Jimmy Smith replaced Adnan Virk, who parted ways with WWE after less than two months as the lead WWE Raw announcer.
Corey Graves talked about building chemistry with the former Bellator commentator during a recent interview with Dallas Morning News.
“I’ve been riding in cars from town to town, when available, with Jimmy just to chat, just to kind of get to know each other and it takes time to develop chemistry. Especially with our job, and Michael Cole and I have worked together so long and so many times that we can finish each other’s sentences effortlessly. We don’t even have to think, or, I know exactly where he’s going, or if I stumble over my words, he knows where I wanted to go and that takes time, sometimes years to develop. And it’s still a work in progress with Jimmy.”
Graves credited Bryon Saxton for being the key member of the Raw announce team.
“Byron is always just reliable,” Graves said. “Byron is always there if you needed something, he’s a failsafe and I mean that in the best possible way. Byron is just kind of, you can count on him to be where he needs to be, to say what he needs to say what needs to be said and it’s all a work in progress, man. And Jimmy’s still learning. I’m learning.
“I’ve had to carry more weight than I used to. I’m ordinarily a color guy. I make jokes and tell stories and I find myself doing more of the traffic and throwing to packagers and a lot of things to sort of help Jimmy sort of ease into this, this new role. So I think it’s really forced all of us to step our game up.”