Renee Young Says Being On RAW Commentary Was ‘A Stressful Year’

Renee Young was the first woman in WWE history to be a full-time announcer on television. This was a big deal for her, but it’s not a job she ever wanted.

SI Media podcast recently spoke to the WWE Backstage host. She admitted that she never felt comfortable on commentary. In fact, when they first approached her with the idea she wondered why they came to this decision.

“I never felt comfortable doing that job. It was a very stressful year, to be completely honest. I’m here in WWE and the first female to come into [the backstage] role. I needed something else to chew on. Michael Cole and Triple H pulled me aside and said, ‘You’re going to do commentary on Raw.’ I was like, ‘What? Why? Who approved this?’ But, like with anything, I was gonna try to figure it out.”

“To go out there and call three hours of wrestling, coming from my role backstage, I like to have more of a bubbly personality and that was what fans have been drawn to. Or my sarcastic side. It’s hard to do that on commentary, especially when you’ve got [Corey Graves], who is great at that. But also stepping in there as a third person.”

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“I’m used to being the A person. I’m trying to jump in there and everything has kinda already been said. It was odd. I tried to come at it from a fan standpoint, but that doesn’t always work. I felt misdirection about what my purpose was when I was out there.”

“It was a cool feather to put in my cap. I’m not one to back away from something. I wanted it to be a thing to work and I wanted to excel at that. Not being good at something is a tough pill to swallow for me. It just wasn’t really working.”

Renee Young is now leading the conversation as a host of WWE Backstage. This is obviously a big deal for her and she will be more in her element. WWE Backstage’s official weekly debut will take place this Tuesday, November 5th at 10:00 PM EST on FS1.

Thanks to Fightful for the quote