From Raw to NXT.
The NXT brand is two weeks into their tenure on The CW Network and the latest show took place on 10/8 from Chesterfield, Missouri. On the call for the action was the duo of Vic Joseph and two-time WWE Hall of Famer Booker T.
They’ve been a pair since the fall of 2022. Joseph went over that and more when he guest appeared on Cheap Heat with Peter Rosenberg. He looked back at his stint as the lead commentator for Monday Night Raw when he shared the booth with Mason Madden and Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler.
He was in that position for several months before being replaced. Joseph looks at it as a failure, but feels he’s found his home at NXT.
And then I got the call to do Monday Night Raw and I will say because a lot of people talk about my time on Raw and it was short. If I didn’t have that experience and Rose, you’ll know this more than a lot of people listening, if I didn’t have that failure, I would not have known how to succeed and so with that, coming back in 2020 with NXT, I’ve been in the seat ever since. I have felt that every year, I’ve gotten better and I do feel that it’s my home. It’s, for a lack of a better phrase, my show. You listen to SmackDown, you think Michael Cole, you think Joe Tessitore (on Raw). I don’t think I’ve ever been, no matter what show I did, thought of in that way. Thought of, oh! That’s Vic’s show. Oh, Michael Cole’s on, Tess is on or Corey Graves is on and I feel that now.
He went on to further elaborate on why he feels the Raw stint was a failure. Joseph said if that was not the case, he would still be in that spot. He does not think he lived up to the expectations of certain individuals.
At the time, Paul Heyman was the executive director of Raw and he appointed Joseph to the commentary desk. Joseph shared that whenever he sees Heyman, Heyman assures him that he did not fail.
I look at it (Raw commentary stint) as a failure because if it wasn’t a failure, I’d still be doing the show. That’s how I look at it and so, I didn’t do my job and because I didn’t do my job up to the ability of certain individuals, they had to make a decision. I thank Paul Heyman for giving me that opportunity. I just saw Paul recently at Raw and we always go back-and-forth and I always pick his brain but he always tells me, ‘You didn’t fail.’ Every time I see him, he goes, ‘Hey, just remember, you didn’t fail. It just was a bad situation.’ I look at it a little bit differently because I’m always a little bit harder on myself. But man, I can tell you if you go back and listen to 2019 Vic Joseph and you listen to 2024 Vic Joseph, it is night and frickin’ day, because when I was doing Raw, I couldn’t handle doing a graphic and a transition and getting back into the calling the match and I was working with Jerry Lawler, at the time, who’s seen it all and it was moving so fast. You were talking about football. (Jayden) Daniels is the quarterback for the (Washington) Commanders. It’s slowed down already for him. But man, when I got in there, I was like that number one pick and everything was moving so fast and I just wasn’t doing fundamentals. I was out of my comfort zone and to get taken from that show and to do what I’m doing now, I do all the graphics, I do all the transitions, I do all the kicks, I do all the sends and all that and that is by design and that (is) what I’ve taken the most from it is people listening go, ‘Man, that’s smooth. You’ve gotten so much better.’ I had to or I wouldn’t be here and then that’s just the honest to God’s truth about it and so I took a lot from that Raw run that-that had to happen for me to get to where I am now. It had to happen.
Shifting over to the present, Joseph praised the partnership between himself and Booker T. He called the Hall of Famer the perfect broadcast colleague for him right now and said Booker is the best broadcast partner he’s ever worked with. He also opened up about the freedom he has with Booker.
When Booker and Joseph were first paired together, Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes reached out to Joseph and told him that he has to let Booker be himself.
Let me throw it to you this way, I had one of the music producers that always brings in a Sexyy Red or a HARDY or a Jelly Roll, he came up to me and he said, ‘Hey man, I gotta tell you, you make our job so much easier because you when you told Book when Sexyy Red came out in June that if he stood up, he was gonna tip over the table, we lost it,’ and I did live on-air and that’s the other part is I have so much freedom with Book. Wade Barrett got my confidence back, right? Wade and Beth (Phoenix) both did. I got my master’s degree. Working with book, I’m getting my doctorate, and he is the perfect broadcast colleague for me to work with right now because at the end of the day, going back to what he (podcast co-host) said about Raw, falls on me and so, I have him ready to go and I trust whatever he’s gonna say, I just have to be able to pick it up and run with it and that’s the beauty of it because when he says something, I don’t know what he’s gonna say. I never know anything Booker T is going to say, hand to God, any week we’re on Tuesdays and what you’re hearing from me is my actual genuine reaction and it is. It’s the best broadcast partner I’ve ever worked with in any sport, in anything now. I can’t say enough good things about Booker, and you (Peter Rosenberg) worked with him on the Countdown shows. You don’t know what he’s gonna say, or how he’s gonna act and that’s part of the fun. Cody Rhodes told me when the switch happened. I was in Italy actually, when all this switching went on and two years ago, I was on my honeymoon and I got a text from Shawn Michaels and it said, ‘Can you work with Booker?’ ‘Yeah, sure. Cool. I’ll see you when I get back’ and it has been off and running ever since with him. I mean, it is so fun to work with him and Cody Rhodes told me, ‘You have to let Book be Book. Do not have him play wrassler/broadcast analyst 101. Just let Booker be Booker.’
For the 10/15 NXT on CW, the brand will be back at the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida after being on the road for the last two shows.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Cheap Heat with Peter Rosenberg with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
