As seen at last night’s WWE NXT TV tapings, Mauro Ranallo made his WWE return, and joined Nigel McGuinness and Percy Watson on the announce team.
According to Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE had been working to bring Ranallo back since around April 20th, after Ranallo left his role as Smackdown Live announcer back on March 14th. As noted, Ranallo was dealing with issues related to depression and bi-polar disorder at the time, and it was coupled with reported issues between him and Smackdown announcer JBL.
On Ranallo’s new job and deal in NXT, Observer host Dave Meltzer had the following to say:
“He’s on a show that most of the people that run WWE production don’t go to. So that’s kind of the key right there. So he’s in a different world, working the Orlando shows and the TakeOvers and not the high pressure shows, so to speak. And it’s a lot of tapings during the middle of the week.”
Meltzer added Ranallo’s new NXT deal is a multi-year deal, and that WWE didn’t want Ranallo on the outside, talking about what happened with JBL and his abrupt departure from Smackdown, plus the company feels Ranallo is really good at his job. Meltzer also noted that Ranallo is away from Layfield, which had to happen.
You can read complete spoiler results from last night’s WWE NXT TV tapings, which includes details on how Ranallo returned, at this link.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
