Despite what you may have read elsewhere, Mauro Ranallo did not return to commentary for Showtime Championship Boxing this week.
Videos by ComicBook.com
A story began circulating online that Ranallo was in the booth for a Showtime boxing broadcast on Thursday. Many sites ran with this, noting that Ranallo had “returned to commentary” following his recent absence from WWE’s NXT.
However, there was no Showtime Championship Boxing event this week. As noted by Fightful’s Carlos Toro, the next Showtime Championship Boxing events are on December 7th and December 28th. It appears that if Showtime viewers saw a fight on with Ranallo on commentary, it was a re-run. Jeremy Lambert noted that it was likely a February fight between Mario Barrios and Richard Zamora.
More specifically, Showtime has “Showtime Championship Boxing” (the series that Mauro calls boxing for as opposed to the ShoBox events where he’s not a part of) cards on:
— Carlos Toro (@CarlosToro360) November 29, 2019
• December 7: Jermall Charlo vs. Dennis Hogan
• December 28: Gervonta Davis vs. Yuriorkis Gamboa https://t.co/KH45rMiuSI
As best I can tell, Showtime aired a fight from February (Mario Barrios vs Richard Zamora) where Mauro did commentary and people decided to run with that.
— Jeremy Lambert (@jeremylambert88) November 29, 2019
Ranallo last was part of WWE’s commentary team during the NXT TakeOver War Games event in Chicago last Saturday night. He was scheduled for Survivor Series but did not appear on the PPV.
Ranallo’s return to NXT is still not clear. Tom Phillips subbed for him this past Wednesday night during NXT on the USA Network and it was mentioned that Ranallo would be back in the booth next week, but that remains to be seen.
Ranallo’s absence seemingly stems from the criticism he received from WWE’s Corey Graves during NXT TakeOver, criticisms which were sent out in the public sphere via Graves’ Twitter account. Though Graves initially dug-in on his criticisms when confronted by critics, he did eventually apologize for his actions during this week’s edition of his WWE produced podcast, After The Bell.
Ranallo has had a very public battle with bipolar disorder and depression. That condition and his coping with it were even the subject of a widely acclaimed documentary produced by Showtime in 2018 titled Bipolar Rock ‘N’ Roller.
