Before Corey Graves became one of WWE’s top commentators, he was a rising star in the ring. The 38-year-old announced his retirement in 2014 due to multiple concussions, but it would not be surprising to see him in the ring at some point in the foreseeable future. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Graves talked about getting back in the ring and teaming up with his wife Carmella.
“I’ve recently started working with the NXT talent on helping develop characters and things of that nature, and I’ve really enjoyed it thus far,” Graves exclusively told PopCulture. “So I’m really looking forward to working with NXT a lot more as the year progresses. I’d like to remind everybody one more time that I have been cleared to compete and I can’t think of a better scenario for me to step back in the ring than alongside my beautiful wife.”
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Graves signed with WWE in 2011 and started at the developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling. The promotion was then rebranded to NXT, and Graves would win the NXT Tag Team Championship with Adrian Neville. Graves announced his retirement in late 2014 and was then offered a contract to be a commentator. From there, Graves worked his way up and is now a commentator on WWE Raw with Kevin Patrick. Graves and Patrick got to be part of history recently as they worked Raw’s 30th-anniversary show.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the grind because WWE is this never-ending machine, and it’s always onto the next, onto the next town, next show next,” Graves stated. “But I actually took a few minutes in the afternoon at Raw 30. I was chatting with the Street Prophets about how sort of overwhelming it was when able to step back and realize, to your point, I remember watching the first episode of Monday Night Raw. I was obsessed with it such that I decided to follow it as a dream and make it my career in some capacity. Here we are 30 years down the line, and I am one of the voices of Monday Night Raw in a chair that many of my heroes have sat before. It’s something that’s easy to get lost in. You forget the magnitude of that moment, but I was sure to take a few minutes to sort of appreciate just the journey to get to that point.”
