Mauro Ranallo Confirms The Truth Behind His SmackDown Live Departure

Before working for NXT as a commentator, Mauro Ranallo was the voice of SmackDown Live. According to Ringside News, there may be a different reason to what other websites have claimed.

Ranallo left the company after working with SmackDown Live. Many outlets, including ourselves at one point, suggested based off what we had heard that Ranallo had possibly left due to JBL.

Ranallo was on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani to promote the Showtime documentary he was the focus of, where he opened up about what truly happened.

Check out what he had to say:

“I was on the road every week. You add MMA and boxing and kickboxing to it. The road travel destroyed me. So, rumors and all this other stuff, what happened, honestly — and Ariel, you know how honest I’ve been in this thing — I had a breakdown in the Chicago O’Hare airport on my way to Pittsburgh to do SmackDown Live. And again, Frank Shamrock — God bless him — Bas Rutten, man. Guys who fought each other are my biggest supporters. But, I had to phone them and I said ‘I’m done. I cannot do this anymore. It’s going to kill me.’ And I thought I was done with the entire company.”

As much as there are two sides to every story, the actual truth from me was my mental health wasn’t going to allow me to maintain that schedule much longer.”

So we now know from Ranallo himself that JBL had nothing to do with the commentator leaving the blue brand.

It seems as if Ranallo is enjoying his job working NXT with WWE, so it is safe to say he is in a good place right now with WWE.

Hear NXT’s lead commentator talk about wrestling and MMA in the podcast below:

The MMA Hour: Episode 435 (w/ Ranallo in studio, Yair, Cyborg, Reem, Shevchenko, more)

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