Chris Van Vliet chatted with Jonathan Coachman for a new interview where he discussed a wide range of topics.
One of those topics was his return to the commentary desk for WWE in 2018. He joined Michael Cole and Corey Graves at the time.
Here is what he had to say:
“The mistake that I made to be brutally honest with you, I never wanted to do commentary. I had already signed my deal with Golf to be the voice of the World Long Drive tour, to do PGA TOUR events. I knew I was gonna have to miss five RAWs that first year. Do you know in my ten years when I was there full-time, I missed one, and so then in eight months I was gonna miss five. That felt like 50, and I knew Vince [McMahon] wasn’t gonna be happy with it and to be honest, I like Corey Graves as a person but I just don’t think he wanted a partner. I think now he’s better than he’s ever been because he doesn’t have to do a three-man booth. Nobody likes doing a three-man booth. It’s too many people, it’s too many guys trying to talk. I just don’t think he wanted me there and that’s okay, that’s okay because now I think he’s able to shine with just him and Michael Cole so that was the mistake I made was accepting the role they wanted me to play because Vince [McMahon], because of my days at ESPN, he didn’t want me to go back to heel Coach. That’s the Coach that I love. I love heel Coach. Heel Coach is fun. But, he didn’t want me to lose the credibility that I had gained in ten years as a SportsCenter anchor which at the time I agreed with. If I ever went back again now which highly — I would give it a two percent chance of me ever doing wrestling again, but if I did, it would have to be on my terms and doing it my way because when I was most popular there was when I was a heel and I was a character and now I feel so good about the other things that I’m doing and they know who I am, that I could do heel Coach and it would be okay.”
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