Rich Brennan On Being Replaced By Mauro Ranallo, JBL Ribbing Byron Saxton, WWE Release, Michael Cole

The RCWR Show recently interviewed former WWE announcer Rich Bocchini, a.k.a. Rich Brennan, who talked about his ice hockey announcing career, working for Booker T’s ROW promotion, the problems NXT talent face after moving to the main roster and much more. You can download and listen to the full interview by clicking here (interview starts at the 24 minute mark), they sent us these highlights:

You had began your world into wrestling through Booker T’s promotion. So is that how as far as the opportunity to get into the WWE had came about or did your journey to the WWE come another way?

“No, no in a lot of ways that was you know that was my entry into the company or my connection with the company. You know when I started doing Booker’s show, I never you know and I’ve said this before, I never had any intention whatsoever of going after pro wrestling as a career. You know I always thought that I would be calling, you know as I said calling hockey games. You know I remember going to the Dell Center in Montreal, Madison Square Garden…You know some of these buildings that were just kind of like these iconic buildings. You know Boston Gardens and you know going there to call stuff for WWE and it was just kind of interesting because you know again I always thought that if I got there to call on something I’d be calling hockey games.”

Were you always a fan of wrestling prior to joining Booker T and the WWE or was the passion always there for wrestling?

“Yeah absolutely. I grew up in Providence so you know at the time that was you know WWE or WWF at the time. They were still doing monthly shows at that point in the 80s. So you know I would go there. I’d go to the civic center in Providence, you know? I’d beg my dad or my grandfather to take me pretty much every month. So I grew up in the whole Hulkamania era. Definitely got into it then but I also really got into the NWA and really loved the mid-Atlantic stuff, the Jim Crockett promotion stuff…You know Road Warriors, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, all that stuff. I really gravitated to the NWA and Crockett promotions a bit more so I was definitely a fan. Even getting into high school and college, as I got into college I was so focused on hockey and you know just still liked it in a way. You know I was never home on Monday nights. I still kept up with wrestling but certainly wasn’t in tuned to it probably the past seven or eight years, but yeah I was definitely always a fan. You know kind of had it always in the back of my head. Like you know how cool would it be to do wresting? You know to do wrestling play-by-plays. But that’s one of those things you say to yourself, it would be really cool but that will never happen.

“It’s kind of one of those things like seeing the tooth fairy. You don’t ever believe that you’ll have an opportunity to do it and quite honestly when I was doing Booker’s show that was you know again my intention was never to get to WWE. You know it was something that I enjoyed doing. You know quite honestly if I’d never made it to WWE, I’d probably still be doing his show because it was fun. I had fun doing it. I enjoyed it. I mentioned when I was working for CS in Houston, that was you know frankly a disaster. So I was looking to get out of there and I had talked to a couple of people in the sports industry. I had sent my play-by-play stuff around and you know somebody that I really respected, Mark Vandermeer, he’s the play-by-play voice of the Houston Texans. He heard my stuff and you know he was kind of like “You should really be calling games somewhere”. I said, “You know yeah but I’m not really sure where to go. I’ve done the minor league hockey thing. You know I’m not sure what to do”. And I come home after talking to him and mentioned it to my wife and she was the one that kind of nudged me and said, “Well talk to Booker”. I mean, “What are you talking about talk to Booker?” She’s like, “Well talk to him and see if there might be an opportunity at WWE”. So you know I kind of reluctantly brought it up to him one day and he looked at me and said, “I think you’re ready right now. Put something together”. So off to the races, off we went. Put some stuff together and next thing I knew I was moving to Florida.

I remember when I started watching NXT and I came in right when Michael Cole was starting to just like pop up here and there before the play-by-play position went to you on a fulltime basis, so I might’ve missed just a little bit in between. But I definitely remember, and correct me if I’m wrong at some point leading up to you being the full time play-by-play for NXT, I saw you doing a lot of backstage interviews, is that correct?

“Yeah when I first got to NXT, well to be honest you know I moved to Florida and literally within four days of getting here we had a TV taping. Firstly what we would do is we would do two shows, so four at a time. I would do two and then the other guy would do two. Cole actually never called NXT stuff. He called the old NXT, like the original kind of game show deal that they did… So it was him and Josh Matthews and they would just sit there and it was actually funny because they would make fun of it the whole time. But when they booted NXT here in Florida because you know originally before NXT it was Florida Championship Wrestling, which was a development territory. So when they phased that out, they built a performance center and they rebooted developmental, they gave it to NXT. So there were a couple of play-by-play guys here before me. Tony Dawson was here, I know Jim Ross actually did some NXT at the beginning and then you know and Tom Phillips who is doing it now. So when I got here, I got the job December 2014 or January 2014. I moved here in March and like I said literally like just got my apartment and wasn’t even unpacked and it was here you go! You’re doing this show. So that was pretty quick but I definitely did do some behind the scenes backstage stuff, Internet… You know WWE.com exclusive stuff as well. They kind of had me doing a little bit of everything you know before I took over the fulltime spot there for a while. “

Now who was in your ears, in your headphones with regards to commentating the matches and helping you out along the way, producing you and all that?

“That was Cole. That was Michael Cole.”

I know when I was watching you, and you can feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but like when I first began watching you, you seemed a little bit I won’t say nervous–but you didn’t see quite comfortable yet and as I continued to watch you on NXT it was like–Okay! Rich is now getting even more comfortable in this position and it just got to a point where it was refreshing to see your commentating each week. That eventually when you got promoted to be the color commentator for Smackdown I was definitely happy for you. Did you see the Smackdown move happening or was that another situation where it just like came as a surprise.

“It was a surprise in a lot of ways. You know I had been, at that point, that was the end of August of last year, I had to do Superstars and Main Event for you know I don’t know six months, seven months, or whatever it was. So I would just be on the road, I was just being you know up with the main roster to a certain extent but you know to get the lead chair for a while there on Smackdown definitely it was challenging but a surprise for sure. I think I did …

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