Samantha Irvin’s voice is tied to a number of big WWE moments that have taken place over the last few years. The former WWE star has received a lot of praise for her ring announcing abilities, which is why fans were so shocked when she announced her departure from the company in October of 2024.
In recent months Samantha Irvin has been pretty open about the fact that she didn’t want to be a ring announcer. Unfortunately she’s been on the receiving end of some backlash after making that information public. Recently Samantha Irvin discussed the reaction on Busted Open Radio, and she talked about why the ring announcing job simply wasn’t for her.
“You know… (Irvin paused when she was asked to come back to ring announcing). No, no, really. It’s so crazy because you can’t say anything. I can’t say anything anymore. I can’t just say anything. Everything is a big thing now, so that’s lame. I don’t really say much about it but, I just wanted to have an opportunity to challenge if maybe it wasn’t just the ring announcing people loved. I just wanted the opportunity to challenge that notion. Give me a chance to see if maybe it’s just Samantha. Put me in some other positions.”
“I really do talk to the girls backstage. We really are in the locker room together. We really are helping each other out and let me be in a backstage, let me speak, you know? I never spoke, not one time. Except for when I said, ‘Thank you Lilian’ when she hugged me in the ring. But I’ve never said a free word. I wanted an opportunity and I know it’s hard to believe and like I said, I had so much time to reflect. So when I said, ‘I don’t like announcing. That’s not really what I want to do.’ It’s hard. It’s like, you gotta memorize. It’s a real job, people. It’s not just the craziness that I’m doing. It’s a real job that I’m honestly not good at because I’m gonna cry if Shawn Michaels comes out so, I’m not good at this… I know (that’s what made me good at it) and I honestly didn’t understand why people were so upset until like two days ago. Really.”
“Because I was like, let me just be quiet and try to understand and then, I read something that Key and Peele, they don’t talk. They don’t talk anymore. I don’t know if this is true but I read that, and I was so upset and it just hit me. I said, ‘That’s like me saying I don’t like announcing.’ That’s like Key and Peele not being friends and I really do feel bad for anybody that I upset with sharing that. I actually thought we were all, like, really close. I thought people knew. I thought for sure they were like, ‘Oh, she definitely… this b***h thinks she’s Paul Heyman.’ I thought people already knew. But yes, I really loved my time there. I loved every single moment and for me, Samantha Irvin always had a plan, she always was thinking about how she was gonna get out of that chair and get on the other side of things.”
Even though Samantha Irvin is done with ring announcing she doesn’t appear to be done with wrestling. Recently Irvin teased that she will be returning to wrestling at some point, and you can get more on that here.
H/T POST Wrestling