WWE Raw Commentator Adnan Virk Leaves Company

Adnan Virk and WWE announced on Tuesday that the two sides had agreed to 'mutually part ways.' [...]

By Connor Casey

Adnan Virk and WWE announced on Tuesday that the two sides had agreed to "mutually part ways." Virk had signed a multi-year deal to serve as the play-by-play commentator for Monday Night Raw last month, but only worked seven episodes and one pay-per-view. Virk released a statement on Twitter shortly after the news broke — "Thanks to @WWE for a wonderful opportunity. The weekly travel along with my other jobs was a grind for me and my family. Am grateful to everyone with the company especially @WWEGraves and @ByronSaxton for being such fantastic teammates."

WWE has yet to announce who will be replacing Virk. The recent commentary shake-up saw Corey Graves and Byron Saxton work on Raw while Pat McAfee jumped from NXT to SmackDown to serve as a color commentator alongside Michael Cole.

Virk's early performance in the role was met with a mixed reception from fans watching along at home. He talked about that during an interview on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast in late April.

"One of the great pieces of advice Michael Cole said to me, 'Listen, whatever you do, please don't check social media.' I nodded," Virk said. "He goes, 'I'm serious about this because no one listens, and then they check it.' And either way it's not good. If they say you're great, well, that doesn't matter. If they say you're awful, that also doesn't matter. One man's opinion doesn't matter so don't lose sight of that. What was funny is this. I get home, and I took Michael's advice to heart. And I'm talking my wife. She's goes, 'How'd it go?' I thought I did alright. I made some mistakes. There's some stuff I'd like to get back, but Corey and Byron were great. I think I'll get better. I thought this was good, and I'll only get better by watching it. So I re-watched the whole show. I watched it start to finish. I haven't yet for the second one, but I will just. I go, okay, that was better than I thought. It was worse than I thought, and I think whenever you make a mistake — you'd like to make zero mistakes.

"You want to bat 1,000, but if you make a mistake, don't make the same mistake twice, just learn from it," he added. "My wife starts saying, 'Oh, this person tweeted this. No, I don't want to know this. Why would you tell me this? I called my parents Jimmy. 'How'd it go?' Same thing, some good, some bad. 'Yeah, your dad was checking Twitter,' and I go, for god's sakes. It's amazing to me that when people are looking for feedback, social media, as you and I both know, it's generally a place where people are spewing vitriol."

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