Mauro Ranallo announced via Instagram that he will be back on WWE Television to join Nigel McGuiness on NXT as part of their announce team as the lead commentator. Ranallo was said to have parted ways with WWE even though his contract was supposedly valid until August 12.
As a veteran of combat-sport broadcasting, Ranallo has announced thousands of mixed martial arts, boxing and sports-entertainment matches in a 30-year career. This August, he will call the blockbuster boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and MMA icon Conor McGregor. He is considered by many fans as the best play by play WWE commentator.
Ranallo signed with WWE in late 2015 and quickly became “The Voice of SmackDown”. He shared the Blue announce table with Jerry Lawler, Byron Saxton, Michael Cole, Tom Phillips, David Otunga, and John “Bradshaw” Layfield. Ranallo also commentated in 2016 the Cruiserweight Classic tournament alongside Daniel Bryan. Ranallo then commentated WWE 205 Live show alongside Austin Aries and Corey Graves.
Ranallo was absent from WWE commentary since March 2017 episode of SmackDown Live. Reasons quoted by WWE to explain his absence was travel issues or depression, as Ranallo has been suffering from bipolar disorder since the age of 19. But even if Ranallo never acknowledged it, the reason of him missing SmackDown Live was related to the fact he was bullied by fellow commentator JBL.
Rumors started to spread in April that Ranallo was not expected to come back to WWE as every mention of him were removed from WWE social media websites. Fans on Twitter asked for JBL to be fired and even cancelled their WWE Network subscriptions in protest. It was finally reported later the same month that Ranallo and WWE “mutually agreed to part ways”, and Ranallo released a statement in which he said his departure had “nothing to do with JBL”.
Triple H answered to Ranallo’s announcement this way: “mauroranallo and WWENXT… #LikeAGlove #MegaPowers #WeAreNXT”. The dry tone of the message lets think that even if the story seems to end the good way, the ghost of the JBL story is not set to disappear quickly…