announce team makes no sense.
The announce team on Monday Night Raw is an absolute disaster. Michael Cole, Corey Graves, and Byron Saxton all bring something positive to the table, but their dynamic together just doesn’t play well.
We’ll start with the play-by-play man. A lot of fans have a problem with Cole. Some of that is his fault, some of it isn’t. To be fair, Cole was tasked with replacing one of the most beloved wrestling announcers of all time, Jim Ross, and that is a tough position for anybody. However, he can also be really annoying at times. He tends to be received better away from Raw and PPVs, but that doesn’t help him on Monday nights.
Next, there’s Graves, who is the best announcer in the whole company. Graves is the only think keeping this team afloat. He’s the best announcer WWE has, but that only goes so far when the chemistry isn’t there. Graves had great chemistry with Tom Phillips in NXT, but he doesn’t have the same chemistry with Cole and Saxton.
Finally, there’s Saxton. It’s hard to put Saxton’s Raw announcing career into words. He is a babyface announcer, and, honestly, he’s pretty good at it. The problem is that he is constantly undermined by his partners, and is portrayed as a nerd.
That’s an interesting choice. Saxton is the guy who backs Superstars like Bayley, and Enzo and Cass, as they come under fire from the heel Graves. Those three are so generally loved that it hasn’t hurt them, but it certainly hasn’t helped.
Another guy who hasn’t been helped by it is Roman Reigns. This is far from the biggest issue stopping Reigns from being widely accepted, but it’s all part of the way that Reigns is presented on Raw, which doesn’t hook a big part of WWE’s audience.
Contrast this with SmackDown. Mauro Ranallo, like Cole, has a tendency of being annoying. JBL plays the heel. He doesn’t do it as well as Graves, and he’s also annoying, but as a heel, he does occassionally make that work for him. Finally, SmackDown’s babyface is David Otunga, possibly the worst announcer in WWE right now.
The difference between Otunga and Saxton is their portrayal. Beyond the normal heel nature of an announcer like JBL, Otunga never gets consistently demeaned and devalued by his partners.
Fans can have a problem with Otunga, but the problem is with him, not the role WWE puts him in. Saxton has an incredibly low ceiling because WWE has put a low ceiling on him.
As a result, Saxton brings down the entire announce team. A poor announce team takes a poor episode of Raw and makes it even harder to watch.
The argument could be made that there are too many guys at the table, or the talent behind the table isn’t good enough, but the real problem is WWE’s constant desire to overcomplicate things. They are forever trying to reinvent the wheel, and they hurt themselves in the process.
Some things don’t need adjustments, and the announce team formula is one of those things. From Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura, to Ross and Jerry Lawler, the face play-by-play guy teaming with the heel color commentator is a proven tactic. WWE needs to leave some things alone.