WWE lead announcer Michael Cole spoke to Sports Illustrated this week to hype Sunday’s WrestleMania 31 pay-per-view.
Cole spoke about a number of topics, including if he knows match results in advance, who is “in his ear” while he’s doing commentary, what he thinks about RAW being 3 hours and more. Here are some highlights of what he said about:
If He Knows Match Results In Advance:
“If I wanted to know, I could know everything. But I don’t want to know and especially at WrestleMania. A perfect example was last year with the Undertaker and Brock Lesnar. When Undertaker’s streak was ended by Brock, oh, my God, I was as shocked as the people sitting at the stadium that night inside the [New Orleans] Superdome. I had know no idea in a million years that was going to happen, and that was the reaction you got out of our call hopefully. I was expecting The Undertaker to kick out and I did one of my normal ‘One, two…’ and I was expecting to say kick out and all of a sudden it was three. I looked at John and he looked at me and I mouthed to him off-air, ‘Is it over?’ His eyes were big and wide and I said to myself: ‘Okay, the streak is over.’ I want those moments to happen.”
Who is in his ear during RAW:
“So this is the fun part of my job. People think I sit down in a chair and I look at the ring and say, ‘Okay there are two guys fighting and this is what they are doing’ and call the match. That is, and I swear to God, so far from the truth. I sit down and in my headset when I am calling Monday Night Raw for three hours, I have my executive producer, I hear my audio technician, I hear whoever is producing us backstage whether it is [WWE Chairman and CEO] Mr. [Vince] McMahon or Triple H or whoever it may be at the time. I also have two guys I have to listen to that I am working with so we can have a conversation on the air. So at any given time I have my voice, the two guys at ring side, audio, the executive producer and whoever is producing that night. So I sometimes have six voices in my head at once while we are on the air on live television. While that is going on, someone might say that the number one trend in the world on Twitter is this and we have to hit on it. Meanwhile, don’t forget to tell people why Paige is doing this to Nikki Bella. Then John may be telling me a joke and Booker T might be laughing and I have to keep all this going and keep the train on the tracks. I am a traffic cop.
How Hard It Is To Do 3 Hours Of RAW:
“When 11:15 p.m. ET rolls around, people have said to all of us, ‘You guys look like zombies.’ And it’s true. It is mentally exhausting. And it is physically exhausting, too. I sweat through my suit sometimes. When I am done, I get in my car to drive to the next town and I completely zone out for two or three hours. But it is also rewarding every week. I love it.”
Cole named Eddie Guerrero’s WWE Championship win over Brock Lesnar as the greatest match he’s ever called. He also said that calling Sting’s first WWE match is going to be an “absolute thrill” and declared that Paul Heyman is an “absolute genius.” Head over to SportsIllustrated.com to read the full interview.