WWE’s Michael Cole: Pat McAfee Made Work ‘Fun’

Legendary WWE play-by-play broadcaster Michael Cole is ready to get nostalgic as he begins hosting the new A&E show WWE’s Greatest Moments beginning Sunday. Cole, who announces WWE Raw on Netflix, has spent 28 years at WWE, starting as a backstage interviewer and growing into the company’s lead announcer. Since announcing alongside former NFL punter and current ESPN personality Pat McAfee, Cole’s career has experienced a bit of a revitalization.

Cole spoke with Front Office Sports recently about the new show, how McAfee helped him appreciate the fun part of his job, and how the Netflix-WWE deal challenges him as a storyteller. Cole also discusses how important Triple H and Shawn Michaels have become to the creative part of the company.  

FOS: You’re hosting WWE’s Greatest Moments, which debuts on A&E this Sunday. How crazy is it as an announcer where you’re calling these moments in real time, but it lives on forever in WWE lore?

Michael Cole: It’s pretty wild when you really think about it. I’ve been here 28 years, but a lot of the greatest moments that I’m setting up and throwing to in this series have my voice on it. It’s pretty insane. It’s crazy to think I’ve been a part of so many cool, historic moments in history – and now to be able to relive them. 

Honestly, a lot of them I forgot about until we started doing this show together. And then I was like, “Oh my God – I remember this!” It’s been pretty cool, and it’ll be an exciting program in this Netflix era where a lot of new fans have come into our product now. A lot of them probably don’t understand the history of our business – a lot of them weren’t even born when the Attitude Era and stuff like that happened. So I think it’ll be a really good review for new fans of our business to see what they’ve been missing over the years. 

As a WWE fan, it feels to me like in some ways Pat McAfee has revitalized your career. Do you think it’s fair to say that working with him has increased your enthusiasm and longevity in this role?

I think 100%. To back up a second, I’ve been here for 28 years, started as an interviewer and moved into the play-by-play role. Really grew in the business, learned from some of the greats, including Paul Heyman and Jim Ross, how to do what I was doing. 

I think one of the reasons that I’ve been here so long is the ability to…evolve. Over the years, I’ve gone from a straight play-by-play man to a heel. I’ve had matches. I’ve been beaten up. I went back to being a straightforward play-by-play man again.

With the emergence of Pat McAfee, Pat’s allowed me to understand that this business is supposed to be fun. It’s not serious, right? This is supposed to be a fun place to work. Sitting back and watching Pat, the one thing I’ve learned is we’re all fans. Pat has allowed me to really open up. He’s taught me how to entertain.

It’s sort of like two guys just sitting back on a Monday night drinking a beer and talking about wrestling as opposed to two guys that are trying to act as wrestling commentators. We’re trying to understand and decipher it just as you guys do at home. 

You mentioned that you started in the role as backstage interviewer. I’m old enough to remember when Triple H and Shawn Michaels were giving you wedgies as members of DX. How crazy is it that they’re running the creative of the company all these years later?

It’s absolutely incredible. The one thing that I’ve learned about Paul [Levesque] and Shawn over the years is that they’ve always had an unbelievable mind for the business. You’re not successful unless you understand this. They had great minds, they understood character work, they understood how to progress storylines.

But I don’t think in a million years, back in 1997-98 when I was the subject of their wedgies, that I thought they would be the most important part in the creative system in our business in 2025. I never thought it would happen.

And I’m glad it did. I’m really grateful for those guys and the success that they’ve put me in, but never in a million years did I ever think the wedgie-giving DX guys were going to be running this company. 

As you look at your own career, do you have any sense of how much longer you want to do this for?

I wasn’t quite sure until Pat McAfee came along. Pat really opened my eyes to a lot of different things. He made this fun, and we’ve also become really good friends and I think that’s helped our chemistry on the air.

I’m having more of a blast now than I’ve ever had in 28 years here in WWE. I’ve held just about every role. I was a manager, I ran the web site, I did all kinds of different things alongside being a talent. But I’ve never had this much fun in my career. When’s the last time you saw Michael Cole yeet’ing with Jey Uso, or doing goofy stuff like that? 

It’s never happened, so it’s that evolution process I talked about earlier – being able to evolve in my career. I’ve made myself different than I was a couple of years ago. 

With that said, I’ve just signed a new contract with the company. It’s a multi-year deal so I’m going to be here a bit longer, and I’m really looking forward to it because I really want to be a part of this whole Netflix launch as we roll through the next few years and bring this company to the next level – and even higher heights than it is right now.

How much of a difference is it in the job when WWE is red-hot versus several years ago when it was in more of a lull period?

So, it’s an interesting question because I believe I earn my money in the lull periods of the company. That’s where you really need to create excitement from the announce booth. You’re playing in front of a half-[full] house instead of a full house. Maybe your characters are younger and you’re just starting to develop them. They’re not quite at the star level yet. To me, that’s where I earn my money, to help the audience understand these stories and the characters and their backgrounds.

Now, from a standpoint of where we’re at today when the company’s red-hot, it’s so much fun. There’s no better feeling in the world than performing in front of an arena full of 20,000 people… that are biting on every single move, every single promo, every single time the music hits – enjoying us as well as the superstars. That’s the fun part of things.

I think the real fun part of the Netflix era now is that not only do we have a lot more eyes on the product now [globally] than we’ve ever had before, but it also has challenged me as a storyteller to bring my game up because I have to be able to explain to the new audience who our characters are and what they’re all about, but do it in a way where I’m not insulting the fans who have been watching the product every week for many, many years.