Even Michael Cole doesn’t know the finishes of most of the matches he calls.
Speaking to Fox’s OutKick, Cole revealed that the announce team is only told of the finishes beforehand about half the time.
“Fifty-fifty. Sometimes I do because I need to know where to lead the audience in terms of where stories may be going each and every week,” he began.
Cole explained that he didn’t even know the conclusions to many of the historic matches he has called in the past.
“Of course, we’re episodic TV. We need to be able to explain to the audience where we’re going each and every week. Sometimes, I don’t like to know the ending of matches. The Money in the Bank match is a great example. I want the excitement to take over. There have been some great matches over the years where I didn’t know the finish for: The Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar when Brock Lesnar defeated Undertaker and ended his undefeated streak at WrestleMania. I didn’t know that was going to happen. I didn’t know that Seth Rollins was going to cash in the Money in the Bank at WrestleMania. ‘Heist of the Century’ I came up with on the fly,” he said.
He also detailed how difficult Money in the Bank matches are to call.
“Money in the Bank is really unique because ladder matches are a very difficult match to call because the action is nonstop. There’s really no rest period for us to really be able to tell stories or develop our characters. It’s really pedal to the metal, go, go, go, from the time the bell rings. We do a lot of our work during the entrances. We try to explain to people who some of these superstars are. It’s very important because we have a new audience each and every time that we have a premium live event. It’s important that we bring our characters forward,” he said.
