Michael Cole On His Real Reaction to ‘Taker’s Streak Ending, Why WrestleMania Is Easy to Call, WWE Star Feedback

WWE announcer Michael Cole recently spoke with USA Today’s For the Win, and below are some interview highlights:

On preparation for WrestleMania:

People look at me weird when I tell them this… WrestleMania Sunday, to me, is one of the easiest shows of the year to call. We’ve covered these stories for months. We know every single angle of what’s going to happen leading up to these matches. There’s so much pomp and circumstance surrounding WrestleMania. There’s these larger-than-life entrances and unbelievable music that’s being played.

We don’t talk wall-to-wall a lot of times during WrestleMania because you want to be able to lay out, you want to be able to allow the audience to enjoy the moment, and to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Seeing this massive set, seeing our superstars walk down the ramp on a 60-yard entranceway. You don’t want to talk for a lot of that, and once the match begins, you just lose yourself in it. A lot of our stuff throughout the year is building towards this moment, and when WrestleMania comes it’s really just ‘go out there and have fun and feel it.’

On his genuine reaction The Undertaker’s streak ending:

Undertaker-Brock Lesnar, Brock broke The Streak. Getting lost in that moment, not knowing it’s going to happen, and then what is your real reaction? You got the real reaction. I thought for sure that Undertaker would kick out after the final F5, and he didn’t kick out. And the reaction was almost of shock and disbelief, and the simple line of saying ‘The Streak is over,’ that wasn’t rehearsed. That wasn’t written. That was spontaneous. That was shock. That was ‘oh my God,’ I can’t believe I just witnessed this.

On if the WWE announce team receives feedback from WWE stars:

Most of the talent don’t say too much. They’re very respectful. They understand that this is what we do for a living 52 weeks a year. You know, I’ve been doing commentary in WWE for 21 years, and most of the talent respect what we do and respect the stories that we’re trying to tell. Especially when it comes to our weekly programming. Monday Night Raw is a three hour show, but in the grand scheme of things, when you look at a match within Raw – the entire match may only be 10 minutes long. You have 10 minutes to be able to tell the stories of these guys, and they understand the time restrictions and they understand that we do what we can to tell their stories and really explain what goes on in the ring.

They’ll come up to us. If there’s something they would like us to talk about during their match, if there’s a certain story they want to tell, they are very proactive about coming to us and making sure that we can get those points across for them.