The WWE is in the midst of its biggest change in years and even though the draft is over and the superstars have been allocated to their specific brands the company continues to make changes to ensure that each brand feels new and fresh to what it did before, with the latest coming in the form of alterations to the announcing teams.
Raw
One of the WWE fans major complaints regarding the flagship show in recent years has tended to be based around the commentary team, with the WWE Universe, believing it to be stale with the trio spending more time bickering and making references to other things than actually talking about the wrestling.
Well with the 'New Era' being ushered in the WWE has decided to change their announce teams and Monday Night Raw will see a slightly different team starting next week. Michael Cole and Byron Saxton will continue on the flagship show as usual, but instead of JBL, it will now be Corey Graves making up the trio on the commentary booth as the former NXT star gets the call-up from NXT.
Graves has been one of the highlights of the current NXT product and has excelled in his new roles ever since being forced to retire from the ring and he is now being rewarded by being moved to Raw. This news has been met very positively by fans and is likely to be a major improvement to the overall presentation of the product, it is not known whether he will continue his role in NXT at this time as that was not addressed.
SmackDown
The blue brand will also be changing it's commentary booth with Mauro Ranallo now being joined by David Otunga, and former Raw announcer, JBL. Otunga replaced Jerry Lawler during his recent suspension and has been working on the Raw pre-show for quite some time and JBL will simply be moving over from Raw to SmackDown to keep things fresh and new.
Other changes
As well as changes to the two main shows, both Superstars and Main Event have received alterations to their commentary teams with NXT's, Tom Phillips now hosting both of the shows with SmackDowns, David Otunga joining him.
One notable absence from all of this is, of course, Jerry Lawler, the King has been a main stay on the commentary team for over 10 years but will now no longer be involved in any form. Whether this is a punishment due to his recent suspension or whether it is just a simply WWE changing things and wanting to move Lawler out due to him being there for so long will remain to be seen.
Lawler will still be involved in a regular basis as the WWE confirmed both him and Booker T will be regulars on PPV's pre-shows and panels adding their Hall of Fame experience to the conversations.