Samantha Irvin On Fan Reaction To WWE Exit, Dislike For Ring Announcing

The former WWE announcer didn't hold back on why the fans reacted as they did.

Samantha Irvin / WWE.com

Samantha Irvin's exit from WWE last October shocked many fans.

After her move to the WWE main roster from NXT in January 2022, Irvin quickly became a fan favorite as the ring announcer on SmackDown and Monday Night Raw. Some fans even consider her among the greatest to ever do it.

Yet, Irvin left the company after not getting a chance to try anything other than ring announcing — something she has since said that she doesn't enjoy. Fans reacted to that fact in shock, and Irvin described that reaction during a new interview with Busted Open.

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"I wanted to have an opportunity to challenge, if maybe it wasn’t just the ring announcing that people loved," Irvin explained. "I wanted an opportunity to challenge that notion. Give me a chance to see if it’s maybe just Samantha. Put me in some other positions. I really do talk to the girls backstage. We really are in the locker room together and helping each other out. Let me be backstage and let me speak.

"I never spoke, not one time, except for when I said, ‘Thank you Lilian’ when she hugged me. I never said a free word. I wanted an opportunity. I know it’s hard to believe. I’ve had so much time to reflect. When I said, ‘I don’t like announcing. That’s not really what I want to do.’ It’s hard. You have to memorize, it’s a real job. It’s not just the craziness that I’m doing. It’s a real job that I’m honestly not good at because I’m going to cry if Shawn Michaels comes out.

"I honestly didn’t understand why people were so upset until two days. I was like, ‘Let me be quiet and try to understand.’ Then, I read something that Key and Peele don’t talk. I don’t know if this is true, but I read that. I was so upset. It hit me, ‘That’s like me saying I don’t like announcing.’ That’s like Key and Peele not being friends.

"I really do feel bad for anybody that I upset with sharing that. I actually thought we were really close and I thought people knew. I thought for sure, ‘Oh, she definitely, this b*tch thinks she’s Paul Heyman.’ I thought people already knew. I loved my time there. I loved every single moment. For me, Samantha Irvin always had a plan. She always was thinking about how she was going to get out of that chair and get on the other side of things."

(h/t to Fightful for the transcription)

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