After WWE announced Monday night on its official website that they had elected to not exercise its option to renew ring announcer Justin Roberts’ contract, a few people who attended RAW in Atlanta, Georgia, claimed on social media to haven witnessed Roberts yelling at Michael Cole during the Dolph Ziggler vs. Randy Orton match and flipping him off. John “Bradshaw” Layfield, who commentated the show alongside Cole, addressed the rumor on Facebook this afternoon.
“I saw on the Internet that Michael Cole and Justin Roberts got into a fight at ringside-during a live Raw. Do you realize how preposterous this is? Michael has ZERO break during the three hours (King and I barely have enough to tweet!), we go straight to WWE App during commercials (which Maggle is so helpful in showing everyone how to download) and back to TV action. This ‘fight’ never happened and couldn’t have happened due to lack of time. I have no idea how these things start-but happy that people care enough to write about what we do and what goes on, sometimes though the ‘news’ is wrong as in this case,” Layfield wrote.
“I wish Justin the best obviously and I know nothing of his departure other than what was announced-but wanted to clear this up as the Internet was buying this for fact for some reason.
“I do want to wish Maggle a happy birthday (yesterday) I do think Maggle is the best play by play guy WWE has ever had, and before all of you hop on the JR or Gorilla bandwagon-I mean no insult to either of those guys, both all time greats. I have worked with Michael since my broadcast start and have never seen anyone better-that is obviously subject to my opinion. The stuff he has to do with all the social media, app, network, etc makes his job the hardest play by play in the world imo and as much as I love getting him on air, I think he is great at it.”
