Report: Hosts for WWE Show on Fox Sports 1, WWE Announce Team Update, “Smackdown’s Greatest Hits” Special on Fox
There are a few news items concerning WWE’s announcers and the move to Fox in October.
* A new WWE show is coming to Fox Sports 1 on Tuesday nights. This has been known since April when Triple H talked about it on First Things First. Ever since it was announced, there were rumors that Fox wanted Renee Young to be the host of the show, which will take place in a Los Angeles studio. Wrestlevotes tweeted about the co-host with Young.
Source confirms a new, weekly studio show will begin in October on FS1. It will be live from Los Angeles, every Tuesday night hosted by Renee Young & Booker T.
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) September 14, 2019
Booker is a good choice because he has a lot of credibility as a two-time WWE Hall of Famer and he’s got strong opinons on everything that happens in WWE. If Young isn’t at Raw every week then it’s a short flight from her Las Vegas home to Los Angeles. Booker T would be flying from Houston to LA every week.
As for a name for the Fox Sports 1 studio show, that hasn’t been announced. Since the first episode will likely take place on Tuesday, October 1, we should learn more about it soon.
* Earlier this week, we reported on a Wrestlevotes story that Michael Cole will be the play by play announcer on Smackdown while Vic Joseph will handle play by play on Raw. Corey Graves tweeted after that saying he was retiring…and then said he was retiring a jacket that he wore. Wrestlevotes had an actual update on Graves and information on what show he will be on.
Relaxing everyone, Corey Graves is not retiring. However, the plan as of this Tuesday was that he is moving to SmackDown on FOX along with Michael Cole. And he will only appear on SD. No more double duty for Graves.
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) September 12, 2019
The first report from Wrestlevotes claimed that WWE would be going with a two-person announce team, so the expectation is that it would just be Cole and Graves. Perhaps Renee Young will be there too if WWE wants a three-person team.
There’s no word on who the announcing partner will be for Vic Joseph on Raw. It could be Byron Saxton, who has been on Smackdown for the last three years, but there are a lot of possibilities out there. We also don’t know what’s going to happen to Tom Phillips, who has been Smackdown’s main announcer for over two years.
* There will be a “Smackdown’s Greatest Hits” special that will air on Fox on Friday, September 27 at 8pmET with a one hour run time, according to PWInsider.
There are only two more episodes of Smackdown on USA Network, which will be September 17 and September 24. In the first week of October, Smackdown moves to Fox on October 4 with a 20 Year Anniversary Special from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.