When Samantha Irvin formally announced her exit from WWWE, successfully petitioning for her exit from the promotion to pursue outside interests, it turned heads around the professional wrestling world, from fans in the comments to WWE Champion Cody Rhodes.
A long-time ring announcer on RAW who captured the hearts and imaginations of fans with her passionate delivery, Irvin’s presence has already been missed by fans of the Monday Night show. Still, as the “American Nightmare” pointed out in an appearance on The Schmo, Rhodes noted that he’s happy to have learned that the exit was amicable. Why? Because he, too, is a fan of Irvin as both an announcer and a talent and looks forward to seeing what she does next.
“What a wonderful…I feel like time will tell. In our business, five or ten years after somebody is gone, you hear ‘how wonderful. How amazing.’ She is top five, maybe top three. Samantha was just killing it,” Rhodes explained via Fightful. “I know with her and WWE, they left on good terms. That’s amazing because the door is open in case she ever wants to come back. I’ve never watched WrestleMania 40 back, but I can hear it still in terms of her very emotional announcement of (me) winning the WWE Championship. That’s going to forever be linked to me. Hats off to Samantha. That’s one of my homies, and I hope to see her down the road. Whatever she does, if you heard her voice, she’s going to kill it.”
What does the future hold for Irvin? Only time will tell, but as Rhodes said, his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship will forever have her voice announcing the match, and that will live on forever.
Cody Rhodes addresses his rumored WrestleMania 41 match
Elsewhere on his pre-Crown Jewel media tour, this time with Vegas Revealed, Rhodes addressed the rumor that he will defend his WWE Championship against Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Roman Reigns.
Related NewsArticle continues below
“There are so many rumors circulating. It eats up the social feed, all the different rumors of what the matches might be. The hardest thing to do in WWE, sports entertainment, and pro wrestling, in general, is not to win [the WWE Title]; the hardest thing to do is main event WrestleMania,” Rhodes said via Fightful.
“I don’t care what the rumor is, as long as the rumor is I’m in the main event of WrestleMania. I’m good with it. What I can say for those who keep an eye on the rumor, I bet you what they get at WrestleMania 41 is unexpected even to them. Even the people who follow this, the diehards who feel like they have their finger on the pulse, this one is going to be tough. This one is going to be unexpected, is the best way to put it, but in the best of ways.”
Now on paper, it makes sense that a Las Vegas-based show would have a vested interest in who Rhodes will wrestle at the Allegiant Stadium in April. A match featuring Rhodes, Reigns, and The Rock is about as big a battle as WWE could book, and as a result, such an announcement would draw plenty of eyes, clicks, and dollars to the area. Still, the idea of Rhodes knowing what will happen at WrestleMania 41 now, in October, is silly, as WWE hasn’t even moved to Netflix, let alone booked one of the matches via the Royal Rumble.