Michael Cole recently appeared as a guest on The Sal Licata Show for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling and WWE.
During the discussion, the legendary WWE play-by-play announcer spoke about his botched call at WrestleMania 37 and his memories of Brock Lesnar ending The Undertaker’s streak at WrestleMania 30.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also embedded below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
On his botched call in the Sasha Banks vs. Bianca Belair match at WrestleMania 37: “I had a massive screw-up in the WrestleMania where Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair headlined. [It was] the first time two African-American women had headlined the main event at WrestleMania. I screwed up at the finish, and I was embarrassed by it. I apologized to both of the women afterward. They understand that things happen. The fans have never to this day let me forget about it. But it is something I regretted. I’d love to have it back if I could, but it’s just one of those moments. It’s just like calling any sporting event. Sometimes there’s going to be a mistake.”
On if he had something in mind to say when Brock Lesnar ended the Undertaker’s streak at WrestleMania 30: “I know about 80% of what’s going to happen. I have to know a lot of things in order to help the audience with the story. At WrestleMania, I don’t like to know anything if I don’t have to. … The Undertaker thing, there wasn’t one person in that Superdome that thought Undertaker was going to lose. Every single person believed that he was either going to retire undefeated or if he was going to lose, he was going to lose to an up-and-coming person that he could help give the ‘rub to.’ None of us knew Brock was going to win. In fact, I think the legend goes that the actual ending of the match was changed mid-match. Anyhow, when Brock hit Taker with the F5, I believed that Taker was going to kick out. It was almost a nonchalant one, two, and I was about to say kick out when I froze. The first thing that came to mind was, ‘The Streak is over.’ In retrospect, I don’t think I could have done that any better. I don’t think there was a call that could have been done better than that. If I was screaming over the top or whatnot, it just does not have the effect because you could tell in the moment. I don’t watch back much of my stuff, but I do go back every once in a while, and it’s hard to ignore this because it’s in every single WrestleMania package we ever built. When I do listen back to that, I get chills sometimes because it was the perfect call because of the shock value. You had a guy in myself who was legitimately shocked that this happened. It was a historical moment in our business.”
