Jonathan Coachman No Longer Covering WWE For ESPN, Comments On Bullying In WWE

Jonathan Coachman is no longer covering WWE on ESPN. That is a big blow. We’ve gotten used to seeing the WWE alumni cover WWE on a big time sports network. It gives us a chance to remember the days when he was getting thrown through a wall, having his pants pulled down, and exposing his tacky boxers to the camera.

But it appears he is no longer covering WWE anymore and it may have something to do with the negative reaction to the Mauro Ranallo/JBL bullying situation. Justin Roberts has even corroborated stories that JBL is a bully. To be honest, it’s perfect timing for Roberts because he talks about JBL’s bullying in great detail in his new book. Still Real Radio spoke to him recently and he’s a great guy who doesn’t deserve to be treated like that. On the same token, Mauro is outstanding on play-by-play commentary and should be allowed to apply his craft without dealing with issues backstage.

Coachman said in a tweet that has since been deleted, probably because there was a misspelled word in it: “After serious sole searching have decided that I will no longer be doing Off The Top Rope or WWE related content. Will leave it to the Pros.”

Now lets Tarantino this story and show you how this all came about. It turns out Dave Meltzer fired a few shots at ESPN for not covering the Mauro Ranallo situation and things got bad from there.

After this, Coachman sent out the tweet saying he was dropping his WWE coverage. It is really a sad situation because as stated before it takes away a lot of enjoyment of ESPN’s coverage for the long-time fans. Some people only know Coachman from ESPN at this point, but we’ll always see the backstage interviewer who was down for anything and extremely talented from the get-go.

Dave Meltzer continued to add fuel to the fire for Jonathan Coachman. But instead of taking the bait, Coachman took the high ground and only put over the fact WWE will still be covered on ESPN, he just won’t be doing it.

Jonathan Coachman also took the high ground while addressing a common question about this situation. But if you come from the old mindset of the business, you very well might see any kind of backstage pranks as mild when thinking about the notorious past ribbings from people like Mr. Fuji, Dynamite Kid, and Andre The Giant.

There will always be ribbing in professional wrestling, thus why Coachman might have said “culture” in the way he did. But, as the company and its dealings become more transparent, the culture of ribbing might always remain a part of the backstage experience but it might have to diminish even more.

It’s been said that all you have to do is poke JBL back and he’ll leave you alone, just ask Joey Styles. Some have said he just wants to see if you can take it. After all, JBL comes from that older age of ribbing as a member of Undertaker’s behind-the-scenes “Bone Street Krew.”

We’re not excusing JBL’s actions because sensitivity needs to be taken when your partner has made it public he suffers from mental illness like Mauro Ranallo has done in the past. But Coachman’s veiled statements do imply there might still be that culture of ribbing in backstage WWE life.

Jonathan Coachman obviously realized how the negative reaction to the topic of bullying in WWE might negatively affect his relationship with ESPN as a whole. If it got out of hand that certainly could have been in the cards. So Coachman has just decided he’d rather drop his WWE coverage than risk a snowball disaster.

We’re glad WWE will still be covered on ESPN, but it is unfortunate it had to take this kind of hit by losing Coachman.