WWE: Mace on WWE Commentary Stint, Hulu Contract Update, Hollyhood Haley J Tryout Offer Pulled

Sep 26, 2023

Mace Comments on His Commentary Stint for WWE’s RAW Brand

As noted before, Mace was among the batch of talent released by WWE this past Thursday.

In a recent stream session on Twitch, Mace gave his thoughts about his brief stint in commentary for WWE’s RAW and 205 Live brands in 2019.

Mace – “I liked commentary a lot. I didn’t expect to do commentary. I had been in NXT for a while. At the time, we weren’t doing much. So much of WWE is a timing thing because obviously if I came in now or if I came in last year when NXT was NXT 2.0 and they were all focusing on new athletes from another sport, that was the focus. That was not the focus for the entire time that I was in NXT. The focus was on independent guys, experienced guys. They were there to put on a more independent-focused show. So, at the time, I wasn’t doing anything, I hadn’t been doing anything — actually, that’s not true. Me and Swerve (Strickland) were tagging and we were getting momentum. But, I got the call from Vic (Joseph)… He’s like, ‘You can’t tell anybody this.’ It was very secretive at first. He was like, ‘What do you think about doing commentary?’ I was like, ‘Yeah. I’ve got a bunch of kids. I gotta work.’ So it’s not what I wanted to do, but who’s asking? He’s like, ‘Okay. Well, Michael Cole wants you to fly into Raw and start recording for 205 Live and Main Event.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ I still don’t know why and so I go in and I do it and it’s very difficult.
It’s not just talking over a match. There’s roles, you don’t wanna step on each other. There’s a whole thing about you got to get in advertisements, you gotta count down things, you have somebody counting down in your ear that we’re going to commercial break and you need to line these things up so perfectly and this isn’t what I trained for in any capacity. All I was doing was I was in the recording booth with my friend Jonny Loquasto… Me and Manny, we would just help him because he had nobody to practice with.”
Mansoor – “Yeah, we practiced with him as a three-man booth. It was a lot of fun.”
Mace – “It was so much fun. I’d love to find those tapes because those were very funny. Turns out, Paul Heyman got a hold of those tapes. Paul Heyman was taking over as Head of Creative for Raw at the time. He said I want a completely new skin on everything. So, when I got that call for commentary, the machinations were in order because at some point, Vic was like, ‘You’re going to be on the lead commentary team for Monday Night Raw in a month.’ So I had to learn how to do commentary in like a month. All of the minutia, all of that stuff.
In my time on commentary, we had the infamous (match) which actually went a little bit viral on Botchamania recently, of the red Hell in a Cell match between Bray (Wyatt) and Seth (Rollins) and that was the last night before Brock killed me. They told me, ‘Oh yeah, we just wanna show that Brock means business. So we’re gonna have him put you through the table and then you’re gonna look really cool’ and I did. I looked really cool because I mogged him, I mogged Brock Lesnar. That actually might have been the problem because they realized that I mogged Brock Lesnar and they’re like, why is this big ass guy on commentary? Because half of my commentary experience, because they are very particular about their shots and we already had a weirdly tall commentary team because Vic is a giant skeleton. Vic is like a 6’4 Slender Man. So to have me at 6’7 and then have King (Jerry Lawler), they had an issue because… I enjoyed it, it was a new skill. It’s something that I can still do so I’m thankful for the opportunity and they didn’t fire me right after. They fired me several years later so …
The thing is when I started doing commentary, I had to come to terms with the fact that I thought that was gonna be the rest of my career. After my first night on Raw, Cole pulled me and Vic aside and said, ‘You guys are gonna have this job for the next 20 years.’ He said it straight up and I was like, oh! Okay. This is what I’m gonna do now. I had moved on from having to give up wrestling before. So I was like, okay, I guess this is what I’m doing now. Obviously, that didn’t work.”

Mace also gave his thoughts about the conversation he had with Brock Lesnar backstage prior to Lesnar’s planned F-5 spot to him through the announcer’s table on the November 4, 2019 WWE RAW show.

“(Brock) Lesnar was very cool. Funny thing about Lesnar was I don’t know if he didn’t know that I worked at all. I assume he didn’t know. I assume he doesn’t know anything outside of his farm. He walked up to me and says, ‘So we got a little business tonight.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, what do you wanna do?’ And he was like, ‘Well, I got a move called the F-5. It’s I get you in a fireman’s carry and I basically toss you over my head and I put you on your belly for a belly bump’ and I was like, ‘Yeah Brock, I’m familiar with the very popular, very famous finishing maneuver, the F-5. How do you want me to take it?’ And the funny thing on top of all that is if you watch that back, I’m getting ready to go up but Brock, maybe realizing that I’m huge, felt the need to protect me by giving me a silly little club to the back (he laughed). When I got up, he grabbed me and gives me a little club to the back and then picks me up and then gives me the F-5. Very kind of him to protect me.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

WWE’s Contract with Hulu Status Update

As noted before, NBC’s Hulu recently announced that their current contract with WWE for their content on the streaming service was set to expire this week.

PWInsider’s Paul Jordan reported that WWE and Hulu are currently believed to have recently signed a new short-term extension.

Jordan reported that Hulu recently updated the expiration date for WWE content on their service that now states that this content expires from the service in the next seven to fourteen days.

WWE Reportedly Pulled Tryout Offer for Hollyhood Halley J

As noted before, WWE held a new set of tryouts last week at their Performance Center in Orlando, Florida.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that one talent who had been originally scheduled to attend WWE’s tryouts last week had her tryout offer pulled by the company instead.

It was reported that Ohio Valley Wrestling talent Hollyhood Halley J was this person and the reason was due to issues related to her medial paperwork. Despite her offer being pulled, those spoken to reportedly stated that WWE officials are still hopeful they can potentially sign her to a contract in the future.