Corey Graves Not Fired By WWE Yet

Corey Graves has caused a stir with his online comments that many in WWE believe to be very real and his future now hangs in the balance.

On January 13, Corey Graves publicly called out WWE for dropping him from SmackDown. After appearing on the blue brand on January 3rd, Graves appeared on NXT four days later but was missing from the most recent edition of Smackdown.

In the rant, Graves said he was no longer famous enough to do his own job, seemingly in response to Joe Tessitore and Wade Barrett becoming the commentary team on SmackDown with Michael Cole and Pat McAfee being installed on Raw.

In a follow-up, Graves said he “had a lot to say” on the January 14th edition of NXT, but the company had other ideas. Corey Graves was pulled from NXT and didn’t appear on the show and now his future in WWE seems to be up in the air despite him since deleting his Tweets.

Many In WWE Believe Corey Graves Situation Is Not An Angle

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that everything he’s heard points to Corey Graves’ situation being real but noted that he’s not been fired by WWE despite his abrupt removal from NXT:

Everyone I’ve talked to in WWE says it’s not an angle. He hasn’t been fired yet, he wasn’t on the show. He took down his Tweets. The fact he took down his Tweets says he either had a change of heart or they may have told him ‘You better take down your Tweets or else’ and he didn’t want the ‘or else.’

Meltzer then gave more insight into the origins of Graves’ apparent unhappiness and it seems it may have begun to stir several months ago:

I’m gonna say this is September-ish, maybe October when they made the announcement of the announcer changes and Pat McAfee coming back and everything. So basically, Michael Cole was moved to SmackDown but it was only gonna be temporary and Joe Tessitore was starting with Raw and we were told it was only temporary and he’d move to SmackDown. At the time I was told that the Raw announce team in January would be Michael Cole and Pat McAfee and the SmackDown team would be Corey Graves and Joe Tessitore.

Then I’m gonna say, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I asked ‘Is it Joe Tessitore and Corey Graves that are going to be the hosts of SmackDown’ since that’s what I’d been told. The answer was to be determined, it’s not determined. I guess it was a couple of weeks ago that Wade Barrett was going to replace him on that show and [Graves] wasn’t happy.

I don’t know if he got the word that in January he was gonna start in NXT, I don’t know the situation. I just know that’s when he found out he wasn’t going to be on SmackDown as he presumed he would be and he was genuinely unhappy. Now why you would go on Twitter and do all this, I can’t answer that question. There are people there who think he was trying to get fired and that’s why he did it.

If he was trying to get fired they probably aren’t gonna fire him. I don’t think they want him going to AEW if they give him a release.

If you use any quotes from this article please credit original source and then h/t with a link back to TJR Wrestling for the transcription.