On October 21st, Samantha Irvin announced her departure from WWE. Irvin was the ring announcer on WWE Raw and had been with the company since 2021.
Irvin would later explain that she didn't like announcing and wanted to be a manager or GM.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Ricochet gave more insight into his fiance's departure.
"No," he said when asked if his departure had anything to do with Irvin's. "She's been talking about that for a while. Even before my stuff was up. I think it happened at WrestleMania (40). For her, announcing was only supposed to be the way into WWE. She, first and foremost, is a fan. She grew up with it. Her dad and brothers watched it. Of course, she's a performer, so her time performing and traveling the world performing got her to a position to where Mark Henry found her and said, 'This girl is amazing, we need her for something,'" he said.
Ricochet said that Irvin went through the whole tryout process, including the in-ring work, before being signed and replacing Greg Hamilton as the ring announcer.
"I think ring announcing was only supposed to be the way in. She wanted to be a character. That's what she's been her whole life. She's been stage performing her whole life. Drama club, stage performing, traveling the world and doing stage performance. That's what what she hoped. Once WrestleMania happened, she was like, 'That's the highest I'm going to get.' She's a performer. It's hard to explain. When you're just a performer announcing, she's getting hate because she said she didn't enjoy announcing. She enjoyed making the WWE Universe feel emotions and using her voice to help promote and move the company forward. This is just my example, it's like having Mariah Carey, but she's just a ring announcer," he said.
He continued, "At the end of the day, she loves and respects the position and loves and respects wrestling, but she wanted to be like Paul Heyman, a manager or something. I feel like she broke tradition, and I think that's why people are upset. How long was Fink [Howard Finkel] doing it? Lilian (Garcia), Justin Roberts. The fact that she only did it for four years and she found out, 'this isn't what I was born to do. This isn't what I love to do.'"
CVV noted that Irvin became very good in a short amount of time.
"She said, 'Honestly, that's my fault. I don't know how to change that part.' I'm using these names, these are my examples, we had Whitney Houston, but she's just a ring announcer," said Ricochet. "She was making little jingles. 'American Nightmare Cody Rhodes.' She was trying to time it with the song and beat. She was trying to tie it all together because she's an artist and musician, that's what she naturally does. She's not just an announcer. It's no disrespect to that, just because it's not what you were born to do and love to do."
Ricochet closed by stating, "At the end of the day, she wants to do other stuff than just ring announcing. She just didn't want to be labeled as a ring announcer. Being able to do the National Anthem and stuff, it helped give her a platform to show other talents, but it's the stage performing. She's been doing it her whole life. Whether that's here or a movie or a TV show, she feels one day that's what she wants to be doing."
Ricochet said it also made sense with their schedules, and that he was going to support her no matter. He also said that if Irvin was excited to go to work every week and be an announcer, they would have been having different conversations.
Ricochet previously commented that Irvin would not be coming to AEW.
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