WWE Raw: Booker T Needs to Leave The Announcer’s Desk

Booker T joined the WWE Raw commentary team in 2017. But he has quickly worn out his welcome.

Usually when I sit down to watch WWE Raw, I focus on the superstars themselves. Whether they’re having a match, or cutting a promo, these are the people I’m tuning in to see. Anyone else on the screen is just white noise – I know they’re there, but I don’t focus on them. Referees, timekeepers, stagehands, cameramen, and even the announcers are all secondary to me.

But for the past several weeks, there’s been more and more occasions where something so egregious is happening that I can’t just tune these other “characters” out. And it’s not every single person causing the problem. In fact, there’s one commentator who, more often than not, is detracting from the product he’s supposed to be enhancing. That person is Booker T.

Shortly after the Superstar Shake Up last spring, Booker T joined the Raw brand as a commentator, ostensibly in a temporary role. David Otunga was swapped over from SmackDown Live, but he was said to be filming a movie for six weeks. During that time, Booker T would fill in.

That was ten months ago. In those ten months, Otunga has been used as a pre-show panelist. Apparently, the switch to Booker T was permanent. And for the superstars on Raw, that’s a terrible thing.

As the guy who has review Raw pretty much every week for the past year (ie, the pre-Booker T Era), I can honestly say that he does more harm than good when calling a match. There are times when he’ll just take the opposite viewpoint from Corey Graves and/or Michael Cole to be contrarian. But he has no evidence to back up his claims.

Case in point: Any Jason Jordan match since the reveal that Jordan was Kurt Angle’s son. Booker just spends the entire match criticizing Jordan, despite Graves pressing for a reason. Then, when Graves agrees that Jordan goofed, Booker will turn around and tell Graves he’s wrong. Huh?

This all came to a head last night. In Raw‘s opening contest, Titus Worldwide beat The Bar in an upset. It didn’t set the world on fire, but it was a pretty good match. Towards the end, Titus O’Neil went off on Cesaro with a flurry of strikes. Booker immediately chastised O’Neil for “blowing up,” and potentially running out of gas from working too hard. In the same breath, Booker then lambasted O’Neil for letting up the attack and not staying on Cesaro. WHICH ONE IS IT, BOOKER?

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The worst part of it? Booker mentioned that at “his school,” he teaches the students not to let up. Later in the evening, Asuka put Nia Jax in an octopus stretch. Booker –a Tough Enough coach and instructor at his own wrestling school – had no idea what the hold was called. He referred to it as “that spider lock.” I guess he was going for “Black Widow,” which fine, but if your job is to literally tell the audience what they’re seeing, you should probably know the names of the moves.

I don’t know if there’s anyone who could potentially replace Booker at the moment, but someone needs to be groomed ASAP. Whether Byron Saxton pulls double duty like Graves, or Raw goes to a two-man team, or a new hire steps up somewhere along the way, Booker needs to be kept far away from the announce desk.

He doesn’t need to leave the company – let him work as a PC coach, or a brand ambassador. He’s even treased an entry in the Royal Rumble. Something that doesn’t involve destroying the commentary on a weekly basis.

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What do you think about Booker T’s commentary?