Michael Cole Shares His Thoughts On Working With Corey Graves & Taz, And Speaks On How He Prepares To Call A WrestleMania

The long-time WWE commentator opens up about his thought process before stepping out to the commentary booth.

Michael Cole has been with the WWE for nearly 21 years and has been a commentator for the company since late 1999 and has been a voice for WWE programming since then. You can now hear Cole alongside Corey Graves and Jonathan Coachman calling the action on Monday Night RAW. As WrestleMania nears closer and Cole heads into his 16th WrestleMania behind the desk, he spoke on how he prepares for the "Biggest Spectacle In Sports Entertainment" while speaking with USA Today's "For The Win" section.

"People look at me weird when I tell them this… WrestleMania Sunday, to me, is one of the easiest shows of the year to call. We’ve covered these stories for months. We know every single angle of what’s going to happen leading up to these matches. There’s so much pomp and circumstance surrounding WrestleMania. There’s these larger-than-life entrances and unbelievable music that’s being played. We don’t talk wall-to-wall a lot of times during WrestleMania because you want to be able to lay out, you want to be able to allow the audience to enjoy the moment and to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience." Cole shared. "Seeing this massive set, seeing our superstars walk down the ramp on a 60-yard entranceway; you don’t want to talk for a lot of that, and once the match begins, you just lose yourself in it. A lot of our stuff throughout the year is building towards this moment and when WrestleMania comes it’s really just [to] go out there and have fun and feel it. Now from a research standpoint, yeah sure I’ll go to our website, I’ll go to websites all over the place and do research on superstars’ WrestleMania records and what some of the highlights were in their WrestleMania careers, so on and so forth. But we try not to get bogged down in a lot of that at WrestleMania. It really is a celebration."

Michael Cole's broadcast partner former NXT Tag Team Champion Corey Graves has become one of the more wittier characters behind the commentary desk in either RAW, SmackDown Live, or NXT's commentary teams. Cole has high praises for Graves as he describes him as a "natural" behind the mic.

"Oh, I mean, Corey’s a natural." He stated. "There’s certain people you know are going to make it as commentators when they haven’t had the experience before. The first guy that comes to mind is Taz. I knew years ago when I first started working with Taz on Sunday Night Heat and eventually we became a team on SmackDown, you just knew because of his personality and his edge and who he was, his work ethic, you knew his was going to be a great commentator, and the same thing with Corey. I knew after just working with him a couple of times down at the Performance Center in the booth when we were looking at making a transition for him from in-ring to commentary. I knew after two or three times that Corey had it. He’s quick-witted, he’s very fast on his feet, he has in-ring experience, he has been a champion, so there is some legitimacy to that. He’s sarcastic, he’s funny, he’s hip, he’s got a different look. Corey really was a home run, and I knew he was going to be."

Michael Cole would also open up about if he plans on saying certain phrases during big moments or do they just come to him naturally. To get inside the mind of a veteran WWE commentator, click here.